BBC keeps slow, steady pace of growth going

Slow and steady wins the proverbial race but it's not a phrase that is mentioned too often in today's business world. Except in the case of BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting.

The near-downtown-Ann Arbor-based firm, formerly Biotechnology Business Consultants, has carved out a niche for itself in the life sciences/bio-tech consulting world with is tortoise-like growth over 23 years. The company experienced another small bump in revenue in 2013, which is exactly what it was aiming for.

"We like what we do and we’re happy to keep doing it," Lisa Kurek, managing partner of BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting.

Part of that is the nature of the work the company performs. It specializes in helping bio-tech startups develop their technologies and nurture their business, a process that often takes several years and millions of dollars worth of investment. There are no quick-flip startups that come to Kurek and her staff of seven people (it added a new employee about a year ago) looking for help.

But it does mean that governments come calling. It has contracts with agencies in the federal, state of Michigan and municipal governments. It recently renewed its contract with the New York City Economic Development Corp to run a similar, but smaller, program that it does for the state of Michigan. BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting also breathed a sign of relief a little more than a year ago when the federal government renewed its committment to the SBIR and STTR programs.

"That gave us a little bit of stability," Kurek says. "That reassured our clients."

Source: Lisa Kurek, managing partner of BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.