creative economy : Innovation + Job News

Seven recent graduates of the University of Minnesota, who met in the Carlson School’s Entrepreneurship in Action class, are taking the course’s title to heart. Within weeks of coming together last fall, the group had hatched an idea for a homegrown premium hard cider brand called Lionheart Cider.
 
Thanks in part to ample startup funding secured through Entrepreneurship in Action, Lionheart was a student division semi-finalist in the 2015 MN Cup — a huge leap for a concept that has yet to see its first birthday.
 
Lionheart closed its first production round last month and is now on shelves in about 120 liquor stores in MSP and surrounding areas, with Artisan Beer Company handling distribution. The suggested retail price on its 16-ounce can 4-packs is $7.99, which co-founder Anna Lin says is “affordable” relative to other premium craft cider brands.
 
Co-founder Jason Dayton, one half of an avid father-son home cidermaking team, developed Lionheart’s “not too sweet” recipe. “Lionheart is designed for people who find popular brands like Angry Orchard to sweet,” Lin says.
 
Lionheart’s co-founders aren’t typical startup types. Some were finance and business majors, but others focused on journalism (like Lin), agriculture and music during their undergrad years. All are first-time entrepreneurs “who don’t always know what we’re doing,” says Lin, who admits that the group has quibbled over plans and tactics.
 
“But the difficult periods present the greatest learning opportunities,” she adds.
 
Some Lionheart co-founders do have entrepreneurial pedigrees, including Lin herself. Lin’s father, a former truck driver, worked his way into the fueling industry shortly after China’s economy liberalized in the 1980s. He now owns a thriving gas station business. Not to be outdone, her mother runs two coffee shop franchises in China.
 
“[My parents’] hard work is why I’m here in Minnesota, speaking a second language fluently, meeting amazing people,” and learning firsthand what it takes to be an entrepreneur, says Lin.
 
In the near term, Lionheart’s team is looking forward to soliciting customer feedback on its original cider recipe and growing its Minnesota account base. But Dayton and the rest of the group are already mulling new flavors and styles within the “not too sweet” universe, plus an expanded distribution footprint.
 
“We eventually hope to have several varieties and distribute in multiple states, perhaps even nationally,” says Lin.
 
Lin herself may not take part in Lionheart’s long-term growth. Her current visa expires next year, and she’ll have to find work in journalism or a related field — and a sponsorship from any potential employer (Lionheart may not count) — to qualify for a longer-term work visa that allows her to stay in the United States. Given federal work visa caps and intense competition from highly qualified candidates, Lin knows she might not make the cut — though she’s eternally optimistic.
 
Regardless of how Lionheart’s leadership team — or the company itself — looks in three years, the experience has already been immensely rewarding for Lin and her colleagues. “It’s an amazing blessing to be able to come [to the United States] and work on a project like this,” she says. “I never would have hung out with or spoken to any of [my colleagues] were it not for Lionheart.”
 

Prolific MSP artist Cindy Lindgren is teaming up with Modern Yardage, a digital fabric printing company, to launch a Minneapolis-centric fabric line called “City of Lakes.” Lindgren debuted City of Lakes this May at the International Quilt Market, a national trade show. The fabrics feature iconic Minneapolis images, including Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles and Lake Harriet, plus the downtown skyline, Uptown theater marquee, bikes and Nordic skis.
 
“City of Lakes is my tribute to the wonderful chain of lakes and all the activities we love to participate in, whether it's music, nature or biking,” Lindgren explains.
 
The City of Lakes concept could soon go national. “[City of Lakes] got a lot of attention” at the International Quilt Market, says Lindgren. She’s already been approached by several other U.S. cities about custom-designed hometown fabric lines. She plans to finish work on her first two non-MSP city lines — Appleton, Wisconsin, and Watkins Glen, New York — in the coming months, with an eye to snagging additional clients and selling her work in local stores.
 
For now, Lindgren is throwing her multi-pronged marketing operation behind City of Lakes. She sells the fabrics themselves through Modern Yardage, her preferred fabric production partner. “Modern Yardage prints fabric on demand, so it can offer niche themes to their customers,” she says, giving “designers...a lot of freedom to create unique designs not offered by other large fabric companies.”
 
Lindgren sells City of Lakes prints and cards at her personal Etsy shop and “various gift shops and stores around MSP,” including The Minnesota History Center, Bibelot, The University of Minnesota Book Store and The Como Conservatory. Suburban outposts, such as the Mall of America’s Afternoon Store and Edina’s West Elm outlet, offer Lindgren’s work as well.
 
Lindgren also maintains a fruitful collaborative relationship with The Linden Tree, a specialty fabric shop and creative hub in Linden Hills. Linden Tree staffers consulted closely with Lindgren during the City of Lakes project’s design phase, produced prototype samples and reserved ample shelf space for the finished products.
 
Though MSP will always be City of Lakes fabrics’ natural home, Lindgren is actively seeking licensing partnerships with printers, retailers and apparel-makers in Minnesota and beyond. Current licensees include Great Arrow Graphics, Check Advantage (a personal check printer) and Janome (pending).
 
Lindgren describes her artistic style as “Craftsman Nouveau,” which include such stylistic hallmarks as “rich color palettes” and clean lines.
 
“My inspiration comes from William Morris, Frank Lloyd Wright and the WPA-era posters,” says Lindgren. “I'm also influenced by my midwestern upbringing and choose to illustrate the places, plants, flowers and birds around me.”
 
