Roderick Campbell is a man with a vision. Still in his mid-20s, he's already formed a successful marketing consulting agency called Brevity Works. Now he's joined with friends and partners to create the Edison Project, a launch pad for high-tech opportunities in downtown Olympia.

"Everybody agrees Olympia has talent," Campbell says. "We produce (talented) people, they just move to Seattle or Portland or the Bay Area. We'll be in a lot of trouble if we don't stem that kind of brain drain. The question is, what's missing? It's the economy. Our economy is almost entirely based on the service industry and government employees. That gives us a lot of protection from hard economic times, but there's no explosion." Campbell and a team of business mentors resolved to stem this outflow by giving downtown Oly a high-tech startup magnet of its own.

Across from Harlequin Productions on Fourth Avenue, next door to Last Word Books, stands the White Building, an elegant, sky-lit structure built in 1908. Campbell and friends, with considerable help from interior designer David Bettencourt Goularte, are busily refurbishing its second floor to host as many as a dozen startup companies by October of this year. The Edison Project delivers affordable office space, mentorship, and basic seed capital for fledgling tech-centric companies. "Official launch will be in August," Campbell says. "We'll have a big kickoff party in the space (and) demo the products that have already been created." The space offers free Wi-Fi, a rotating art gallery, original hardwood flooring under natural light, and all the benefits of downtown exposure - for less than $500 a month.

"Our initial goal is to launch with four companies in the first six months," Campbell explains. "We already have one company that we're vetting right now, and another we're about to vet. ... Those are our test subjects. They're not seed-funded. One of them integrates point-of-sale software with processing gateways to manage subscription payments. The other's a game designer."

Campbell knows all too well the travails of launching startups on "hot dog and ramen" budgets. "It's very difficult to launch a product successfully, in a timely fashion," he agrees, "if you also have to work full-time." Edison remedies this problem by matching tech projects with desperately needed startup capital. "The return on investment, on average, for a startup incubator is 30 to one," Campbell notes. "Every dollar put in generates 30 dollars. With a company like, for instance, TechStars in Seattle, it wouldn't be unreasonable for investors to expect to triple or quadruple their investment." Of course, that doesn't mean investors are taken for granted. "First we need to talk to them and see what their expectations are, make sure our project is the right place to put their money. ... It's still a gamble, so each investor needs to be the right person, and each investment needs to be the right dollar amount." Once companies have successfully launched and monetized new products, "we'll introduce them to investors who can take them to the next step."

The Edison Project is even sponsoring two new companies by providing space and services free. "That's more of a goodwill thing on my part," Campbell shrugs. To get in on Edison's ground floor-er, second floor, visit TheEdisonProject.com.

[The Edison Project, 209 Fourth Ave. E., 360.602.1440]