Another incubator has sprouted in Orange County, this one in Irvine at the WeWork co-working space at the 200 Spectrum Center office tower. The Hungry Lab serves students, startups, small businesses and those doing social enterprise work, which applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being.
Chief Executive Bian Li created the lab under the auspices of Grow and Scale LLC. It will provide company founders with tools, resources and support, both in-person and virtually through development of a tech platform that will include a mobile app as a personalized “coach on-the-go.”
The local team includes Technology Adviser Chris Daden, a team of designers and events marketing team members, as well as a team member in New York City and advisers in locales including China, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
The incubator hosts live events, workshops and in-person advisory services.
“We want The Hungry Lab to be a safe space where first-time founders and serial entrepreneurs, with our individualized support and guidance, take calculated risks, challenge the status quo and learn, launch and grow their business from idea through growth stage,” Li said via email.
One revenue stream is a monthly subscription for advisory services for entrepreneurs to flesh out concepts for startups and for growth-stage companies. Another is the incubator for “select seed-stage companies,” and a third is add-on services, such as branding and design.
The lab is in the process of creating an investor network that will include “select” angel investment groups, as well as venture funds here and abroad, Li said.
The lab will also help clients that are ready to obtain a global reach, by helping them raise global capital or reach customers in international markets.
Li said she had been marinating on the incubator idea for the past decade based on her experience working in finance, philanthropy and international economic development, including work as an investment banker in Chicago and Hong Kong and as an international development and innovation consultant. She ended up in OC in 2015 after getting a master’s degree in engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Global SCALE Program, or Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence. She did her research through MIT’s Zaragoza Program in Spain.
“From working with hundreds of entrepreneurs throughout my career, big and small, the idea for The Hungry Lab grew out of the need to create such a supportive environment and adaptive platform where entrepreneurs could get the help they need to be successful,” she said.
Her lab pairs students—both those who are aspiring entrepreneurs and those who are already entrepreneurs—with mentors and “a crack team of experts.”
The lab plans to incorporate sustainable development goals, as many of the startups it plans to work with are “innovating sustainable, market-based solutions to grand global challenges, such as alternative energy, food waste, malnutrition and education gaps,” she said.
There’s also a free community membership for access to events, conferences, workshops and boot camps.
Design Firm Kicks Off
A full-scale product design firm based in Irvine launched.
Design Faktion takes ideas from concept to completion and tailors packages to each inventor’s needs, founder Dru Blake said. The goal is to keep the cost down by lowering the cost of design and manufacturing by partnering with OC-based manufacturers, he said.
The company has an office in the Eureka co-working building, a few miles from John Wayne Airport. It started with “no money,” Blake said. “We just picked up a job and started designing and building. We’ve been self-funded ever since.”
Blake uses a team of designers and engineers. His vision for the company is to turn it into a full-service, gig-based, product-launch platform that will “further help lower the cost for inventors and streamline the production process for everyone involved,” he said. He’s in talks with web developers to begin building the platform.
Blake has worked with clients involved with consumer tech products, such as wireless chargers, vape chargers, photo booths, phone charging cases and modular cosmetic cases.
Bits & Pieces
Irvine-based Esqalate received $10,000 as top winner in the third annual Designing Solutions for Poverty competition presented by the University of California-Irvine’s Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation. Esqalate is a nonprofit committed to providing low- and moderate-income Americans with access to legal representation through the use of technology. … At the recent New Venture Competition at UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business, a team called Purist won the majority of the take. Purist provides radioactive ingredients to treat cancer using small-scale and localized nuclear reactors. It won the $15,000 school of medicine award. The event was hosted by the Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in collaboration with Applied Innovation, UCI’s innovation institute. The Tech Surge Awards, sponsored by Applied Innovation, was held at the same time in an effort to encourage commercialization of UCI-generated innovations. Purist also won first place in that, winning $10,000 in cash and entree into the Wayfinder incubator program at The Cove, Applied Innovation’s space.
