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When local leaders talk about retaining talent, they probably have someone like Adam Leeb in mind.

The Metro Detroit native graduated from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering and went to work for a private equity firm in New York City in the late 2000s. After watching a number of his colleagues lose their jobs in the economic downturn and a few other not-so-flattering things about the finance industry, he decided he wanted to move back home.

"I knew it wasn't something I wanted to make my career," Leeb says.

That was last year, roughly the same time he started working on his own company, SunDaily. The Royal Oak-based start-up is working to create a premium brand of vitamins and supplements. It's a hole in what Leeb sees as a crowded market.

"I saw a lot of different formulas and a lot of confusion on the consumers' end," Leeb says.

SunDaily and its team of four people began its soft Beta launch earlier this month and plans to go public with it this week. The new brand of vitamins offers traditional staples like a multi-vitamin, Vitamin D and a fish oil supplement. As many as a dozen different products are expected to be launched this year. Leeb plans to create some market separation with high-quality products that are easy to understand and come in aesthetically pleasing packaging.

Source: Adam Leeb, founder of SunDaily
Writer: Jon Zemke

Opening a Detroit office in the Elevator Building overlooking the Motor City's riverfront is a bit of a homecoming for the founder of 140 Proof.

John Manoogian III (no, he's not related the mayoral mansion Manoogian) grew up in Metro Detroit and earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan. He moved out to California and now is the CTO of 140 Proof, a social media advertising startup that calls Silicon Valley home. The 3-year-old company's claim to fame is being one of the first development partners with Twitter.

140 Proof employs 20 people and the occasional intern and has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. The Motor City office, the company's first satellite office, was virtually based for its first 18 months. It shared space with other companies until it landed in the Elevator Building six weeks ago. The two-person office also shares space with fellow startup Hashgram.

"We have very high hopes for how much we can grow the Detroit office," Manoogian says.

The Elevator Building is a former warehouse turned loft-style office building after an extensive renovation in 2010. The building overlooks the Detroit RiverWalk and the Dequindre Cut and is home to a number of different design and tech startups, including M1/DTW and Grit Design. That sort of eclectic environment made the building at 1938 Franklin St. highly desirable.

"There are a bunch of cool people there," says Manoogian III. "We are a business based on technology and design so we wanted to be around other cool people."

Source: John Manoogian III, founder & CTO of 140 Proof
Writer: Jon Zemke

Michael Evans is not only the type of entrepreneur Detroit wants to stake a claim here, he's the type of person who won't leave the Motor City.

He was a top employee at a New York City-based start-up that was recently acquired, splitting time between the Big Apple and Detroit. He is now here full-time building his own startup, PishPosh, in a Boston-Edison mansion he has turned into the latest version of new economy office space.

"It's a tremendous amount of space," Evans says. "We feel safe and people love to come here. Why move to Midtown or downtown when I can stay up here and have a great space?"

Evans ran community projects for Forrst, an Internet start-up that bills itself as "a community where (software) developers and designers improve their craft through design feedback." Evans became employee No. 1 in late 2010 and oversaw project and community management for the company. Forrst was acquired by COLOURlovers a year ago and Evans left the company in late February, ending a little more than two years of living in Detroit and flying to New York to work.

"I refused to move. It was too much traveling," Evans says, explaining why he chooses to stay in the Motor City.

During his time at Forrst, Evans was also working on his own startup in his spare time. PishPosh is a podcasting startup that focuses on making its own content (think podcasts and videos) and content for others. Its team of four people have worked with the likes of Moosejaw and Model D. It is now getting ready to launch its own software platform that will enable everyday people to make their own podcasts. It's currently in its private Beta and plans to launch it within a few weeks.

That launch will happen from the mansion in Boston-Edison that Evans currently calls home. His parents recently decided to move downtown into a high-rise apartment so they didn't have to deal with as much upkeep. Evans stayed in his childhood home, where he currently lives on the second floor. He is turned the third floor into the home base for PishPosh.

