The tangible results of innovation are easy to spot in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, whether it’s new technologies and services or a company’s growth in terms of new employees or revenue.
But what makes those milestones meaningful is what preceded them — hours of work, pivots, failures and a culture that supports innovators throughout the journey.
At this year’s innovationIOWA event, held on July 11, panelists discussed the state and future of innovation in Iowa and what it looks like for all stakeholders from entrepreneurs to corporate to nonprofit to put innovation into action.
Panelists included:
- Jens Dancer, director of engineering, Gross-Wen Technologies
- Jon Darsee, chief innovation officer, University of Iowa
- Tej Dhawan, managing director and co-founder, Plains Angels
- Candi Karsjens, director, NIACC John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center
- Jeff Reed, founder and CEO, Momentum Studios
Panelists each shared a trend they are seeing related to innovation and posed a question they thought stakeholders should consider to help drive forward innovation and entrepreneurship in Iowa. Here is what they shared. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
To view the full video of the event, click here. (Panel discussion begins at 28:15)
Trends in Iowa’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem
Darsee: I think the pandemic really helped in one way that there is so much more willingness to be either remote or work fractionally. When you’re starting something new and you don’t have a lot of cash and you don’t necessarily have the right talent around you, a really key thing is finding the right talent to help move you forward. Now the way the world has opened up, it seems a lot more acceptable to pull talent in. [One of our startups] Perspective Therapeutics searched for three years to find a CEO. It wasn’t someone who was going to live in Iowa, but they didn’t need that. They needed someone with the right expertise. They finally found a person who had direct experience in [their] space but also had worked on Wall Street. This person helped them facilitate a reverse merger with a public company … now they have real operating capital to maneuver. But if they hadn’t found the right CEO, that would’ve never happened.
Dhawan: Another trend that’s a progression, really [is] what used to be popular as incubators 15 years ago transitioned into accelerators about a decade ago. Those accelerators have now given way to venture studios, where teams of professionals who’ve done this before come together to solve a specific problem. Every one of these entities is bringing a group of individuals from far, for a specific purpose. Solve a problem, then maybe even move that team to the right technology where that team can excel with their product, with their solutions. That is antithetical to the way where we used to say for economic development purposes bring the company en masse to Iowa. I think that that world has at least transitioned for a while where globally diverse, globally connected teams will solve specific problems, find commercial success and then move that capital into the next set of ventures, whatever they may be.
Karsjens: In the rural areas, we’re having to innovate within the whole ecosystem, so everything’s related. We want to help companies grow and scale, but they need additional workforce, and to have additional workforce, you need additional housing. And to attract those people to work, you need additional restaurants and lifestyle businesses, so it’s one big ecosystem. The most innovative trend I’ve seen is within some of our rural economic development groups actually starting another nonprofit to work on housing issues — to buy housing, to buy buildings on Main Street that they can turn around and lease out. I think that’s what it’s going to take in the rural areas to sustain — not to grow, just to sustain.
Reed: There’s a lot of different market conditions present today. [The pandemic] really perpetuated things. Things that may have happened eight or 10 years from now, they just happened at an increasingly fast rate. But I do think that there is a silver lining of those things because a trend I see is companies really have to understand and invest in innovation. They also have to define it. What’s unique is innovation seems to be ambiguous. It’s like, “Yeah, we’re innovative.” Well, what does that mean? There’s a study [that says] there’s between 40 and 60 definitions of innovation. How you define it, it can be extremely different, but it’s pushing companies to understand and define what innovation is. Is it process improvement? Is it technology-related? I like seeing that in the environment where people have to create value in a different way. They’re not just creating things for waste. Basically, COVID pushed people to think how do we make things better, how do we compete at a different level? That is a trend that has started because of COVID and I think will continue to be able to compete in the marketplace.
Dancer: From Gross-Wen’s perspective, where we’ve seen our innovation in Iowa continue to go is the challenges for water treatment that we were facing 10 years have gradually continued to be solved — we’ve been part of that — but then there’s continual challenges moving forward and we’re trying to position ourselves to continue to innovate on our technology to be ready for those challenges when they do come down from the regulators.
Questions to help move Iowa forward
Reed: Maybe the first thing to do is pause and ask ourselves if the questions we’re asking are the right questions. That’s part of the innovation process — is the challenge we’re working on really the right challenge? I’m not saying that it’s not, but by digging and understanding how we’re connecting with communities or how we’re helping students or how we’re providing support to businesses. Even the venture piece, there’s so many ways to get involved in investment that it doesn’t have to be a $10 million check. It could be 20 people that write a $500,000 check. I really think it’s pausing and reflecting and saying are we working on the right challenges? As those conversations grow, [it’s] understanding how do we make those initiatives statewide?
Karsjens: I think the question we need to ask is where are the gaps? We have to take a higher-level overview. I think we need to identify where are the gaps and then who are the people that can help us come up with the plan to fill those gaps?
Dhawan: Last year’s innovationIOWA Magazine highlighted those five stakeholder groups — corporates, entrepreneurs, risk capital, university and government. Each of us can probably fit ourselves into one of those five and maybe even more than one. Find which one you’re in and see how you can help the youngest companies being formed in your region. You just need one or two, you don’t need a dozen. Step in with one or two and watch the magic happen.
Darsee: Asking the questions is something you have to constantly do to make sure that the premise that we have going forward and that what we’re funding, what we’re supporting is the right thing for us. On my side at the university, often it’s about health care. It’s really expensive to get the health care product all the way through the regulatory [process]. It doesn’t necessarily resonate locally until the thing is in the market and it’s available to humans. We’re growing all this talent. Some of it will stay and that’s terrific, but some of it’s going to go to Boston, and it needs to go to Boston because that’s where the talent is and that’s where the money is and they have to move really fast. We have to be OK with that. I think we constantly have to be asking these questions to understand if we’re supporting the community in the best way possible and it has to have support from all the stakeholders.
Dancer: For me, innovation is about solving challenges. The question that I’d ask everybody to ask themselves is what are the challenges we’re facing in Iowa or collective challenges that we face on our day-to-day and then using your resources or connections to find innovators or businesses that are already trying to solve those challenges and really encourage them. Bring them into this space, help them connect to people that can bring them to, maybe a successful unicorn exit, or whatever it is. Whatever level of success that they’re trying to get to, really seek to solve the challenges that we’re all facing.
