Spotlights
Spotlight November 2008
November's spotlight is local entrepreneur Todd Baylson. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Todd is an environmentalist and urban planner that recently started his own business in August 2008. His new company, The Green Perspective, offers green gift baskets that include items such as bamboo cutting boards, locally produced soap made from natural ingredients and compact fluorescent light (CFLs) bulbs. Baskets also educate recipients about different aspects of the green scene so they can help make a difference to create a more sustainable future.
"I think Philadelphia is a great place to start youngish and green businesses because of the groundswell of creativity happening here. [Philadelphia] is affordable compared to some of its east coast peers and that brings creative residents, who initially move here for the lower cost of living. But they fall in love with the amazing old buildings, the community infrastructure and the opportunity to make their mark," Todd says. He is also a member of Philly Startup Leaders, an all volunteer, grassroots entrepreneurial organization in Philadelphia.
Your name:
Todd I. Baylson
Firm/company:
The Green Perspective
Occupation:
Entrepreneur/business owner and urban planner
Current Location:
Philadelphia
Hometown:
Philadelphia
Favorite Philadelphia neighborhood:
I live near Rittenhouse which is a great urban neighborhood, but I also love East Falls where I grew up, the drives, Belmont Plateau and the Wissahickon where I bike a lot, and places like Northern Liberties which are embracing progressive architecture that is dynamic and different.
Best advice you've ever been given:
It's hard to pick just one piece of advice but certainly a very useful piece of advice for me was: "Intention and impact are two different things, be mindful of the difference when you work with people."
Your favorite thing about living in the Philadelphia Region:
The network of younger entrepreneurs, especially amongst green businesses, I have met and become a part of is incredibly supportive and connected.
How would you market the Philadelphia Region to professionals outside the region?
[You can] bike to work, meet authentic people, buy a great home made better than new homes are made in an affordable neighborhood. Be a part of something that is both incredibly historic and yet young in its possibilities. Take the opportunity to move someplace where you can really have a positive impact and make your own path. Home of the Phillies!!!
I do believe that Philadelphia is poised for the future because we have the physical environment, the infrastructure, the housing stock and the park land to succeed in a future where oil is expensive, people are sick of commuting for hours each day and folks want to get back to basics in terms of living in great mixed use neighborhoods where they can visit their friends, walk to the store and commute to work by bike or train.
What was the hardest part about starting your own business?
The synergy required to actually get the business open once we said "go" was probably the most complex and hardest thing although owning a new business continues to be time consuming and challenging. As the owner you are responsible for making sure inventory, marketing materials, the website, operations, communications and everything else are all sensibly coordinated and functional. It is an intricate web of tasks, tests and schedules that are all interdependent, with certain milestones that need to be identified in order to move things forward.
As an internet business especially, we needed to make sure that our website and order fulfillment worked smoothly and securely and that it automatically coordinated communications with the customer. This required lots of testing, a soft start and some frustrations, but in the end we opened and the orders started to roll in!
Why start a business in the Philadelphia Region?
As a new business, I think Philadelphia is a mixed bag in terms of business development. It offers great opportunities alongside challenging circumstances. In terms of traditional businesses Philadelphia is proximate to the major markets of the east coast, and the transportation infrastructure that moves goods and services from producers to consumers which means that it is a good place to be positioned geographically.
But we would be naive to not recognize that many more businesses have left Philadelphia than have moved here over the past 50 years. There are many things about Philadelphia that established businesses find challenging like the business privilege tax, the wage tax and other public policy issues. Of course there are complex arguments to be made on both sides of these matters that I do not pretend to understand. Also many businesses that offer higher paying jobs do not locate here because they are looking for workers with advanced degrees and they can find a more educated workforce elsewhere. That is one of the reasons Mayor Nutter has made raising college graduation rates such a priority.
These challenges create opportunities for small business to fill the voids and that is good for smaller business like ours, but ultimately I think Philadelphia has a lot to do before it can claim to be "the ideal" place to start a business.
The Green Perspective offers Green Gift Baskets online. The gifts are full of attractive, stylish and genuinely useful items and the containers are themselves useful green items instead of shrink-wrapped uselessness. Green gifts spread the word and knowledge about the green movement within the context of an accepted retail offering and an enjoyed practice, namely gift giving. The Green Perspective also offers B2B and corporate green gifts for holidays, events and more.
To learn more about Todd and his work in the region, please visit http://www.thegreenperspective.com.