"We have multi-media setups, multi-lighting and isolation booths," Evans says. "We have the whole deal."

Source: Michael Evans, founder of PishPosh
Writer: Jon Zemke

Michigan First Credit Union is looking for a few good employees, 14 right now to be exact.

The Lathrup Village-based financial institution is looking for everything from tellers to human resources professionals to add to its staff of 225 people. However, technology pros are in especially high demand for the credit union. About a third of its new positions have some sort of tech angle, such as software developer or IT professional.

The 87-year-old credit union tries quite hard not to act its nearly century-old age, employing the latest and greatest technology into its systems. A large part of its business plan is to stay ahead of tech trends to attract younger clientele who value the ease and access to their finances that such technology can provide.

"We're in the process of testing mobile debit cards," says Linda Douglas, vice president of marketing for Michigan First Credit Union. "We are always looking to stay ahead of the curve in our mobile and online banking options."

Michigan First Credit Union has 90,000 members and $640 million in assets. It adds more than 1,000 new members each month. It has also hired 70 people so far this year.

Source: Linda Douglas, vice president of marketing for Michigan First Credit Union
Writer: Jon Zemke

The Automation Alley Seed Fund has struck again, investing $150,000 into TerraYebo.

This is the Troy-based business accelerator's second six-figure investment in the micro-funding website start-up. It invested $100,000 in the Madison Heights-based firm earlier this year.

"Our investment committee liked their entrepreneurial team," says Thomas Anderson, senior director for Automation Alley. "We thought they were smart and focused."

TerraYebo is the company behind MyInchofTheEarth.com, a micro-funding platform for nonprofits. The website enables users to claim any virtual inch of the earth or ocean, share why that place is important, and choose a nonprofit that either supports the preservation of that place or a nonprofit that does good in the world. The idea is to let people's life experiences at different institutions (such as their alma mater) or places (a national park) prompt them to give small amounts to non-profits that fund them.

The 3-year-old company has signed up a number of name-brand institutions for MyInchofTheEarth.com, including The National Park Foundation, CURE International, VH1 Save the Music, Veterans of Foreign War Foundation and The Pink Fund. TerraYebo's team of four people, it has hired two people so far this year, plans to use the new seed capital to continue the build out of its website and developing its market.

"We want to continue to focus on the user experience of our website," says Dan Glisky, president of TerraYebo. "That is first and foremost."

The Automation Alley Seed Fund invests in early-stage start-ups with high growth ceilings. Investments range from $50,000 to $300,000. The fund is similar to the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund, which is managed by Ann Arbor SPARK.

The Automation Alley Seed Fund got its start in 2004 and has received $6 million in funding, primarily from the state of Michigan. It has invested $8 million over that time, including a couple of start-ups that have either repaid the loans, cashed out the equity in the investment or have been acquired. One start-up, University of Michigan spin-out CieloMed Solutions, was acquired last year and provided a healthy return to the Automation Alley Seed Fund.

Source: Thomas Anderson, senior director for Automation Alley; Dan Glisky, president of TerraYebo and Michele Favoretto, CEO of TerraYebo
Writer: Jon Zemke

First came Great Wall Custom Coverings. Next came the Detroit Wallpaper Co, which has accelerated the growth of the Ferndale-based company.

Josh Young and Andi Kubacki started Great Wall Custom Coverings nearly a decade ago, providing custom wall paper projects that were as eclectic as their imaginations and those of their customers. They began scaling that sort of creativity last fall with the Detroit Wallpaper Co, which sells the pair's popular avant-garde wallpaper designs utilizing non-toxic and environmentally friendly supplies.

Some of those designs include patterns they are labeling as "Botanicals" (think flowers and plant patterns), "Wallgazer" (self-described as a "marriage between high concept and functional design") and "Wander Walls" (images that bring far-away locales to mind). All 63 different designs are colorful, contemporary and probably like nothing you have seen on a wall before.

