When Mary first approached me about renting an office for a video production company, I thought that seems pretty interesting. But what small business would ever use video – where, how, why, and most importantly – how much? It never crossed my mind that a small business – including mine - would be able answer those questions in the affirmative and the affordable. Well, two years later, I am thrilled to say that Mary totally proved me wrong. Mary has worked with about 2 doz

Who are you? Jeff Filipov, from Hamilton, MA. I have lived there with my family for 15 years and we bought a fixer upper and did most of the work ourselves. I was always into working with my hands and fixing things, and building with wood since I was about 8 years old. What is your business? Northshore Barn Doors, LLC. We source olde wood from barns, houses, buildings and sheds and repurpose it to create lovely interior barn doors! Is there a story behind your business? I was

Senator DiZoglio now chairs the joint (Mass house and senate) committee on Community Development and Small Business. We have in the aggregate 65 small businesses located here at CI Works. Diana chose not to give a speech about her committee, but rather to actively listen to challenges that small businesses face in Massachusetts to obtain input on areas that the committee should focus on improving. When you provide an opportunity for small businesses to share their experie

They eat, sleep and breathe beer... Recently rated best new brewery in the state of MA, these craft brewers are taking the art of brewing to a whole new level. Video By: Anchor Hitch Media #tenantspotlight #barewolfbrewing #CIWorks #Amesbury #amesburybrewery #CraftBeer

Commercial building owners are often not either energy savings nor environmental sustainability focused types. They are just more short term profitability oriented…….or just dinosaurs. For the most part, they do not see capital investments in these initiatives or technologies as providing enough short term results or as primary to their business – hence avoidance rationale. If they can’t sell it, why should they care about it? Here is where more clarity, less conflicting m

Small businesses remain starved for the capital required to grow their businesses at this time. Banks are not an option for these companies just developing financial results vs. lending to established proven businesses with track records that represent very low risk to banks. Low risk is not a measure of innovation and entrepreneurship, rather safe and status quo. One might ask whether providing capital for growth is actually an intended function of banks, but actual behavi

Amesbury has long been an innovative community throughout its history. This was exhibited by the horse drawn and electric carriage industries. Innovative approaches is not a term often used in the same sentence with government. Mayor Gray’s willingness to think outside the box and being business friendly are terms cities and state governments often claim, but are they actually doing anything? The only constant with government is that it never seems to run out of money, ra