BusinessWeek's search for the top 25 entrepreneurs under 25 recently led it to the Emergent Energy Group, a business created by Tufts students to harness renewable energy sources.
Current senior Greg Hering teamed with then-sophomores Jayson Uppal and Jared Rodriguez in 2006 to found Emergent, a business that advised cities, landowners and developers on how to harness sustainable energy in the form of wind and solar power.
He said BusinessWeek's recognition of their company validates their efforts, though they are relatively younger than the typical business founder.
"It gives us credibility. Someone goes, ‘You guys are young.' And we go, ‘Yes, but we're the best of the young people,'" he said.
Hering thought of the idea for the company as a freshman during the fall of 2006 and later teamed with Uppal and Rodriguez, who were at the time members of the Tufts Energy Security Initiative (now the Tufts Energy Forum), to develop a business plan. Together they run Emergent as a partnership along with Jesse Gossett (LA '09) and Chris Jacobs, who graduated from Babson College last year.
Since its inception, Emergent has completed over twenty consulting projects, according to Hering. The company is now expanding into development with the creation of a solar project for nine buildings in New Jersey as well as a wind farm in New Hampshire, he said.
"We empower communities to power themselves, essentially," Hering said.
This marks the fifth year of the rankings. Over the summer, BusinessWeek readers nominated companies for the list. Then BusinessWeek staff chose the finalists.
Hering said that Emergent takes a community-based approach to installing power plants. "We engage town administrators and local community members much earlier on in the entire development process," he said.
Hering said that the group rose above the difficulties of being young entrepreneurs in a field dominated by an older generation. "We get past that by presenting the best of what is expected from [our] generation," he said.
Emergent currently has about 30 clients. BusinessWeek stated that the firm's 2008 revenue totaled $150,000 and is expected to reach $250,000 in 2009.
Though the company flourishes in culling new clients nationwide, Emergent's roots remain at Tufts.
Pamela Goldberg, director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program in Tufts' Gordon Institute, said that the institute provided support throughout Emergent's development.
"We gave them a lot of advice as they developed their business plan, and I would say that there were a few entrepreneurial faculty who gave advice, counseling and mentoring," Goldberg said.
Hering also said that the student group Young Entrepreneurs at Tufts (YET) was integral to his group's initial planning process.
"At the very beginning, in the fall semester of freshman year, the Young Entrepreneurs at Tufts helped us out so much in picking our business plan apart and giving us great advice on what we should do, who we should talk to and how we should grow this idea," he said.
YET President Jason Nochlin, a junior, said that Emergent's rankings as one of the top young companies in the country was a positive sign for the strength of the university's entrepreneurial programs.
"It's really cool for Tufts to have a business like that, that was started by Tufts students and got national exposure," Nochlin said. "It's great for both the entrepreneurship program and our club."
On the tails of Emergent's success, Goldberg said that a growing number of Tufts students are showing interest in entrepreneurship courses. "This year, we will have close to 450 students taking entrepreneurship courses," she said. "That's a pretty significant piece of the population."
Goldberg said that while the founders' young age may have proven to be a difficulty, a strong company can easily surpass such hurdles.
"There are more and more startups being created by young entrepreneurs and sometimes age is a barrier, but I think that strong leadership and strong skills tend to overcome those obstacles," Goldberg said.
While Emergent's appearance in BusinessWeek has validated the group's efforts, the rankings have proven advantageous in other ways.
Since the rankings came out, Emergent's daily Web site hits have jumped from about 25 to 10,000, according to Hering, who sees this increase as having a direct correlation with the company's profits.
"A greater amount of exposure will lead to a direct increase in sales," he said.
Goldberg said that Tufts' environment is highly conducive to the creation of companies such as Emergent.
"Clean energy is such an important field right now, and I think that Tufts being one of the top universities in the nation in terms of environmental sustainability makes it a rich place for that kind of opportunity to exist," she said.
BusinessWeek is currently holding a vote to choose the top five businesses from the 25 finalists. Anyone can vote for Emergent at
bit.ly/voteemergent.