"It's really a commentary on our society," Young says. "What we're really interested in is technology, music. We have a lot of pop-culture references in our designs."

The two companies employ eight people between them after hiring one person over the last year. The rising demand for Detroit Wallpaper Co's products are driving the growth in the company right now.

"It's quickly growing," Young says. "It's beginning to eclipse Great Wall already."

Source: Josh Young, co-owner of Detroit Wallpaper Co
Writer: Jon Zemke

Accent Reduction Institute could have moved wherever it wanted last year when Menlo Innovations, which it shared office space with, relocated from its Kerrytown headquarters closer to the University of Michigan's campus. Instead, the 7-year-old company found another office in downtown Ann Arbor.

"This is home to us even though north of 98 percent of our clients are outside of southeast Michigan," says Judy Ravin, president & founder of Accent Reduction Institute. She adds that she and her executive team "love Ann Arbor. We are three University of Michigan graduates. We feel really connected to the community. It's a wonderfully business community."

Accent Reduction Institute's close ties to U-M were a major reason for it staying nearby. The university serves a pipeline of talent for the company, mostly in the form of interns. Accent Reduction Institute has hired three of its former interns over the last year, expanding its staff to 20 people and 3-4 interns each year.

"Our interns provide a wonderful pipeline for other interns," Ravin says. We get fantastic people to work with."

The Accent Reduction Institute provides accent reduction training programs for non-native English speakers so they can carry on communication seamlessly. It also develops English pronunciation software to help people eliminate language barriers while maintaining their unique cultural identity. Menlo Associates, the holding company for Menlo Innovations, is still a major investor.

Ravin points out that the talent gap for major companies is driving the Accent Reduction Institute's recent growth. She explains that as more baby boomers retire the company's are scrambling to find their best talent to replace them in the workforce. That in turn is prompting Accent Reduction Institute to add to its staff. It is currently looking for up to two more linguistics professionals.

Source: Judy Ravin, president & founder of Accent Reduction Institutue
Writer: Jon Zemke

The University of Michigan has worked for years to commercialize its research into growing businesses, employing a variety of programs that often look to pair university researchers with university business students and graduates. Michigan I-Corps is looking to broaden that scope.

The new entrepreneurial training program, part of the National Science Foundation's National I-Corps initiative, is looking to not only empower the entrepreneurial ambitions of university's research and business classes but also entrepreneurs and scientists from outside of Ann Arbor's ivory towers. Any Michigan-based technologist, regardless of academic affiliation or funding source, is eligible. The program is recruiting teams from Michigan's universities, tech companies and startups funded by venture capitalists.

"One of the best ways to enhance entrepreneurship is to get all sorts of folks to mix together," says Jonathan Fay, director of Michigan I-Corps.

The Michigan I-Corps will be comprised of approximately 25 teams, each with three members: a principal investigator (or senior executive), entrepreneurial lead (or product manager) and industry mentor. The statewide program will focus on customer discovery and business model generation, but will supplement it with modules on business basics, intellectual property, and entrepreneurship ownership and operations.

"What about your technology has value?" Fay says. "What about your technology do the customers want?"

Source: Jonathan Fay, director of Michigan I-Corps
Writer: Jon Zemke

Quicken Loans and its family of companies are gearing up for another big internship push this summer that could bring as many as 1,000 young people into the fold of the downtown Detroit-based firm.

The mortgage origination firm brought in excess of 500 interns last summer and a total of 750 for the entire year. This year, the goal is 1,000 for 2013 with the bulk of them (700-800) set to come in during the summer. The internships will be primarily for Quicken Loans proper, but other firms in the Quicken Loans family of companies, such as FatHead and One Reverse Mortgage, will also draw from the Quicken Loans internship talent pool.

"It's a tremendous value," says Michelle Salvatore, director of recruiting for Quicken Loans. "It's helping us with our candidate pool. We can engage with them and train them. It's really been our biggest candidate source."

