36 minute read
Guest Columns
GUEST COLUMN Lou Glazer Region’s employment earnings lag national average
Support is mounting for emphasizing four-year college degrees in Michigan.
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In a Crain’s Detroit Business op-ed, Glenn Stevens Jr., executive director of MICHauto, and Britany A olter-Caine, executive director of Michigan’s University Research Corridor, write: “The most successful strategy to ensure Michigan’s long-term competitiveness and economic prosperity is to increase the number of workers with college degrees and with digital skills in professions at all levels and across all industries in Michigan, while making our communities attractive places to live and work.
“Michigan won’t be the prosperous state we envision together without these deeper and more long-term investments. Short-term incentives, while important in the moment, are not going to be enough to get us to where we need to be. Pursuing manufacturing jobs is important, but Michigan also must compete for knowledge-based jobs, which are the ones that are growing in today’s economy. To win knowledge-based jobs, we need to re-invest in higher education, move more university discoveries to market, increase people trained in high-tech at all levels, retain them, and invest in our communities so they are attractive places to live, work and play.”
Exactly! Incentives to retain and attract manufacturing jobs cannot be the core strategy to return Michigan to high prosperity. Big incentives are the icing on the cake, not the foundation of recreating a Michigan economy with a broad middle class. That is because, as Stevens and Al olter-Caine note, knowledge-based occupations are now the growing, high-wage occupations.
Michigan has a two-tier labor market: one tier of occupations where fewer than 10% of the jobs require a bachelor’s degree and a preponderance of jobs that pay below what it takes to be middle class; and a second tier for occupations where more than 65% of the jobs require a bachelor’s degree and a preponderance of jobs that pay more than what is required to be middle class.
These high-wage occupations are: • Architecture and engineering • Arts, design, entertainment, sports and media • Business and fi nancial operations • Community and social service • Computer and mathematical • Educational instruction and library • Health care practitioners and technical • Legal • Life, physical and social science • Management
Combined, they account for 33.7% of the nation’s payroll jobs in 2020, which is up from 28.1% in 2000. By contrast, production (blue-collar factory) jobs have declined from 9.6% of the nation’s payroll jobs in 2000 to 6.1% in 2020.
Nationally, the 10 knowledge-based major occupations, with the exception of community and social services, have average wages above the national average of $56,310 for all jobs. Most are substantially above that number. Production has an average wage that is 25.9% below the average for all jobs.
The knowledge-based occupations are 32.8% of Michigan’s payroll jobs. By comparison, they are 42.3% of Massachusetts’ payroll jobs. Massachusetts is the prototypical high-prosperity/high knowledge-based econ-
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MI VIEW WEST Garth Kriewall Michigan journalist, kriewall@hotmail.com
West Michigan’s economic winners in 2022 will be those who best manage the virus. How’s that going for us?
GUEST COLUMN Matt Biersack and Diane Henneman Behavioral health hospital critical to the region
Mercy Health Saint Mary’s and Forest View Hospital have a long history of serving Kent County and surrounding communities with high quality and compassionate behavioral health services, regardless of an individual’s ability to pay.
Demand for behavioral health services has been on the rise over the last several years, as our population increasingly struggles with conditions such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorder. Without long-term solutions, the demand will continue to go unmet well after these challenging pandemic times are behind us.
In 2020, the Michigan Certifi cate of Need (CON) program recognized the need for 60 additional inpatient adult psychiatric beds in West Michigan. To make new beds available, the CON program uses a comparative review process designed to award available beds to the organization that presents the most viable strategy for sustainable, long-term access to quality behavioral health care — with an emphasis on serving the Medicaid and underinsured populations.
After applying the current CON review standards in the comparative review, the state of Michigan awarded a proposed decision for 60 new adult psychiatric inpatient beds to Havenwyck Hospital, a Michigan subsidiary of Universal Health Services (UHS) and a sister facility of Forest View Hospital.
In its proposed decision issued March 29, 2021, the state determined Havenwyck’s CON application satisfi ed all of the technical requirements to be a qualifying application. It also determined that Havenwyck scored higher than Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services under the established, objective comparative review criteria, including, most notably, Havenwyck’s commitment to serving the greatest number of Medicaid-insured patients. Although the CON decision is under appeal, Havenwyck anticipates a fi nal decision in 2022.
