Randal Charlton, Executive Director

The alarm clock  comes in a variety of appealing colors such as pretty pink, azure blue and fashionable almond, and the people who own one, even sleep-addicted teenagers and college students – describe it in affectionate terms like “cute,” “adorable,” “my best friend” and “R2D2.”

Like most alarm clocks, it often goes off before you are ready to jump out of bed.  Like most alarm clocks it has a snooze button which you can hit to steal a few more precious minutes in bed.  However, this alarm clock comes on wheels, and the next time the alarm goes off the clock jumps to the floor and wheels around the room looking for somewhere to hide, so you have to get out of bed to go and find it.

Clocky was the early morning brainchild of an MIT student Gauri Nanda. Nanda was a media student who had never thought about starting a company to manufacture and sell her runaway alarm.  But the response to her idea from friends and internet connections persuaded her to seek the advice of some people who had business experience. She approached a business mentoring service at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she received valuable advice on a range of issues from patent protection to manufacturing, distribution and sales.

In less than a year, Clocky was on the market ready for the holiday sales.

The support Nanda received for her business idea is just one example of the valuable free assistance provided by a group of more than 100 well-qualified mentors known as the MIT Venture Mentoring Service. This week Jerome Smith, co-director of that service, was in Detroit talking to the TechTown team to help us figure out how to improve our mentoring service for the growing number of entrepreneurs seeking support and advice.

The visit was organized by Robbie Hardy of the Kauffman Foundation – an organization committed to working with TechTown to support the growing army of entrepreneurs in Detroit.  Already we have close to 100 volunteer mentors and the advice from the experts at MIT will help us organize our talented mentors and expand the important and generous time they are prepared to offer entrepreneurs.

Mentoring is a key part of the services we offer, including space to suit your needs, training geared to your business idea, new technology to add value to your company, enthusiastic interns, access to finance like the First Step Fund, networking and on-site business services. The demand for these services is growing rapidly as Detroiters decide to take the future in their own hands.

So you might want to buy a Clocky to get a jump from the TechTown team in starting your business.