Many of those internships turn into jobs. Salvatore says the company turned 78 percent of the interns who weren't returning to school into new employees. Quicken Loans currently employs several thousand and regularly has dozens of new jobs up for grabs at any one time. A vast majority of those employees and interns are based in downtown Detroit.

Quicken Loans interns are not only introduced to the company's go-getter culture but also the greater downtown area. Quicken Loans does at least six events that introduce the interns to the city each summer, such as outings to Tigers games and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

"We try to show them a lot of the city while they are here," Salvatore says. "A true urban core is what we try to expose them to."

Source: Michelle Salvatore, director of recruiting for Quicken Loans
Writer: Jon Zemke

Detroit Farm and Garden is gearing up for its second growing season in Southwest Detroit.

The landscaping supply company is looking to hire two new people in time for the spring season, including a sales associate and a delivery driver. The hires will bring the company's staff to five people and allow it to capitalize on the goodwill it has earned in its first year of business.

"It went really well," says Jeff Klein, co-owner of Detroit Farm and Garden. "We have gotten a great response from the community. People are really glad we're here."

Klein and his partner, Andy Ray, launched Detroit Farm and Garden last spring to help fill the need for providing supplies to local landscaping professionals and urban farmers. They opened in a former police station off West Vernor Avenue in the shadow of the Michigan Central Station and have turned the space into a hub for the local community, selling top spoil and seeds in the summer and holding community concerts in the winter.

Detroit Farm and Garden has also expanded the products it offers to include tools and products from Reclaim Detroit, such as planter boxes. "Our inventory is continuing to grow," Klein says. "We want to get more into season-extending products, such as the plastic used for green houses."

Source: Jeff Klein, co-owner of Detroit Farm and Garden
Writer: Jon Zemke

Last year meant several things to North Coast Technology Investors. The Ann Arbor-based venture capital firm made some high-profile investments, expanded its portfolio and began deploying its third investment fund in earnest.

"It was one of the most active years we had in a while," says Hugo Braun, co-founder of North Coast Technology Investors.

The 20-year-old venture capital firm has in excess of $100 million under management through three investment funds that are invested in 35 companies. It closed on its third investment vehicle, worth $30 million, in 2010 and currently has eight portfolio firms in that fund.

It's latest investment is in Stik, an Internet start-up based in downtown Detroit's M@dison Building. North Coast Technology Investors co-led the Series A round worth $2.3 million with Detroit Venture Partners. Stik's technology helps authenticate that online reviews were made by actual people. It was founded by two Metro Detroit natives that graduated from Harvard with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg. They moved it to downtown Detroit last fall and have since hired six people.

North Coast Technology Investors' investment in Stik was its fourth of 2012. Among its higher-profile investments from last year was a follow-up investment in Ann Arbor-based CytoPherx, a clinical stage medical device company. Braun expects North Coast Technology Investors' team of three to make four investments this year.

Source: Hugo Braun, co-founder of North Coast Technology Investors
Writer: Jon Zemke

Macomb-OU INCubator has landed a couple of large grants this year, totaling to a bit more than $1.2 million in new funding.

The business accelerator based in Sterling Heights has won a $500,000 marketing grant from the state of Michigan to help get the word out about its entrepreneurial efforts. It has also scored a $776,000 federal grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help get more local companies involved in the defense and homeland security industries.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant is meant to help encourage more Metro Detroit companies to engage the growing defense sector in Macomb County. The grant helps pay for educational programs, such as showing them how to clear the federal hurdles to compete for defense contracts. It is also looking to set up a $350,000 matching funds program for companies looking to raise seed capital.

"We want to help some people with some matching awards," says Larry Herriman, director of Michigan's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Matching Funds program. "We want to sweeten the pot."