To bring further value to the continuum of care via integration of behavioral and medical services, Havenwyck/UHS initiated collaboration discussions with Mercy Health. Together, UHS and Mercy Health developed plans for a new, freestanding inpatient behavioral health hospital to be built near the Mercy Health Southwest Campus in Byron Center. The facility will accommodate up to 96 beds, which will include the 60 pending adult beds plus 24 additional, already-approved geriatric beds.
Programming will be tailored to individual patient needs, with core psychiatric services and counseling supplemented by enrichment activities such as art therapy, music therapy, pet therapy and outdoor activity. The design of the new facility will incorporate today’s modern, evidence-based care elements focusing on patient safety in a warm, healing environment.
The new facility will seamlessly tie into a growing network of a liated behavioral health services in the area, including UHS-operated Forest View Hospital and Mercy Health’s new partnership with Network180 to open a behavioral health crisis
LETTERS POLICY: The Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and guest commentary. Letters and columns must include the writer’s name, address and telephone number. Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the philosophy of the Business Journal. Letters and columns may be edited for reasons of space or clarity. Please submit to: The Editor, Grand Rapids Business Journal, 401 Hall St. SW, Suite 331, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 or email bjletters@grbj.com.
center for the rapid availability of assessment services on a walk-in basis. Further, the new facility will provide additional provider and patient choice in the market, specifi cally at an easily accessible location south of Grand Rapids.
Considerable investment already has been made in planning and development and we are ready to break ground soon after the CON appeal process concludes, and the fi nal decision is confi rmed in our favor. We are eager to proceed quickly and without further delays to deliver on our promises for new, enhanced behavioral health services. West Michigan, we know you are counting on us!
Matt Biersack, MD, is president and chief medical o cer of Mercy Health Saint Mary’s, a member of Trinity Health. Diane Henneman, LCSW, is division vice president, behavioral health, UHS.
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GUEST COLUMN Dave Kahle Frustrated by inability to develop new customers? Try a sales blitz
One of the most common complaints I hear from my clients is this: “I can’t seem to motivate the salespeople to call on prospects and develop them into new customers.”
There is a relatively simple, fun and inexpensive way to remedy this situation. It’s called a sales blitz. Unfortunately, few companies are even aware of it, and fewer yet use it.
Here’s the problem. Most B2B sales e orts are organized around a sales rep who is responsible for a specific set of accounts, or a specific geographical area. Typically, that rep is expected to grow the business with the current customers, as well as to identify and develop new customers. Clearly, most salespeople are better at one part of this two-part responsibility than the other. Usually, developing new customers takes second place in the salesperson’s priorities. Staying within their comfort zones and focusing on keeping the current customers happy becomes a higher priority on a day-to-day basis. As a result, few new customers are developed, and sales management is continually frustrated with the company’s poor performance.
Rather than continue beating a dead horse by trying to motivate the sales force to create new customers, one alternate approach is to implement a sales blitz.
What’s a sales blitz? It’s an organized e ort by the company to focus all of its sales force on a specific task in one specific territory. The most common task is to identify, qualify and engage potential new customers. But, a sales blitz also could be used to quickly communicate some hot new product or service to a market.
A sales blitz has the advantage of focusing the entire sales force on a specific task. That alone will bring you far greater results than if you’d just left it to each salesperson to do on their own.
But there are some additional benefits. For example, the preparation for a sales blitz provides you an opportunity to thoroughly train the sales force in one identifiable step in the sales process. Their competency thus improves. Additionally, you can usually measure their activities more specifically than normal. So, they become more competent and confident, and you more knowledgeable in the activities of your sales force.
Let me illustrate with an example. Let’s say that you have group of eight salespeople who are each expected to build the business with current customers as well as create new ones. You are continually frustrated with their performance in creating new customers. Out of the group of eight people, you’re lucky to have one new customer a month. Since you are not satisfied with this, you decide to do a sales blitz for new customers.