 

mini_polis, the winner of Minneapolis’ third annual Creative City Challenge, will be on display August 13 at the second Creative City Market, held from 4 to 9 p.m. at the Minneapolis Convention Center Plaza. mini_polis will be on display at the plaza for the third and final Creative City Market, on September 10, and remain outdoors until October 15.
 
Dubbed “a miniature city of collective imagination,” mini_polis is a scale model of downtown Minneapolis some 50 feet in diameter.
 
Unlike the past two Creative City Challenge winners, which were constructed by small teams of dedicated artists, mini_polis is the fruit of dozens of professional and amateur craftspeople’s labor. SocialSculpture, a Minneapolis-based sculpture collective led by Niko Kubota, oversaw the basic design and provided pre-made kits for guided construction of individual houses and apartment buildings at five supervised workshops held in April and May this year. Staff members from Leonardo’s Basement were on hand at all five workshops to guide less experienced makers. All participants were invited to record their stories and thoughts for a multimedia station that accompanies mini_polis on the Convention Center Plaza.
 
mini_polis’s miniature buildings are surrounded by gentle ramps and walkways that follow the outline of Minneapolis’ Interstate highways, allowing viewers (including those in wheelchairs) to enter and explore the sculpture. According to mini_polis’s website, visitors can “respond to builder’s dreams…[and] make their own place-specific comments about the city” using chalkboard paint on the sculpture’s surface.
 
mini_polis’s showcase event, Creative City Market, is no less engaging. The Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild will be on hand to pour local craft beer favorites, with fair food (roasted corn, brats and hot dogs) for sustenance. The plaza’s performance space hosts local musician Mayda from 5 to 6, the Milu Milu Couture fashion show from 6 to 6:30, and spoken word performances (various artists) from 7 to 9. A locally produced movie, presented by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Film Society, will be shown. Local makers and vendors — painters, tattoo artists, textile and jewelry specialists, potters and others — will mingle with the crowd, educating and delighting patrons.
 
“Creative City Market is a free monthly experience in the heart of our downtown that celebrates the art of making,” says Kristen Montag, Meet Minneapolis communications and public relations manager.
 
Creative City Market is sponsored by the Minneapolis Convention Center, the City of Minneapolis and Meet Minneapolis, with support from Northern Lights.mn and the Musicant Group.
 

SaundersDailey, a first-of-its-kind web platform by local real estate veteran Marshall Saunders and digital marketing whiz Jason Dailey, is empowering MSP locals to invest in the region’s accelerating real estate market — without actually moving into the properties they help build or buy.
 
Saunders’ and Dailey’s platform is the latest innovation in the equity crowdfunding space — an emerging financial sector, made legal by the sweeping federal JOBS Act of 2012, that allows people who meet certain financial requirements to make small but meaningful equity investments in a variety of asset classes.
 
“Equity crowdfunding appeals to investors who want to support promising ideas and assets,” as they would on classic crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, says Saunders. “The difference is that it allows investors to take an actual stake in the asset,” and, hopefully, see a return on their investment.
 
SaundersDailey officially debuted at a July 14 launch party in Minneapolis’ Kenwood neighborhood. The company began with a single investment opportunity: Residential Fund One, a bundle that includes more than a dozen residential properties throughout the region. “Residential Fund One is basically a local real estate mutual fund,” says Saunders.
 
According to Saunders, future investment opportunities — including some that should become available in the coming weeks — will focus on discrete properties, mostly multifamily residential buildings. Saunders cites a seven-unit building on Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, currently part of Residential Fund One, as an ideal SaundersDailey property.
 
For now, SaundersDailey owns, or has under contract, most of the properties listed on the site. But in the future, SaundersDailey plans to serve as a sort of clearinghouse for property owners and developers looking to raise funds for their own investments.
 
The platform already has one listed property that it doesn’t directly own: a retirement community in New Ulm, Minnesota. The community’s owners pay SaundersDailey to use the site and put its offering in front of a growing cohort of MSP-based investors; Saunders is betting that this arrangement will appear increasingly attractive to property owners who might otherwise struggle to attract backers.
 
Saunders says SaundersDailey is developing a thorough vetting process for future third-party property listings. He sees SaundersDailey-owned properties representing the bulk of the company’s business for the foreseeable future, but estimates that third-party listings “could represent 20 to 25 percent of our revenue stream” over the medium to long term.
 
Most SaundersDailey properties, including third-party listings, are residential. “Residential is what I know best,” says Saunders, who cut his chops at the helm of RE/MAX Results, now Minnesota’s third-largest residential real estate brokerage. In the future, SaundersDailey may “dabble” in commercial real estate, but Saunders expects residential to remain the focus. And though Saunders doesn’t categorically rule out the possibility of expanding to other midwestern markets, he’s cautious about setting his sights too high, due both to stricter legal standards for interstate offerings and the simple fact that “every market is different.”
 
For MSP residents keen to own a piece of the region’s hot real estate market without actually buying a house or condo themselves, SaundersDailey has a big catch. By law, the platform can only accept investments from accredited investors — individuals who earn at least $200,000 per year (or married couples earning at least $300,000 per year) on a consistent basis, or individuals worth at least $1 million.
 
Saunders is optimistic that the laws restricting equity crowdfunding investments to accredited investors will change as the concept goes mainstream. He’s also hopeful that regulations made possible by the recently passed MNvest legislation will ease the burden for non-accredited investors, though he estimates a year or more will pass before those regulations are ready.
 

