About the Author: Chris Draper is CEO of Meidh Corporation, a Des Moines-based operations analysis firm that builds software-based integration tools for the property management industry. Meidh is a resident of StartupCity, a technology incubator located in downtown Des Moines. (Photo from linkedin.com.)
The following post was originally published on the StartupCity blog on Monday. Silicon Prairie News is republishing it with permission from Draper and StartupCity.
The newly minted “Silicon Sixth Avenue” is exactly what our city, county and state have been clamouring for: a high density of young, technology enabled risk takers. With nationally renowned start-ups bookending a Silicon Valley-style incubator, this new technology corridor is already seeing the kind of positive generation-to-generation externalities that lead to true wealth.
So what now?
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For anyone who has ever seen the Home Shopping Network or bought a memory foam pillow, you know what NASA means to the average household: from the road grooves before stop signs that have reduced highway traffic accidents by 85%, to the super-absorbent polymer called sodium polyacrylate that has significantly reduced the number of leaks from baby diapers, NASA has had more impact on earth than in space. According to NASA, “since 1976, over 1,600 documented NASA technologies have benefited U.S. industry, improved the quality of life, and created jobs.”
The reason NASA has been so successful is not because it works to develop these products. None of these technologies were intended for their eventual use. Further, it is rarely even the original development team that identifies a profitable use for these advances. It was the close observation of these developments through partnerships with more traditional organizations that found uses for these breakthroughs.
The same is possible along Silicon Sixth.
The Bank of America Building on 6th Avenue in Des Moines, shown here during the Startup Job Crawl on Nov. 16, is part of the blossoming technology corridor in downtown Des Moines. Photo by Brittany Mascio.
The majority of startups fail, and Silicon Sixth will be no different. When you are dealing on the bleeding edge of immature technologies, the inventor rarely gets rich. Assumptions may be wrong, partnerships may not materialize, or someone may just beat you to market with an alternative product. But this does not mean value was not created.
Very few people realize that PayPal spent three years telling people NOT to use their software as a means of buying and selling products online. It was originally intended to be a secure means of passing money back and forth between individuals. Sound familiar? Do you Dwolla?
There are probably few people who remember Webvan, a grocery delivery service that started during the Dot.Com Boom and went sour shortly after. It was a simple idea with a user problem: people were not ready for it. Now companies like Tesco are making the model profitable and Hy-Vee is only a few steps away. Have you checked out Hy-Vee’s “Online Grocery Shopping Store”?
Many startups could be immediately profitable for large corporations. What if Principal Financial Group looked closer at the architecture behind Tikly for its potential as a broker-focused up-sale tool? Or what if Nationwide Agribusiness saw the Meidh Tech tenant engagement tool for its potential to dynamically refine risk models predicated on subjective datasets? Or what if Ruan Trucking saw the potential for ShareWhere to reduce fleet fuel costs by influencing a four-dimensional retail spot market? What if Iowa’s largest corporations started to realize that the technologies these low-cost startups are developing could also immediately provide high-value growth for them?
But the real value of densely clustered, innovative organizations are the innovators behind them. When innovators cluster, ideas can be thoroughly vetted, ingenuity can accelerate, and solutions are found faster. The types of problems that take months to identify in a traditional, corporate environment are like cows in a river full of piranhas for incubators like StartupCity: they are set upon and devoured by minds wired to think outside the box. Much like what the X-Prize has done for the aerospace and biotechnology communities, Silicon Sixth is where traditional corporations could pit our community’s greatest technological innovators against each other in a race for solutions. Facilitating these product development competitions – no matter whether the product is physical, technological, or operational – will increase success while decreasing cost. And best of all, due to the nature of innovators, they are happy to sell out and move on: they give it life, and the corporation nurtures it through long-term profitability.
“But the real value of densely clustered, innovative organizations are the innovators behind them. When innovators cluster, ideas can be thoroughly vetted, ingenuity can accelerate, and solutions are found faster.”
Iowan corporations are valuable because they are risk adverse. Our house prices don’t fluctuate wildly. Our families know we will be home for dinner. Our clients can count on us to do the right thing. Iowans are the best kind of boring: we are dependable.
By effectively engaging Silicon Sixth, Iowan corporations can have it all. They can have the benefits of unbridled innovation without the risk of failure. They can have access to high profit solutions with low cost investment. They can decrease risk while increasing success. It is a proven model that rests at the core of what made Silicon Valley successful. For example, had anyone even heard of Proximal Labs before it was bought?
Space didn’t yield 1,600 technological innovations, NASA did. In Iowa, Silicon Sixth is where innovators are shooting for the stars.
