RIF fellows reflect new business environment

FASHION FORWARD: Soren L. Ryherd received one of the Rhode Island Foundation's innovation fellowships in 2012. Above Ryherd, CEO of Retail Project RI, works with Lindsay Stickel, left, brand-develpoment manager, and Project Manager Paige Snyder. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
FASHION FORWARD: Soren L. Ryherd received one of the Rhode Island Foundation's innovation fellowships in 2012. Above Ryherd, CEO of Retail Project RI, works with Lindsay Stickel, left, brand-develpoment manager, and Project Manager Paige Snyder. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

An online site selling high-fashion clothing for dogs; making digital textile prints; helping entrepreneurs launch startups: These are some of the technology-dependent businesses that have begun as a result of the Rhode Island Foundation’s innovation fellowship program.
Thanks to the generosity of philanthropists Letitia and John Carter, the foundation has been able to award $300,000 to two individuals, or fellows, each year since 2012. The idea behind the program is to “implement innovative ideas that have the potential to dramatically improve any area of life in Rhode Island,” according to the Rhode Island Foundation’s website.
And though it’s not a requirement, many of the ideas that have been funded are technology-oriented, something that reflects the changing business environment.
“If I were to sum it up, as cliché as it sounds, we turn on technology today sometimes before we turn on the lights. Technology, especially information technology, has become a woven part of every initiative, organization, company and nonprofit. It’s critical to advancing how we work in the 21st century here,” Kathie Shields, executive director of Tech Collective, the state’s information technology and bioscience industry association, said recently.
Shields said Tech Collective is aware of the fellows, and supports their initiatives.
“I think it’s great that the Rhode Island Foundation is really stepping up to the plate to make investments strategically,” Shields said.
Take Soren L. Ryherd, who received one of the first fellowships in 2012. About six months after he received his grant, he launched felixchien.com, a high-fashion dog apparel and accessory brand. “We started selling and seeing what we could learn about the audience. We’re now wrapping up our second full year. Revenue is way up. We’re not going to disclose revenue, but we are definitely way up,” said Ryherd, 52, of Providence.
Not bad for an idea that started off initially as “a bit of a joke,” he said. After researching it, he found that it could be a “really, big, interesting market for us.” Felixchien.com is part of Ryherd’s overall project: The Retail Project. The goal, he said, is to be a “brand factory” by launching brands and building them online. In addition to Felix Chien, last year he unveiled urbilis.com, a website specializing in “modern and clever gardening accessories for the urban dweller,” such as glowing balcony planters and modern patio furniture, and slumbersome.com, a website offering nonpharmaceutical sleep aids, including wicking pajamas and cooling or heating mattress pads.
“Main Street businesses here tend to become empty more often because we have a smaller population to support them. In bad economic times you find a lot of empty storefronts around the state. Rather than trying to change the economics of how retail works, which other people have tried with limited success, we wanted to kind of turn the whole process around,” Ryherd said.
So he started the project online, focusing on a national market first, instead of a local one.
Eventually, Ryherd’s plan is to open a brick-and-mortar store in Rhode Island, then possibly open more stores elsewhere in the country.
“We want to be out there and part of the neighborhood infrastructure in Rhode Island,” Ryherd said.
He has two full-time employees and three interns, and splits his time between The Retail Project RI and his other job as co-founder of Working Planet, a digital-marketing agency. He said the project is “about testing and learning and getting out and trying things.”
“Every brand has its own audience and fan base,” Ryherd said.
Ryherd said he is grateful to the foundation. Without it, he said he does not think he would have been able to start The Retail Project.
“Short of really bootstrapping it ourselves, we really wouldn’t have gotten it off the ground. It was really an idea we had really been kicking around for a while, and the actual fellowship process made it happen,” Ryherd said.
Amy L. Bernhardt, 42, of Providence, was named a fellow this year for her project, Colorfast. Her proposal is to start a digital inkjet textile design and manufacturing pilot facility in Rhode Island. She already has five freelance designers working for her, and hopes to have six to eight full-time employees in three years. She makes designs for high-end apparel and home goods. Bernhardt is looking for a space, something newly renovated or newly built, within Providence or the surrounding area where she can have a “clean-technology” manufacturing facility. She is getting ready to place orders for equipment soon, and hopes to have the facility up and running early next year.
Bernhardt has been busy making connections in the short time she’s been an innovation fellow. One of her clients has her own apparel label and is helping her get meetings in New York City. She explained that digital textile printing is “greener than traditional screen printing” and makes “big leaps in terms of technology.” Inks do not need any finishing, and not as much water is used, she said.
She received her undergraduate degree at the Rhode Island School of Design in printmaking, and has always been interested in fashion. Taking a class in “Infinite Surface Design” at RISD two years ago introduced her to digital printing, changing her focus for design creation.
She came up with the name for the business while she was putting together her proposal.
“I never would have been able to start my own project and have so much support. The foundation, being such a strong supporter of the arts, makes it so much easier to network, meet people and get the support you need,” Bernhardt said.
Shields said that Tech Collective sees Colorfast merging “the intersections of advanced manufacturing, design and technology, each of which in their own right have the potential to become significant drivers of the Rhode Island economy.”
Allan Tear, who was one of the first innovation fellows, started the “Rally Rhode Island” project to help entrepreneurs launch startups in art and design, food and beverage, and advanced manufacturing. Tear, co-founder of Betaspring, an accelerator program for technology and design entrepreneurs, said food is the area that has “come most along,” noting it wasn’t an area of economic activity beyond restaurants.
“Rally created an identity around food and brought people together around the creation of new food companies versus just restaurants,” he said.
Tear said without funding from the Rhode Island Foundation, he wouldn’t have been able to do the project.
“I think the efforts of Rally Rhode Island will be ongoing. I hope Rally is a platform for experiments and amplifying what works and doesn’t work for a community. The food community is now on a roll,” Tear said. “I don’t think we’ve done an inventory but empirically there are more food startups than there were two years ago. We’re one supporter and one moving part.”
And technology, particularly the Internet and social media, has been crucial to Rally Rhode Island’s success.
“Technology is what’s enabling this new startup area to go beyond Rhode Island,” he said, adding that without technology, there wouldn’t be a way to bring the design and food startups to a national or global scale. Technology, he said, gives them an opportunity “to fight above our weight class.” Rally Rhode Island features several startups on its website, including Premama, which sells prenatal vitamins online.
The other fellows are: 2014, David Dadekian, for his Eat Drink Rhode Island Central Market, which will include a public market, a commercial food production and processing facility; 2013, Dr. Lynn Taylor, with a proposal to eradicate Hepatitis C in Rhode Island; and 2013, Adrienne Gagnon, who is proposing to teach design skills through school curriculum and hands-on experience.
Jessica L. David, Rhode Island Foundation’s vice president of strategy and community investments, said the foundation checks in with the fellows regularly to see how their projects are going. On Dec. 12, applications for the next round of grants are due, with fellowships to be announced in April. •

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