Nordeast continues its growth boom with the addition of COCO. In June, COC) revealed the location of its fourth coworking space — 1400 Van Buren Street NE — in a century-old building that’s been almost totally remodeled and updated to meet the demands of the modern workspace.
 
COCO’s Northeast Minneapolis outpost joins locations in downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, and Uptown Minneapolis. The Northeast location is also right around the corner from another Nordeast fixture that’s also in the midst of a growth boom: Indeed Brewery. Bauhaus BrewLabs is just across Central Avenue, too. Thirsty COCO tenants certainly won’t lack for happy hour options at their new digs.
 
COCO Northeast looks to be a bit cozier than the two downtown locations. According to the release announcing the move, the new space will feature 10 closed-door startup suites designed for two- to 14-person teams. These suites function as separate offices with all the benefits of COCO membership; rents are likely to be in-line with or lower than prevailing rents for standalone suites in Northeast.
 
COCO Northeast also has plans for six campsites, semi-open — literally tented, in some cases — workspaces designed for teams of four to eight. For “solopreneurs” and remote workers, the space will feature 14 standalone, dedicated desks arranged in a bullpen-style configuration. A mishmash of tables, benches and standing areas, all perfect for solo work in a social environment, will flesh out the main space. Off the common bullpen, COCO plans to make five meeting rooms available for meetings and group presentations. The common area is available for meetings, too, though privacy is limited.
 
Tours of the entire space are available on Fridays at 11 am. Prospective members are encouraged to register online; others should contact COCO directly for arrangements.
 
COCO’s new space has a tech-y pedigree: It’s the former home of Sport Ngin, an MSP-made software platform that provides comprehensive web publishing and management solutions for sports organizations. Sport Ngin vacated the space for larger digs a few blocks south, at the corner of Broadway Street NE and Quincy Street NE.
 
COCO’s move adds mass to an emerging tech cluster running along Central Avenue NE, from roughly 18th Avenue NE in the north to St. Anthony Main in the south — the heart of Nordeast’s startup scene. In addition to Sport Ngin, the area is already home to BuzzFeed, SmartThings and Code42, among dozens of smaller startups.
 

Handsome Cycles and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts have entered into what could be MSP’s coolest creative partnership so far this year. In celebration of its 100th year, the MIA commissioned Handsome to create three custom cycles inspired by works in the museum’s world-famous collection. Handsome and MIA unveiled the bikes at MIA’s most recent Third Thursday event, on July 16. The event, dubbed “Bike Night,” turned into a celebration of all things bike.
 
Cyclists pedaled to the event from St. Paul’s Onmium Bike Shop. When they arrived, they were invited to bike right through MIA’s front doors and into its atrium. Minneapolis’ One on One Bikes was on hand with free bike checks, and both One on One and Twin Six unveiled new bike gear at adjacent booths.
 
Key MSP bike advocacy groups, including the Midtown Greenway Coalition, 30 Days of Biking and Powderhorn 24, were on hand. Custom frame builders, including Peacock Groove and Prairie Cow, networked with discerning cyclists.
 
“[MIA’s] continued support of the bike community is absolutely amazing,” says Jesse Erickson, Handsome Cycles co-founder and COO.
 
The custom bike design process unfolded over the course of several months. “Handsome Cycles...shares the museum’s commitment to embracing the local and integrating great design, technology and experimentation, while staying true to its core values and community,” says Hunter Wright, MIA’s Venture Innovation Director.
 
Handsome Cycles took inspiration from several works in MIA’s collection, notably the 1948 Tatra T87 Sedan, a petite car housed in an MIA hall; Claude Monet’s Grainstack; and Frank Stella’s Tahkt-I-Sulayman Variation II. The finished bikes blended the inspiration works’ color schemes, shapes and themes in attractive, functional packages that looked (and rode) like regular bikes.
 
The MIA-Handsome partnership didn’t end on July 16. Handsome Cycles is making a limited number of “MIA bikes” available for sale in its Northeast Minneapolis store and through MIA’s gift shop. The sleek single-speed bikes, available in white or black frames, are listed at about $1,100 on Handsome’s website.
 

Minnesota Social Impact Center, a North Loop coworking and social entrepreneurship organization charged with “connecting change agents” from disparate professions and walks of life, is now Impact Hub Minneapolis-St. Paul.
 
The name change is about more than semantics. Impact Hub Minneapolis-St. Paul joins more than 80 other Impact Hubs worldwide — the latest addition to a disparate network of cohesively branded, locally controlled organizations that offer “a unique ecosystem of resources, inspiration and collaboration opportunities to grow the positive impact of the work of impact-focused innovators,” says Danielle Steer, Impact Hub’s manager of operations and member services.
 
As part of the global Impact Hub network, Impact Hub Minneapolis-St. Paul gains access to a “shared international database” that leverages the experiences and expertise of Impact Hub’s global membership, dubbed “Hubbers.” The global Impact Hub network provides consulting and logistical support to each member organization, a helpful perk as Impact Hub Minneapolis-St. Paul grows its membership and deepens ties to the MSP community.
 
With a much higher profile and the cachet of an international social entrepreneurship brand behind it, Impact Hub Minneapolis-St. Paul is “actively seeking organizational partners, financial support and more members to make this venture a success,” says Steer. The board is also expecting to outgrow its North Loop “prototype space” and is looking for larger digs nearby. And Impact Hub Minneapolis-St. Paul is looking to expand its day-to-day programming and special event schedule, building off a launch event in May and a just-finished meeting/event space at its current headquarters.
 