So, you select one geographical area or market segment on which to focus. In this case, let’s say one of your salespeople has a relatively new territory, so you select that territory as your focus. You decide that for a period of three days, you are going to pull your entire sales force out of their territories and direct them into the new salesperson’s territory.
You bring them together and explain the project. Their task is to identify, qualify and engage as many prospects as possible. The information gained and the doors opened in the process will then be provided to the territory rep, who will be expected to follow up and turn a significant number of these qualified prospects into customers.
You create a form for each salesperson. They must collect the information specified on the form from each prospect. The information could include such basics as the name and title of the key contact person, some information about the account and a sense of the opportunity for your company.
You then train the sales force in how to do just that one aspect of the sales process — make a cold call, collect some qualifying information and fill in the form. You spend a day role-playing and practicing.
Next, you provide them with a list of current customers (o limits) and a list of potential customers. You break the group into four teams of two people each, and on the map, outline four di erent areas for each. You announce that, at the end of each day, you’ll hold a short meeting. At that meeting, you’ll recount success stories, share information and tactics that have worked for various team members, and count up the number of contacts made and forms filled out by each team. The team with the most completed forms will be the day’s winner, and each member of the winning team will be awarded a gift certificate for dinner for two.
At this point, you have organized the group’s e orts by identifying the specific job to be done, provided the tools (forms and company literature), trained them in the task, focused them on a specific area, and added some structured time to learn and to be recognized.
On each day of the blitz, you stay in cell phone contact with each group, encouraging them throughout the course of the day.
At the end of the three days, you will probably have accumulated more prospects for your territory rep to follow up on than he/she would have done on his own in the course of a year or two.
Turn them over to the rep, keep a copy yourself, and watch the progress he/she makes in each account.
What have you accomplished? A number of powerful things: 1. You’ve created more qualified leads for the territory rep in a few days than he/she would have created in a few years. 2. You’ve created a fun experience for all your reps. 3. Each rep has learned some new skills as they focused on just one part of the sales process and repeated it over and over. They will be better at creating new customers in their own territory as a result of this learning experience.
That’s a sales blitz.
Keep in mind there is nothing new about this approach. It may be new to you, but it’s a time-tested, proven best practice. When I was 17 years old, I attained my first sales job working summers for The Jewel Tea Company. They were using sales blitzes as a regular part of their sales e orts. I won’t tell you how long ago that was, but you can measure the time duration in decades.
A couple of years ago, when I was working with one of my clients to establish a new sales force, we routinely used sales blitzes, rotating the blitz every other month from one territory to another. In the first two years, six salespeople created 638 new accounts.
Here are some do’s and don’ts of organizing a sales blitz: 1. Have a specific task in mind and make it as simple as possible. In the example above, the salespeople were to engage a prospective account and fill out a form that indicated whether the account was worth the time. They collected some information and attempted to have an introductory conversation about the company in order to raise some interest on the part of the account. So, in other words, the task was a cold call to qualify a prospect. 2. Focus everyone on a specific area or market segment. 3. Equip each person with the tools necessary to accomplish this task. 4. Thoroughly train them. Even with an experienced sales group, I’d spend at least one day role-playing, critiquing and practicing. Remember, cold calls are probably not the strength of any of your salespeople. Ignore their protests that they “know how to do it,” and train them as if they were brand new. You may be surprised at how far many of them have to come in order to be competent at it. 5. Keep it short and sweet. Three days in my example. 6. Break the group up into pairs or teams and create a competition among them. 7. Have some kind of daily debriefing. A half hour meeting at the end of each day was my choice. 8. O er a daily recognition and reward. 9. Post the results and follow through on the leads created to make sure that they are not squandered.
A sales blitz, well designed and well managed, can solve one of your company’s biggest shortcomings and spin o a number of valuable fringe benefits.
Dave Kahle is an author, consultant and speaker who has presented in 47 states and 11 countries, improved the performance of thousands of B2B salespeople and authored 13 books. Receive his insights on a regular basis here: https:// www.davekahle.com/subscribe-davese-zines/.
One man’s dream: Two Men and a Truck
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will deliver collection boxes to business partners and collect essential care items for community members in need ahead of Mother’s Day. The organization is currently seeking additional business partners to host collection boxes for the event to help extend its impact.
