An Indianapolis business owner will lead the state\u2019s new Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, with a focus on supporting Hoosiers\u2019 launching the next generation of Main Street businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brian Schutt, the co-founder of Refinery46 \u2014 a co-working space and startup incubator in Indianapolis \u2014 and co-founder of Homesense Heating and Cooling, graduated from Purdue University\u2019s business school in 2003. He said part of the office\u2019s role includes featuring successful, homegrown startups in the Hoosier State.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most inspiring thing is to just know somebody else\u2019s story. And I think we have a lot of those,\u201d Schutt told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. \u201cA big part of the job is connecting with some of the flourishing businesses that already exist and sharing those stories. Because I don\u2019t think the state can force entrepreneurship \u2014 but we can help tell more stories that inspire people to recognize that they have gifts and they can be problem solvers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Indiana General Assembly established the office earlier this year in conjunction with an Indiana Economic Development Corporation\u00a0transparency effort<\/a>, explicitly charging the director with \u201cdevelop(ing) and administer(ing) programs to support the growth of small business, entrepreneurship and innovation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Schutt noted that while starting a business in Indiana is relatively easy in the legal sense, he said he didn\u2019t see the office as prescriptively telling businesses how to flourish, but rather finding \u201cwhere we can come alongside and where (we can) get out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s some programs that already exist that we\u2019re going to analyzing and seeing how they\u2019re working,\u201d said Schutt.<\/p>\n Gov. Mike Braun, who made the announcement Monday morning, has long lauded the office\u2019s anticipated launch, tying it to his own experience as a business owner.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c(First Lady) Maureen and I lived the American dream of growing Main Street businesses in our hometown, and I want every Hoosier to have that opportunity. Our goal is to make Indiana the best place in the country to start and build your own business, and the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation led by Brian Schutt will be a nation-leading resource to help Main Street entrepreneurs,\u201d he said in a release.<\/p>\n The office will report to Secretary of Commerce David Adams, also a Braun appointee. Schutt will also oversee the state\u2019s certified technology parks.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state of entrepreneurship in Indiana<\/p>\n The law<\/a>\u00a0creating Schutt\u2019s new role also directs him to identify ways to support rural communities and other underrepresented socioeconomic communities as well as youth entrepreneurship.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no thriving community without a thriving entrepreneur base,\u201d said Schutt. \u201c\u2026 we\u2019re not going to come through with this idea that central Indiana, Indianapolis has all the answers. Really, it has to be a collaborative effort. And a lot of solutions are, necessarily, community led.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship, Indiana lags\u00a0slightly behind<\/a>\u00a0its national peers when it comes to establishing new business opportunities. Though the national rate of new entrepreneurs in 2020 was 0.34% \u2014 meaning that 3.4 people out of every 1,000 adults became new entrepreneurs \u2014 Indiana\u2019s was only 0.25%.<\/p>\n Additionally, those startups created just 3.5 jobs for every 1,000 people while the national average was five jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Schutt has considered how to curate the next generation of entrepreneurs before, including a 2022 commentary in the Indianapolis Business Journal\u00a0on the role of parents<\/a>, with a goal of helping Hoosier children \u201csee problems as opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you see problems as opportunities, there\u2019s never going to be a shortage of opportunities,\u201d Schutt said, highlighting\u00a0Innovate WithIN<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0High School Hustle<\/a>\u00a0programs. \u201cThese are programs that already exist that really focus in on that mindset \u2026 the capacity to see a problem as an opportunity and not necessarily look around for someone else to be a problem solver.\u201d<\/p>\n In particular, lemonade stands are a longtime favorite for Schutt \u2014 though\u00a0an effort to protect those stands<\/a>\u00a0from local interventions has repeatedly failed \u2014 and he spent six years as a board member of Lemonade Day in Indianapolis, a program geared toward children, according to his LinkedIn.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLemonade stands are a great foundation. There\u2019s something catalytic when a kid is given the opportunity to create something on their own and earn that first dollar,\u201d said Schutt.<\/p>\n