Before the organization could officially adopt the Impact Hub brand, Steer, her teammates and Impact Hub’s six-member board of directors (led by board chair Terri Barreiro and staffed, among others, by organization founder Katie Kalkman) put the question to an up-or-down vote of the full Impact Hub membership.
 
According to Steer, preparing the necessary applications and supplemental materials — including a polished team video — took the better part of a year. Throughout the process, Steer and her colleagues solicited input from Impact Hubs that had recently achieved full membership in the global network: Impact Hub Sydney (Australia), Impact Hub Oakland, Impact Hub Boulder and Impact Hub Malaysia.
 
The Impact Hub concept was born in Vienna, Austria, and now has a presence on four continents. Impact Hub Minneapolis-St. Paul is the first and only Impact Hub in The North; other U.S. locations include Boston, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco.
 
 

Minneapolis’ status as the Internet hub of The North (and IOT, or Internet of Things), is now even more secure. Just months after opening an ultra-connected “Meet Me Room” in a new, state-of-the-art facility at the 511 Building in downtown Minneapolis, Cologix has announced a high-profile partnership with Nebraska-based Great Plains Communications, a network provider for carriers and enterprise clients across the Heartland.
 
The deal sees Great Plains establishing a major presence, known as a Point of Presence (POP), at Cologix’s Minneapolis data center, colloquially known as a “carrier hotel.” Great Plains’ Minneapolis POP will serve about 75 clients in MSP, greater Minnesota and other areas throughout The North.
 
According to Lynn Mead, Great Plains’ head of carrier and wholesale communications, the new POP is part of a major expansion and modernization drive that includes the laying of about 5,000 miles of additional broadband fiber in Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota.
 
“Across our markets, we saw new demand from customers seeking connectivity into Minnesota, including both carrier and enterprise clients,” says Mead. “Our customers want low latency and high bandwidth connections into The North” — two advantages Cologix’s carrier hotel, part of the “most connected building in Minneapolis,” is equipped to provide.
 
“Cologix’s Minneapolis facility is designed very well and the staff accommodates customers by ensuring the framework to extend fiber is in place,” she adds.
 
Cologix’s staff is thrilled to have another high-profile partner to add to the likes of Netflix, a key bandwidth user at its carrier hotel.
 
“We are thrilled to add a prominent company like Great Plains Communications to the ecosystem of our Minneapolis data center,” says Mike Hemphill, general manager at Cologix’s Minneapolis facility. “As we continue to increase the fiber connectivity with a robust collection of carriers, the network fabric of [The North] is strengthened to sustain the increasing demand we continue to see in this market.”
 
Cologix’s carrier hotel isn’t the only super-connected hub in MSP. The area is home to several other major data centers, most clustered at or near the intersection of several high-traffic fiber lines in downtown Minneapolis. For instance, the AT&T Building hosts IronGate’s main data center, which itself hosts dozens of network providers and high-bandwidth enterprise clients.
 
MSP has emerged as the Internet hub of The North — the most connected place between Chicago and Seattle, and the north-central United States’ only real data center alternative to Chicago — for a host of economic reasons. Two are worth singling out.
 
In 2011, the Minnesota State Legislature passed a 20-year tax holiday on qualifying data center investments, including infrastructure and power generation. That dramatically lowers the cost of opening and maintaining data centers here.
 
MSP’s climate helps, too. The long cold season reduces year-round cooling bills — typically a huge overhead expense for data centers, which are prone to overheating. In places like Dallas and Jacksonville, both popular data center hubs with famously scorching summers, cooling costs can eat into centers’ profits and raise costs for carriers and enterprise clients.
 
 
 

Though debate continues as to whether the average person needs eight glasses of water per day, many of us still forget to stay hydrated when we’re busy. Hidrate co-founder and recent University of Minnesota graduate Nadya Nguyen found out the hard way.
 
On the bus home from a 10-hour volunteer shift at TEDxMinneapolis, Nguyen felt faint and disoriented. Her head was pounding. With effort, she recounted the events of her jam-packed day and realized that she hadn’t taken a single sip of water since the morning. She simply hadn’t had the time, to say nothing of the mental bandwidth necessary, to stop what she was doing and take a drink.
 
Then it hit her: In the age of cloud-connected smartphones and tiny, powerful sensors, she didn’t need to remember to drink water. She could simply build an app that connected to a special water bottle that would remind her to hydrate. Along with three other recent U of M grads, she built out the app and a prototype water bottle—called Hidrate—during least year’s Twin Cities Startup Weekend.
 
“It’s so easy to forget to take care of yourself when life gets busy,” says Nguyen. “I wanted to create something that would make life better for people in this small but important way.”
 
The idea is breathtakingly simple: Users download the app for free on their phones and enter personal parameters (weight and other factors), location (temperature, relative humidity and altitude can affect water needs), and daily activity level, editing over time as this information changes. Hidrate uses this data to create a personal “daily water goal,” expressed in both ounces and water bottle equivalents. The app syncs with a 24-ounce, BPA-free, dishwasher-safe water bottle that can sense its own fill level and updates your total daily intake whenever you take a sip. If you go too long without drinking, a reminder message appears on your phone; if you really fall behind, the bottle glows gently until your fluid intake gets back on pace.
 
Hidrate isn’t the first smart water bottle to hit the market. But the talented, driven team enjoys the benefits of a heavily discounted shared workspace at Startup Venture Loft in the North Loop — a huge help for any startup operating on a shoestring budget.
 
