From the Hartford Courant’s Haar Report – 

Basements and garages generally come out ahead of business incubators in the folklore about start-ups that make it big — In Connecticut as well as Silicon Valley. Bill Stone, for example, launched what is now the $2.7 billion SS&C Technologies Holdings in his Windsor basement in 1986.

But when it comes to generating group energy, it’s hard to beat an incubator, where fledgling entrepreneurs can bounce ideas off each other and save money at the same time. Downtown Hartford needs that vibe badly, and the new “community co-working space” of the Social Enterprise Trust is designed to bring it, for new firms born with a goal of helping the world in addition to making money.

Christopher Brechlin
Dan Haar/The Hartford Courant

The space, launching as a fee-charging business on Monday, couldn’t be better situated. In the second floor of a classic, old office building, its massive picture windows open out onto the corner of Trumbull and Pratt streets. The marquee of the XL Center shines brightly across the street and the burgeoning life of the brick walks unfolds just below.

Christopher D. Brechlin, a young Willimantic resident involved in several IT-related and community projects, hopes to use the reSET space to catapult his idea into a winner. The business, Blueprint For A Dream, helps nonprofits use data to map their social impact using data. “It’s actually a lot more community organizing than it is sitting at a computer,” he said.

Brechlin, like a few other entrepreneurs who were at reSET’s opening reception Thursday evening, graduated from reSET’s first social enterprise accelerator earlier this year, a 10-week program that met one day a week. In the soft-opening of the month since the space opened at 99 Pratt Street, he’s been using the location for meetings and discussions.

“I have never had a more productive brainstorming session than what we had here last week,” he said.

Another graduate of the training, Karen Pace, has a job in technology at Bank of America but hopes to turn her product, Peacebar, into a game-changer. It’s a high-end energy bar made from dried apricots, cashews, almonds, walnuts, raw coconut butter, cardamom and a key ingredient — essence of tulsi leaves.

Karen Pace
Dan Haar/The Hartford Courant