Other charitable contributions include Movers for Mutts benefitting Michele’s Rescue in Grand Rapids, delivering face masks and hand sanitizer to Mercy Health, using trucks to pick up Toys for Tots donations, delivering food items to those who’ve lost their homes during the pandemic, and transporting pallets of diapers to families in need.
“When you’ve got a bunch of trucks, there’s always organizations that can use some help. We’ve got the manpower and trucks, so we just kind of help out whenever we can,” Norcutt said.
According to Norcutt, the previous owner of the recently acquired Grand Rapids South location ran a good operation and already had good people in place, and he looks forward to building on the foundation of good customer service with his local team network to further the company’s success and community impact in West Michigan.
“You know, there’s really a long history of providing good customer service in West Michigan and that’s just our goal, to keep continuing that and improving it over time. We operate with about a 90% referral rate with our customers, and the West Michigan markets have kind of been leaders in the Two Men truck system for a long time. So, it’s just nice to kind of keep that going and keep on going from there,” Norcutt said.
Region’s employment earnings lag national average
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omy state: second in per capita income and first in the proportion of adults with a bachelor’s degree or more.
The knowledge-based occupations are 29.5% of metro Grand Rapids’ payroll jobs. By comparison, they are 44.6% of metro Boston’s jobs.
The knowledge-based occupations are high-wage in metro Grand Rapids, but still are lower than the national average and even farther behind metro Boston in all 10 of the knowledge-based major occupations. The metro Grand Rapids major occupations with average wages below the national average for all jobs are arts, design, entertainment, sports and media; community and social services; and educational instruction and library. The other seven metro Grand Rapids major occupations have average wages substantially above the national average for all jobs, ranging from more than $19,000 above for business and financial operations jobs to more than $57,000 above for management jobs.
Just like the nation, production jobs in metro Grand Rapids are below average wage jobs: more than $10,000 lower than the region’s average for all jobs and nearly $20,000 below the national average for all jobs.
Metro Grand Rapids is under-concentrated in employment compared to the nation in all the knowledge-based occupations except for architecture and engineering and health care practitioners and technical, where the region is over-concentrated compared to the nation, and arts, design, entertainment, sports and media, where the region’s concentration is even with the nation’s average. By contrast, metro Boston is over-concentrated in employment compared to the nation in all the knowledge-based occupations.
Metro Grand Rapids’ under-concentration and lower average wage in these knowledge-based major occupations are major reasons why the region’s employment earnings (wages and employer paid benefits) per capita are 9% below the national average. By contrast, metro Boston’s employment earnings per capita are 55.4% above the national average.
As Stevens and Alffolter-Caine conclude, the data are clear: the path to recreating a high-prosperity Michigan and metro Grand Rapids is an economic development strategy focused on competing for high-wage/high-growth, knowledge-based jobs.
Local logistics company fuels up for sustained growth
Vine Line is moving past its roots as a produce carrier into a full-service firm.
Chelsea Carter
ccarter@grbj.com
Grand Rapids-based Vine Line Logistics is paving the way for scaling its operations amid multiple changes, including a move to a new o ce, bringing on multiple new hires, and becoming an independently owned and operated entity under its newly appointed president, Steve Lyons.
In 2008, Steve’s father, Gary Lyons, founded Custom Logistics, providing transportation services for a produce wholesaler and distributor. After restructuring for growth and customer service accommodations over the years, the firm later reorganized and in 2015 became known as Vine Line Logistics. The company now is independently owned and operated out of Grand Rapids, which Lyons said sets the company up for scale.
“We were part of Vine Line Group and Vine Line Group was the parent company to Vine Line Produce, Vine Line Trucking and Vine Line Logistics. Most recently, Vine Line Produce and Vine Line Trucking were purchased by a company called Fresh Edge, (which is) the parent company of numerous produce wholesalers’ distributions throughout the Midwest. So, (Fresh Edge) came in and purchased that and the logistics company ended up in full ownership underneath my dad, Gary Lyons,” Lyons said. “So, from there, we were able to essentially move out of the Comstock Park facility that we were in as a collective group of companies.”