The company’s Kickstarter campaign, launched June 1, had a seemingly ambitious goal: $35,000. Thanks to tremendous support from what Nguyen calls “a dedicated group of early adopters” and a high-visibility mention in widely read tech publication TechCrunch, the campaign blew through that ceiling in a couple days, notching nearly $200,000 from more than 2,500 individual donors in its first week. Everyone who donates $39 or more gets a personal bottle, with delivery expected in December 2015 or January 2016.
 
The Kickstarter campaign’s proceeds will mostly cover costs for the initial bottle-manufacturing round, which is likely to be larger than expected given the campaign’s success. Nguyen and the team are still working out a retail price for the bottle, but “it’ll probably be in the $39 to $45 range,” she says.
 
For now, interested buyers can reserve a bottle — in the color of their choosing — on Hidrate’s website. Longer-term, Nguyen expects to sell through gyms, sporting goods stores and other retailers. The team is already courting potential partners, though nothing’s ready to announce.
 
“We’re willing to work with any gym, specialty store or retailer that caters to our customer base,” says Nguyen. “We’ve been blown away by early demand for the product and can’t wait for the next phase of our growth.”

 
Hidrate Jobs in Minneapolis
 

1. iOS Mobile Developer
2. Android Mobile Developer

 

 
Field Nation, an online work platform that connects skilled IT contractors with companies that need to complete time-sensitive tasks or fill temporary positions, recently doubled in size after acquiring Field Solutions, its main competitor in the Upper Midwest. The acquisition boosted Field Nation’s internal employee count from about 50 to more than 100, and allowed the company to double down on its innovation, MSP-made business model.
 
Field Nation chief marketing officer Billy Cripe expects the firm to “grow into” its new offices in the AT&T Building in downtown Minneapolis. But rather than let half of its square footage languish, the firm’s management team landed on an ingenious idea: a free, fully wired coworking — Cripe prefers “colocation” — space where Field Nation’s out-of-town contractors, clients and kindred spirits can set up shop for a day or two as they go about their business in MSP.
 
“The recent move left us with all this extra space,” says Cripe. “We thought, ‘Why not open a free colocation space?’”
 
Field Nation’s colocation “tenants” come and go on the honor system. Field Nation doesn’t formally assign a gatekeeper or space manager, though employees do approve (or invite) and keep tabs on everyone who passes through. Stays typically last a couple days, rarely longer than a week.
 
For instance, video game maker and existing Field Nation client Activision recently sent a team to MSP to meet with executives at Target and Best Buy. The team approached Field Nation about using the colocation space as a home away from home during their brief trip. Cripe and the team were happy to oblige.
 
Tenants that need a longer-term office space, whether they’re permanently relocating to MSP or transitioning out of a home office, can leverage Field Nation’s ongoing partnership with CoCo to make arrangements.
 
“We don’t want to be the go-to for people who need a permanent coworking option,” explains Cripe. “But we definitely want our office to be a launching and landing pad for on-the-go professionals.”
 
Field Nation’s new colocation space is a great fit for an ambitious, growing company that fosters flexible connections between talented contractors and labor-seeking employers. Field Nation’s “contingent workforce” platform doesn’t require upfront payment from contractors or employers; the company simply takes a cut from payments for completed work before forwarding the remainder to the worker.
 
Jobs come in many different forms, from multi-month “distributed projects” that require dozens of workers in multiple locations to 15-minute gigs “that contractors can fit in as they’re driving home from their regular job,” says Cripe.
 
For contractors, Field Nation offers a more secure and predictable payment system than “a la carte” work arrangements that can take months to produce a paycheck — if one comes at all. And the company provides each worker with a single 1099 for all gigs completed through Field Nation, regardless of how many individual clients were involved — dramatically simplifying tax-time paperwork.
 
For clients, Field Nation provides a large, reliable, on-demand pool of skilled, often formally credentialed technicians and IT professionals. Clients and contractors are free to negotiate rates; a mutual rating system controls quality and mitigates disagreements. According to Cripe, Field Nation’s goal is simple: “We’re cutting out the middleman” — i.e., traditional staffing agencies — “and making it easier to get work done.”
 

A while back, as Prodality co-founder Parag Shah scanned a credit card statement, he noticed a restaurant charge that seemed suspiciously high. Though he couldn’t remember the bill’s exact amount, he recalled the meal well enough to know he’d been overcharged. But Shah couldn’t find his receipt, and thus couldn’t confront the restaurant about the mistake.
 
“I hate paper, so I probably just threw the receipt out after signing,” says Shah. “But the experience made me ask why I didn’t have the option to receive my receipt by email and search through an archive of all my purchases.” Such an archive would also help with returns that required a receipt, he reasoned.
 
Shah set about developing the searchable receipt database that would become PurchaseBox. He soon saw the value in including promo emails in the concept: “The average person gets way too many promotional messages to keep track of, even with email systems like Gmail [which collects promo emails in a separate inbox],” explains Shah. “Most people just delete them as they come in, even if there’s a chance that they’d come in handy at a later time.”
 
By organizing retailer-specific promotional emails in a searchable database, PurchaseBox makes it easier for consumers to call up and use coupons while shopping online or in-store. Each PurchaseBox user gets an @purchasebox.com email account to which retailers can send digital offers and receipts. (Users can also photograph and upload paper receipts to their accounts, though that’s likely to become less common as more retailers switch to digital receipts.)
 
PurchaseBox exemplifies the customer-first approach to big-picture technology solutions of its parent company, Prodality. From its office near Uptown, Prodality is honing a unique business-building approach that could have a big impact on MSP’s burgeoning startup economy.
 