The Michigan Economic Development Corp also awarded a $500,000 grant to the Macomb-OU INCubator. The money will allow the business accelerator to provide entrepreneurial resources, capital, and provide more assistance and access to Oakland University resources and the student internship program.

It will also beef up program offerings to small business clients, such as the Lunch and Launch series, Fireside Chats (where successful entrepreneurs tell their stories), an Executives-in-Residence program, business advisory boards and a monthly Capital Raise Meetup.

Source: Larry Herriman, director of Michigan's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Matching Funds program
Writer: Jon Zemke

GSTV is fleshing out both its presence in major advertising markets across North America and its staff in downtown Birmingham.

The nearly 7-year-old company has added 12 positions to its workforce, expanding its staff to 60 employees and a couple of summer interns. It has more than a dozen open jobs now for positions in sales, marketing, business development, human resources and software development.

"We have gotten very busy in terms of hiring," says David Leider, CEO of GSTV. "We needed to hire a recruiter to handle it. We have 15 positions open now."

GSTV, formerly Gas Station TV, is the company that puts the TVs on top of gas station pumps. The screens flash news, weather forecasts and commercials during a couple of minutes when motorists are paused in their commute and looking for something to focus on.

The concept has taken off. GSTV is now in 1,900 gas stations across the nation, collecting 39 million monthly viewers. That's up from 1,300 stations. GSTV is in 36 states and every major media market in North America, doubling its presence in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago. It expects to continue fleshing out its presence in 2013.

"We continue to grow quickly," Leider says. "By April we will have 2,000 stations and 40 million monthly viewers all over the country."

Source: David Leider, CEO of GSTV
Writer: Jon Zemke

Chalkfly, the downtown Detroit-based school supplies startup, has raised $750,000 in a Series AA round.

The venture capital round of funding, Chalkfly's second, was led by Detroit Venture Partners with Ludlow Ventures, Griffon Ventures, Start Garden and Bizdom also contributing.

Chalkfly, which calls the M@dison Building home, focuses on selling office and school supplies online. It includes a philanthropic component that helps bring five percent of each purchase to local teachers and schools. The 8-month-old business offers more than 50,000 products, 24-7 live customer service, 365-day no-hassle returns and free overnight shipping.

"We have seen double-digit growth every month since we have started," says Andrew Landau, co-founder of Chalkfly.

Andrew Landau started Chalkfly with his brother, Ryan Landau. Both have worked tech jobs at the likes of Google and IBM before returning to Detroit last year to launch their start-up. The company currently employs five people and is looking to add an intern this summer. Andrew Landau expects to double the staff of his company over the next 12 months and wants to create a business culture that would rival any other tech startup in the U.S.

"We want to be the best e-commerce place to work in Detroit," Landau says.

Source: Andrew Landau, co-founder of Chalkfly
Writer: Jon Zemke

Marketing Associates is spinning off its data analytics units into its own brand, Magnify Analytic Solutions. The move is expected to help the marketing firm continue expanding its staff at a rapid clip.

"We thought this would be a good time to spin off Magnify Analytic Solutions as its own business unit," says Mark Petroff, CEO of Marketing Associates.

The downtown Detroit-based company has watched data analytics drive a lot of its growth in the last year. The company overall has grown its revenue by 5 percent while the data analytics side of the business has experienced healthy double-digit return.

"We are projecting another 25 percent growth for the (data analytics) business," Petroff says. He adds the company is projecting 8.5 percent overall revenue growth this year.

Marketing Associates moved from West Bloomfield to downtown Detroit in 2007, taking several floors of the One Kennedy Square building overlooking Campus Martius. It now employs 45 people in the space after hiring 20 people in the last year, including seven for its Magnify Analytic Solutions unit. Petroff expects his company will keep that rate of growth going for the foreseeable future.

"I think Magnify Analytics Solutions is going to add another 7-10 people and Marketing Associates is going to add another 7-10 people," Petroff says.

Source: Mark Petroff, CEO of Marketing Associates
Writer: Jon Zemke