As part of the larger entity, Vine Line Logistics’ primary business model was once centered solely on the transportation of produce. Looking ahead, the firm plans to continue to build on its credibility in that space while also expanding into other areas. The transition to growing its service portfolio has been successful thus far, as produce transport now accounts for 25% of the business, with 75% of hauls being non-produce, which Steve Lyons said is fueling growth more space and more team members.
He was appointed president of the company in December and now oversees all operations. Lyons said the company that once consisted of himself, his dad and brother, now has nearly 15 employees on sta , 10 of which were hired in the last two years, with plans to hire five or six additional employees in 2022.
The Vine Line Logistics team is being housed at Start Garden while awaiting completion of its new o ce on the fourth floor above New Holland Brewery, 408 Broadway Ave. NW. The o cial move-in date is still to be determined as, ironically, supply chain issues a ecting construction.
Lyons said he is excited to move in, noting that he will be able to look out the window at his alma mater, Grand Valley State University, while also being part of the West Side’s thriving Bridge Street community. He said many of the company’s newest hires are recent college graduates or have some sort of experience related to the field, and he hopes the new location and other changes will attract additional recent college graduates to the team.
Vine Line also started its internship program in 2021 and then brought on its trainee as a full-time employee. The company already has plans to continue its new program with a new intern starting in May, as it looks to continue the progression of adding to its team with a focus on career development and employee retention.
“So, the space, the area, having those amenities close, and just being in that demographic, I feel like will put us in a great position to grow our company and recruit the type of candidates and the talent that we’re looking for,” Lyons said. “… (We’re) looking forward to being able to tap into some of the recent and current college talent (and) be able to teach them kind of how this whole thing works, so it’s really exciting for us. I think that we’ve wanted to grow a brokerage for a while now, and it’s just, now that we’re set, you know, now that we’re spun o , we have the opportunity to do just that.”
Prior to recent operational and employment developments, the Lyons family envisioned Vine Line’s future and began establishing the foundation for defining new roles and positions. Entry-level candidates typically start as carrier sales representatives, whose primary role is understanding how to secure capacity from trucking companies and beginning to grow professional relationships. From there, team members often move into logistics representatives, taking their prior experience and redirecting it to the customer side.
In anticipation of an ever-growing team, Vine Line recently appointed one of its logistics sales reps to be the firm’s first logistics sales manager to oversee the customer-facing side and hired a carrier sales manager for the other newly created position that will oversee the carrier-facing team.
“As we’re growing, (there is) the need for these defined positions of who’s managing that team, the carrier side, who’s managing the customer side, who’s handling our accounting, and who’s kind of leading the ship. All these things become far more important when you start increasing the number of employees,” Lyons said. “That’s been the fun part of how do we create the rules? How do we create the positions?”
To further attract new hires, the firm also has focused on competitive compensation as brokerages often o er ample opportunities that tend to involve an additional commission structure.
“How do we make sure to align our compensation packages to be very competitive and fair, and also motivate people in a way, while also giving them a great work environment and have a great culture?” he said.
The process of bringing on new hires also has a rmed the company’s flexibility as it works to find the best possible position for each candidate.
“That’s been something where throughout all the hires, we’ve found what we thought somebody would be really good at. We’re like, ‘Oh, wait, actually you’d be really good on the customer side,’ and so then that opportunity presents itself and we just kind of are small enough to be nimble and … put the right people in the right place.”
As the company worked through establishing the best possible positions for each of its employees, Lyons said Vine Line has a much better identity going into 2022 and a clearer vision of what positions will fulfill the company’s needs to further propel its growth, centered on integrity, trust, respect and transparency. He said he believes that a focal point of setting his employees up for success will translate to setting his customers, and therefore the company, up for success, as well.
“I feel like we’ll run a company that just has a very high-level reputation. And one of the things in this industry and brokerage is that a lot of customers, or just people in general, think that they’re being raked over the coals by brokers, they’re charging them too much. And, you know, they don’t have the transparency that (customers) are looking for, and there’s then this thing that brokerages just are making a bunch of money because we’re kind of the middlemen. And I think that with customers, they really need to be able to know that we’re being honest,” Lyons said. “There’s a lot of times where people will say, like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, the truck broke down,’ and they don’t know if that broker’s being honest.”