Shah, who serves as founder and chief executive, runs Prodality with business partner Whitney Johnson, who serves as director of marketing and oversees the company’s day-to-day operations. According to Johnson, Prodality is a “mix between a startup incubator and a capital investment firm.” Prodality turns ideas into new subsidiaries, taking an equity stake in every concept that makes it past the idea stage.
 
To get each new business off the ground, Prodality’s core team offers “labor support” during the startup phase, says Johnson, then builds “specific teams around each company as they continue to grow.” Prodality's startups are structured as separate legal entities, not departments of Prodality itself.
 
Prodality focuses on “big ideas” that can potentially achieve seven- or eight-figure valuations within three to five years, Shah says. “Before launching a new idea, we ask ourselves, is it a large enough opportunity?” he explains. “If the answer is ‘no,’ we don’t pursue it.”
 
Prodality’s ideas generally focus on business and consumer needs, depending on the company. Its most successful subsidiary to date, BookBottles, is an event management platform that caters to nightclub and entertainment venue owners. Regardless of target audience, Prodality’s startups must be cost-effective and “bootstrappable,” backed by software systems — either web or mobile — capable of being rolled out within weeks.
 
“One of the biggest advantages of our model is that it’s scalable,” says Shah. “We’ve put together a framework for providing the seed funding and labor to develop apps and other necessary technologies really quickly.”
 
Prodality’s model is attractive to local and national tech investors, who have participated in multiple funding rounds for the firm’s most successful startups. The ultimate goal of any Prodality backed startup, says Shah, is a full exit: the sale of Prodality’s stake to another firm or investment group. Prodality reinvests the proceeds of these sales into new ideas, some of which — hopefully — eventually make it through the same cycle.
 
As for PurchaseBox, it’s still early days. The app remains invite-only as the team works on functionality enhancements and tests new features, which Johnson says are critical to PurchaseBox’s eventual success. Current users tend to be tech-savvy “early adopters,” she says. “We count on experienced technology users to evangelize the product for us, and we always welcome feedback that helps us focus our development efforts.”
 
“The goal is to make PurchaseBox as user-friendly, seamless and convenient as possible,” Johnson adds. “Those attributes are what will ultimately drive adoption.”
 
According to Shah and Johnson, PurchaseBox is planning a big push — aided, again, by its early users — to put the app in front of retailers in MSP and beyond. “Our goal is to build a base of at least one million users” in the near term, says Shah. “Hitting that target will create a compelling value proposition for merchants and encourage adoption.”
 
Though one million users sounds like an ambitious target for an app that’s still technically in beta mode, Shah and Johnson clearly believe in PurchaseBox’s potential. And they’re fresh off a big visibility boost: PurchaseBox was one of a few hundred startups (out of 15,000 applicants) to appear at this year’s Collision, an annual tech expo held in Las Vegas in early May.
 

It’s no secret that women and minority entrepreneurs struggle to achieve equal footing with their white male counterparts, particularly in the fast-growing science and tech fields. The problem isn’t unique to MSP: According to American Express OPEN’s much-cited 2014 State of Women-Owned Businesses report, women-owned firms account for 30 percent of all U.S. businesses. Though the number of women entrepreneurs is growing at a rapid clip, women-owned businesses still employ just 6 percent of all U.S. workers — a proportion that hasn’t budged since the late 1990s.
 
MSP’s talented cohort of current and future women entrepreneurs may soon lead the nation on these critical representation and employment metrics. Locally based Technovation[MN] is expanding an exciting new initiative to level the playing field for local women and girls, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds — and seeing impressive early results.
 
Now in its second year, Technovation[MN] helps small, all-female teams conceive, develop and pitch apps to the thousands-strong audience at the global Technovation Challenge, held in San Francisco every June since the late 2000s.
 
Led by Thomson Reuters veteran (now Bluespire marketing director of product development) Shawn Stavseth and sponsored in part by Code Savvy, the volunteer-run organization draws entrants mostly from MSP (including historically disadvantaged areas like Cedar-Riverside and North Minneapolis), its suburbs and the Rochester area. According to International Falls native Stavseth, the organization plans a push into outstate Minnesota over the next couple years.
 
Technovation[MN]’s volunteer mentors — tech-savvy parents, local tech entrepreneurs or computer science entrepreneurs — walk participating kids through an intense, 12-week course that includes ideation, competitor research, big-picture market analysis, actual app building and pitch practice. According to Stavseth, most apps focus on social entrepreneurship.
 
“The girls are incredibly passionate about the social issues of our time,” she says.
 
Each team works roughly four hours per week, usually after school or at local community centers. Due to the significant time investment required and the fact that mentors are usually busy professionals, Technovation[MN] requires no fewer than three mentors per team — basically a one-mentor-to-one-student ratio. The 12-week course culminates in a pitch day called Appapalooza, when each team debuts its idea.
 
In addition to the usual suspects like local financial institutions and tech companies, says Stavseth, Technovation[MN] has cross-disciplinary classroom support.
 
“We’ve heard from English teachers who frame coding as a second language and make the argument that kids who can ‘talk’ to computers will be more successful than those who can’t,” says Stavseth. Meanwhile, “[g]ym teachers and coaches are enthusiastic about the wearable-device revolution” and want students to know how to make fitness apps for those devices.
 
