Maine Center for Entrepreneurs

As mce approached its 25th year of providing entrepreneurship training and small business Development as one of Maine's state funded incubators, several new initiatives were added to our existing menu of programs in 2021. Over the years mce has developed what we call a "continuum of care" model that supports companies at different stages of their Development from startup to scale up. Our signature programs include our top gun entrepreneurial training bootcamp; mce's food industry programs cultivator and marketshare that accelerate the growth of Maine food businesses, and our federally funded bioscience cluster programs supporting early-stage life science businesses. In 2021 mce added additional contractor support to engage and recruit more seafood and aquaculture businesses and developed plans for a new pilot compass program to support companies involved in the outdoor recreation industry. We also continued a pilot called the visionary leadership program which provides training to emerging business leaders. Despite a global pandemic, mce was able to fill these programs to capacity with cohorts of Entrepreneurs who participated primarily virtually via zoom and in person when public health conditions allowed.