Lyons emphasized the importance of leading an honest team that can be open and upfront with not just customers, but management alike.
“We’re all human. You know, ‘honesty is the best policy’ is super cliche, but ultimately we want our sta to be able to hold a high reputation in the marketplace so that when people work with Vine Line, they know they’re going to be treated right, they know that they’re going to get honest communication.”
Lyons
Investment directed at mitigating farm risks Electrical company invests in own apprentices to fill talent pipeline
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•Price or market risk refers to uncertainty about the prices producers will receive for commodities or the prices they must pay for inputs. The nature of price risk varies significantly from commodity to commodity. •Financial risk results when the farm business borrows money and creates an obligation to repay debt. Rising interest rates, the prospect of loans being called by lenders and restricted credit availability also are aspects of financial risk. •Institutional risk results from uncertainties surrounding government actions. Tax laws, regulations for chemical use, rules for animal waste disposal, and the level of price or income support payments are examples of government decisions that can have a major impact on the farm business. •Human or personal risk refers to factors such as problems with human health or personal relationships that can a ect the farm business. Accidents, illness, death and divorce are examples of personal crises that can threaten a farm business.
Organizations must apply by March 11 at www.rvs.umn.edu/ home.aspx. The RMA is prioritizing projects focused on underserved, organic and specialty crop producers.
Agriculture is one of Michigan’s top industries. It contributes more than $104.7 billion annually to the state’s economy, second in diversity only to California, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Some of the leading crops the state produces are asparagus, black and cranberry beans, cucumbers, tart cherries, Niagara grapes and squash.
More information about USDA’s Risk Management Agency is available here.
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cal education and a career path in a fun and challenging work environment.”
Lee Hiler
trical decided to start the program.
“We want to make sure that students, specifically who are in high school, realize that there is an alternative to college,” he said.
Bouma said Hoekstra Electrical is constantly looking for electricians.
“When you are running a business you need a licensed individual,” he said. “You are either going to hire that licensed individual or you are going to grow them yourself and train them yourself. That was one of the things that we landed on, and that is we need to focus on training some of these people that we have been finding that fit our culture, fit our values and that we can invest in and hopefully make them a longterm part of our team.”
After the apprentices attain licensed journeyman status, they can do additional training to become master electricians, Bouma said.
“We really want to invest in our community this way,” Bouma said. “There is a new way to look at schooling, post-high school, and we really desire to invest in this team here. We are not doing this to cut any cost measures. It would cost us even more, but this way we get to lean into our culture. We all want employees that are a part of our culture and follow our mission and values. That is really important to us, and we see this as a critical way to do so moving forward.”
Partners report strong startup growth
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the Grand Rapids startup scene surge with unique innovation, winning technology and top-notch talent,” Wesley said. “Our new team now in Grand Rapids is an experienced group of professionals who bring such integral connections to the community, and we look forward to our continued work with Start Garden and the LDFA in the Grand Rapids market.”
Start Garden rounded out the year with 20 tech startups incubating out of its location at 40 Pearl St. NW in downtown Grand Rapids. Fifty-one percent of companies served were underrepresented business owners or founders seeking to solve underrepresented problems, and $100,000 in direct funding was invested in underrepresented entrepreneurs. The LDFA’s Gateway grant program and the Grand Rapids Business Accelerator Fund (BAF), the latter made possible by the Michigan Small Business Development Center and the MEDC, issued more than $55,000 to support local business accelerators in Michigan’s SmartZone network. Throughout 2021, these early grant funds helped serve Grand Rapids’ high-tech/highgrowth startups at a crucial time due to the impact of COVID-19.
“2021 had the strongest and most diverse tech startups come through Start Garden’s platforms that we’ve seen yet,” said Paul Moore, a co-director of Start Garden. “Grand Rapids is an exploding market for investors searching for new deals, and our plans for the year ahead will only help us create a stronger culture of entrepreneurship and invest whatever we can into that culture.”
Also in Q1 2022, Spartan Innovations and Start Garden established an Entrepreneur-In-Residence Program (see related story).