Despite its newcomer status, Technovation[MN] is clearly on the ascendancy. The global Technovation Challenge’s judging panel chooses a relative handful of finalists — this year featured just 10 teams in all, split between high school and middle school groups — from among hundreds of global entries. Though no MSP teams are slated to compete at this year’s event, a Rochester-area middle school team called Furst Class did make the finalist cut.
 
Technovation[MN] is also growing. The group boasted 28 teams this year, up from 11 last year, and Stavseth expects even more to sign up this coming school year, despite a barebones publicity campaign that turns mainly on word of mouth. But Stavseth cautions that Technovation[MN] can only grow so fast: Since its talented teens need intense support from mentors, the total number of teams depends on how many parents, educators and community members are willing to devote substantial amounts of their time to the cause.
 
“We’re very pleased with how things are going, but we’re also fighting a huge battle,” says Stavseth. “There’s a tremendous need to have girls in computer science and to fight the stereotypes associated with the field.”
 

Gardening Matters, a community gardening nonprofit based in South Minneapolis, is putting on an MSP-wide seed and plant distribution event Saturday, May 16, at three locations around town: St. Olaf Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis, Waite House in South Minneapolis and Great River School in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood.
 
The organization’s members can choose from three packages. Per Gardening Matters’ website, a Small Garden Package contains 12 seed packs and 12 seedlings, enough for a container garden, small plot or raised bed. With 20 seed packs and 20 seedlings, a Medium Garden Package is sufficient for a 12’ x 12’ backyard garden or community plot. A Large Garden Package, brimming with 40 seed packs and 72 seedlings, is ideal for a “very large” backyard garden or larger community garden plot.
 
Each package comes with a suggested membership fee, calculated at a significant discount to the seeds’ and plants’ retail value. Members can further defray their packages’ cost by participating in Gardening Matters’ work-share program, which requires at least one annual volunteer stint at a Gardening Matters event.
 
With snacks, kid-friendly outdoor activities and live music, each May 16 distribution hub will double as a “pop-up celebration of spring,” says Susan Phillips, Gardening Matters’ executive director — a great kick-off to the growing season after a long winter hibernation.
 
“Broadly speaking, Gardening Matters’ mission is to support MSP residents who want to grow their own food, either as part of a community garden or in their own backyards, while building connections and facilitating knowledge-sharing among its members,” says Phillips.
 
This mission is gaining traction by the month. The three May 16 distribution locations are just three of about 10 Food Resource Hubs across MSP: three in St. Paul and seven in Minneapolis, up from none in St. Paul and just three in Minneapolis when Gardening Matters launched the Food Resource Hubs program in 2011. Collectively, Food Resource Hubs serve 3,000 adult members and 3,000 kids, with about 20 urban acres under cultivation as a direct result of members’ activities.
 
(Incidentally, Gardening Matters is likely to rename the Food Resource Hubs program soon due to a conflict with an unrelated but similarly named federal program.)
 
Although Gardening Matters still plays a critical role in overseeing and organizing each hub, the organization ultimately aims for hubs to be semi-autonomous and largely self-sustaining. “Each of our hubs has a unique mix of members and a unique culture,” explains Phillips.
 
Gardening Matters’ hubs also serve as a focal point for education and leadership training, both critical to fostering self-sustaining networks — not to mention good gardening practices. Founded to support cooperation among community gardeners, the group’s community-building power isn’t to be underestimated: Phillips recounts the story of a Gardening Matters-affiliated North Minneapolis community garden whose members cooperated to clean up a blighted, drug-ridden property on their block.
 
Thanks to the connections the neighbors built in the garden, says Phillips, “they were empowered to tackle bigger issues in their community.”
 
Phillips is turning Gardening Matters into a force for advocacy and city-wide change, too. “Land tenure is a huge issue right now,” she says, noting that many MSP community gardens have long waiting lists. This year, Gardening Matters is launching a major push to empower renters who don’t have access to suitable outdoor plots. Container gardens, which can easily fit on porches or even windowsills, are viable solutions for thousands of land-poor urban gardeners; the challenge is educating people about how to properly set up and care for them.
 
Phillips is also spearheading educational programs and outreach initiatives targeting immigrant communities, particularly Latino and Hmong groups, whose first-generation members have prior agricultural experience but aren’t aware of the urban gardening resources available in their adopted city.
 
“In everything Gardening Matters does, the goal is to expand the number of [MSP residents] who feel empowered to grow their own food,” says Phillips.
 
 

 
The BrandLab, an innovative nonprofit supported by MSP’s biggest creative agencies, is actively broadening creative-industry networks to introduce young people from diverse backgrounds to the dynamic world of advertising and marketing. With more than 600 students enrolled in The BrandLab's classes this semester and with ambitious plans for growth, the organization is wrapping up a curriculum revamp that will make its lessons even more engaging to MSP’s brightest young minds.
 
The BrandLab has a simple yet ambitious goal: To boost diversity and inclusion in the creative industries through education and network building. According to Ellen Walthour, The BrandLab’s executive director, MSP’s advertising and marketing agencies — from big players like Olson and Carmichael Lynch to smaller, independently run outfits — should be every bit as diverse as the clients they represent and the consumers to whom they market.
 
“The ad industry is trying to break out of traditional modes of hiring, which tend to be network-based and thus less diverse than the talent pool as a whole,” says Walthour. “The BrandLab’s goal is not to eliminate personal networks from the equation, but rather to broaden and reframe them to include a more representative range of perspectives.”
 
According to Walthour, the industry’s long-term success could turn on its ability to attract and retain diverse talent. “Our region’s demographics are rapidly shifting,” she says. In Hennepin County, children of color account for about one in two births, and nearly 20 percent of the county’s college grads are people of color.
 
