UNM entrepreneurship center opens in Santa Fe

Sep. 18—The University of New Mexico's Anderson School of Management launched the first program for its new Center for Responsible Entrepreneurship in Santa Fe on Aug. 26.

The center's 10-month accelerator program has 14 entrepreneurs in its first cohort, including 71% heading woman-owned startups and 50% who run minority-owned ones. The center is based at the Santa Fe Higher Education Center, 1950 Siringo Road.

These are entrepreneurs with early-stage companies, said Jon Mertz, the center's co-collaborator.

"In general, they don't have any revenue," Mertz said. "Now they are actually building the business. They would have a business plan. Now it's time to put it in action and generate early revenue and raising revenue from banks and venture capitalists."

Mertz in 2020 launched Santa Fe Innovates, through which 60 local entrepreneurs went through the preliminary startup stage to build and validate a business idea and gain the tools to win over investors — a boot camp business accelerator.

Mertz approached the Anderson School, which was willing to establish a Center for Responsible Entrepreneurship to train entrepreneurs in the next step of early-stage business development.

In October, the center expects to start a public speaker series in the areas of social entrepreneurship, impact investment and policies, Mertz said. Santa Fe Innovates will fade away as the center plans to introduce a similar pre-accelerator program next spring.

The accelerator program has five instructors, including three from the Anderson School.

The first cohort includes 10 entrepreneurs from Northern New Mexico — several of whom went through the Santa Fe Innovates program — and four UNM student entrepreneurs.

The accelerator program sessions take place every other Saturday through Dec. 9 and then the cohort meets monthly from January to June.

"Once they leave the program, they can continue to build their business and have a presence in the community," Mertz said.