Spartan Innovations did its second Conquer Accelerator cohort in Grand Rapids from September-November, and Start Garden continued its 5x5 monthly pitch competition and its annual 100 Ideas event. The latter generated the strongest cohort of tech startups yet, with 650 submissions narrowed down to 28 tech startup finalists. Four startups were funded, and 12 continue to incubate.
Tom Stewart, program director for Conquer Accelerator and assistant director of venture acceleration for Spartan Innovations, said after running two cohorts of Conquer Accelerator in Grand Rapids, he continues to be impressed by the ideas, talent and skill of the entrepreneurs in the region.
Up to five startups are chosen to participate in the 10-week Grand Rapids Conquer cohort each fall. Conquer supports participants by providing $20,000 in funding, mentorship, access to follow-on funding and other resources. Once companies move on from the accelerator, they become part of Red Cedar Ventures’ investment portfolio.
“It’s been exciting to see all the good deal flow coming out of (Grand Rapids),” Stewart said. “It’s a good sign when you’re looking over applications and it’s hard to figure out which ones are going to make it to the top five. There are so many good things happening and so many good ideas bubbling up to the top, it really speaks volumes to the type of opportunity there is in Grand Rapids in the tech ecosystem.”
Conquer Accelerator, which began five years ago with an East Lansing cohort, still has ongoing East Lansing cohorts that run in the summer and are open to any Michigan startup, whereas the Grand Rapids cohort is geographically limited.
Wesley said Conquer Accelerator and the SmartZone management partnership, in combination with the BAF, the Gateway and other funding opportunities in West Michigan to take startups from early to later stage, give entrepreneurs in the city of Grand Rapids a greater chance than ever before of succeeding on their path to commercialization. He said by comparison, other cities in Michigan tend to operate in silos and are less partnership-oriented, which makes it hard for startups to access resources in an integrated way.
“What’s really great about our model and the partnerships we have is we try to touch every one of those companies that apply (to Conquer),” Wesley said. “We either can connect them with other resources if they’re at an earlier stage, we can connect them with the SBDC services, or if there’s others that, for whatever reason, aren’t in direct alignment, we have somebody they can connect with, or we have other people on our team that might make sense to support them in di erent ways.”
Jeremiah Gracia, director of economic development for the city of Grand Rapids, said the Start Garden/Spartan Innovations partnership results in Q1 2022 are “notable.” “Company engagements and assistance continue to grow, with a focus on increasing the number of underrepresented/underserved high-tech business founders,” he said. “This is an important contribution to the city’s Equitable Economic Development and Mobility Strategic Plan.”
Spartan Innovations set the following goals for its involvement in the BAF program for the next 12 months: •Accelerate economic impact: Grow investments and coordinate with the Grand Rapids community for the benefit of the city. •Extend support services to Grand Rapids companies: Support companies with other resources and services through Michigan State University, Red Cedar Ventures and more. •Elevate peer-to-peer relationships: Continue to examine all BAF SmartZones in partnership with the MEDC for opportunities to improve and ensure best practices are
in place. •Ramp up marketing and communications: Expand outreach, grow this division and share success stories of Grand Rapids startups in partnership with the MSU Foundation. •Expand the partnership with Start Garden: Build on programs in place and partner on upcoming community events. From a real estate perspective, Spartan Innovations, in collaboration with the MSU College of Human Medicine, will open the planned incubator in Douglas Meijer Medical Innovation Building to the Grand Rapids market in Q2 2022. Spanning 18,000 square feet, this new incubator will provide support and programming for startups, including space for Spartan Innovations. The building includes private industry and health care teams focused on cancer research, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, artificial intelligence, and medical device development. The new space will drive innovaWesley tion in public-private partnerships by encouraging relationships across tenants and is expected to bring new discoveries to market. As a final key milestone, Spartan Innovations recently hired new team members, including three new Grand Rapids-based professionals focused on health care innovation, BAF and Gateway, and program management. More information on Spartan Innovations is available at spartaninnovations.org, and more information on Start Garden is available at startgarden.com.
Stewart
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ity tech startup JustAir, co-founder of the national angel fund for founders of color called Commune Angels, and former manager for entrepreneur selection and growth at Endeavor Detroit, a branch of a national entrepreneurial support organization.
Riley is contracted for 18 months as a 1099 employee of Start Garden and will be paid a $50,000 stipend, funded by the SmartZone tax capture, to spend at least 20 hours a week developing and supporting a portfolio of tech startups associated with the Grand Rapids SmartZone.
He will spend the remainder of his time working on his own startup, JustAir, which he co-founded with James Meeks and Hasib Ikramullah and which has placed sensors in the city of Grand Rapids to gather air quality data and uses proprietary software to assess the data collected and make it actionable.
“If there was a bullseye (for the EIR target), I would write on the bullseye the name ‘Darren Riley,’” said Paul Moore, a co-director of Start Garden who is helping to develop the EIR program. “… We got to know him through his startup, and as he was in the process of looking for places in Grand Rapids and transitioning from Detroit over to here, this EIR opportunity popped up, and it just seemed to fit him perfectly.”
Riley said he loves the “ecosystem-building” approach of Start Garden and felt the organization was a good nexus for it on the west side of the state, based on observations made from Detroit and nationally, as well as his own personal experience working with Start Garden to get funding and resources for JustAir.
“When you look at Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, two cities that are pretty far apart, they’re very collaborative, and their ecosystems really cross-pollinate. I think we do the same thing here in our region — share resources, share talent and really push each other, across the state. … I got approached about the EIR program, and given that I’m an entrepreneur myself and an investor … I thought it was a good match,” he said.
“I’m really passionate about other entrepreneurs and sharing resources and knowledge while I’m on this journey. Others are ahead of me, and others are just getting started, and so wherever I can help push our ecosystem in the right direction and also make it very inclusive — I was very aligned with Start Garden’s vision (of) reaching out, being proactive and being intentional about going to neighborhoods where problems can be solved.”
Riley said working for Endeavor Detroit gave him “pattern recognition,” which he plans to leverage in his EIR role.
“I saw all di erent industries, all di erent businesses around the globe, and I saw what works, what doesn’t work. … The best way to experience the startup world is to engage with those founders in a deep way. I see the same thing here and so the value for me, selfishly, is meeting these entrepreneurs who are very passionate, especially first-time founders who have a di erent approach and di erent culture when it comes to entrepreneurship — things I can take and share, as well.”
Riley said his angel fund, Commune Angels, focuses on investing in underrepresented founders and underrepresented problems, and JustAir also is tackling the problem of disproportionate air pollution in underrepresented neighborhoods. He said these focus areas feel like a good fit with the mission of Start Garden and will be what he hopes to focus on as EIR, as well.
Start Garden shared a job description for the EIRs that was based on the MSU Foundation’s template for its own EIR programs. The document said the EIR’s responsibilities will include helping to: •Determine commercially viable products and/or services •Define the potential market for these technologies •Develop a validation strategy for the identified technologies •Develop overall business model and investment/funding thesis •Support customer discovery for the technologies and accumulate industry feedback •Establish corporate documents and structure (ready the entity for investment, if not completed) •Develop financing strategy (and, if ready, start fundraising) •Develop near- and long-term corporate strategy •Identify/establish key relationships (consultants, vendors, etc.) •Pursue funding opportunities and assist Spartan Innovations in Small Business Innovation Research applications, if applicable
The EIR is required to file quarterly reports to the SmartZone LDFA on startup status, stage, milestones, timeline, funding and development.
The EIR has access to a yearround training program to cover areas he or she might have deficiencies in to ensure they are able to create a startup, generate a business plan and execute on that plan.
EIRs can take an active role in the companies they support as CEO, president, COO, business development o cer or other positions. Though EIRs are paid a stipend through the program, they also can draw salary and take equity in these companies, as well.
After Riley’s 18-month contract, he will transition back to working on his startup full time and another EIR will be appointed for the remainder of Start Garden and Spartan Innovations’ three-year contract managing the SmartZone Incubator.
Those interested in learning more about the EIR program can contact Riley at darren@justair.co or Moore at paul@startgarden.com.