The industry recognizes the need to adapt to this new demographic reality. On April 22, more than 200 advertising professionals, Fortune 500 executives and media types packed into Brand New Workshop for “Moving Beyond Representation to Full Inclusion,” the latest panel discussion in The Brandlab’s Fearless Conversation Series. Panelists from General Mills, Cargill and Minneapolis ad agency Carmichael Lynch offered frank, occasionally uncomfortable answers to MPR host Tom Weber’s questions about racial and ethnic diversity in MSP’s creative industries.
 
Judging by the probing queries and nuanced answers, diversity and multiculturalism clearly weigh on the minds of MSP’s advertisers, marketers and commercial artists. The consensus: Though creative workplaces are slowly becoming more diverse, full inclusion is more elusive than would appear from the increasingly multicultural TV, print and digital ads produced by many local agencies.
 
The BrandLab may have the solution. Founded in 2008 by John Olson, the late principal at the legendary agency Olson, the organization hires professional instructors to teach elective marketing and advertising classes at local high schools, including St. Paul’s Johnson Senior High. Volunteer helpers, who are often creative-industry professionals, share real-world experiences and techniques to add context and perspective.
 
These classes cover industry history, ethics, culture and theory. One highlight: An engaging, if uncomfortable, lesson on “extraordinarily racist and sexist ads from the early 20^th century,” says jabber logic principal Amee Tomlinson McDonald. Along with Emily Ronning, The BrandLab’s curriculum design director, she’s spearheading the organization’s curriculum redesign. By confronting advertising’s ugly past, The BrandLab’s multicultural students gain a visceral understanding of what they’re up against — and why they need to lend their voices and talents to the conversation.
 
These awkward ads are just one example of Tomlinson McDonald and Ronning’s revamp, which shifts the focus from traditional pedagogy (think half-hour lessons) to a more interactive, engaging model.
 
“It sounds cliched, but kids really do have short attention spans,” explains Tomlinson McDonald. “We’re using 30 to 60 second videos, real-world case studies, digital images” and other varied media “to keep kids engaged.” J. Crew’s YouTube page proved a particularly effective teaching tool, she mentions.
 
Students also dive deep into key agency roles: copywriting, graphic design, video production, project management, and even positions like accounting. By the end of the semester, they’re knowledgeable enough to put together mock projects for actual clients, whose employees hear pitches, critique work, and sometimes adopt aspects of a draft campaign.
 
The new curriculum is “in beta” in all of The BrandLab’s classrooms this semester. After some tweaks and improvements, a more finalized version will roll out for the next school year, though Walthour notes that The BrandLab’s curriculum is “always looking for ways to improve and adapt.”
 
The BrandLab doesn’t rely solely on classroom instruction. Throughout the semester, heavily programmed field trips to MSP-area agencies give students the chance to interact with creatives in their natural environments — and, possibly, get a sneak peek at their future workplaces.
 
On an April 21 trip, for example, Carmichael Lynch, Colle+McVoy and Olson each hosted 20+ Johnson Senior High students for two hours of tours, informational videos, Q&A time and — of course — a Pizza Luce-catered lunch. At Carmichael Lynch, students engaged fearlessly with agency staff and appeared genuinely surprised at the creativity that pervaded the building. (After passing by a midday yoga class in the agency’s lobby, one bright-eyed young lady remarked, “I had no idea people would be having fun at the office.”)
 
The BrandLab cultivates and focuses such sentiments in hopes of transforming curious students into the next generation of passionate creative professionals. Each year, the organization places dozens of classroom alums in paid summer internships at local agencies. Whereas other organizations focus on supporting older college students who have already self-selected into creative majors, The BrandLab deals exclusively with high school students and college freshmen. “The goal is to captivate kids early, before they’ve really considered [and potentially dismissed, due to lack of professional support] marketing or advertising as a career,” explains Walthour.
 
After an intense “boot camp” that prepares them for a “real world” workplace, interns work 12 to 20 hours per week during the summer. Every Monday, they pair up with a “coach” — someone with academic or professional experience in marketing and advertising — for debriefing sessions, all held on the University of Minnesota campus. These sessions help the interns process their often intense summer experiences while providing additional instruction in advanced concepts like brand strategy and personal branding.
 
The BrandLab’s model is clearly successful. Many first-time interns return the following summer. The BrandLab alums often major in creative or marketing-related disciplines after heading off to college. As the organization’s first alums graduate from college, they’ll disperse into the creative workforce to build the broad, inclusive networks the industry needs.
 

The U of M’s Carlson School of Business hosted its annual Tech Cities conference on March 27. The event drew hundreds of local innovators, investors and social entrepreneurs to the West Bank on the University of Minnesota campus in search of answers to a simple but vexing question: “How can we strengthen and promote MSP as a source for tech leadership, talent and innovation?”
 
The packed “Supporting Innovators in the Tech Cities” workshop offered a glimpse of the problems the region faces — and offered hope that workable solutions are within reach.
 
According to Matt Lewis, Greater MSP Strategy Manager and workshop moderator, MSP could produce “tens of thousands of jobs by 2020” that the region currently lacks the talent to fill. This “talent gap” is mostly due to two structural forces.
 
First, the accelerating pace of technological change is dramatically reordering the economy, rewarding highly skilled professionals and tech-savvy innovators while challenging those who don’t acquire new, relevant skills. This shift is happening everywhere, but it’s more pronounced in regional hubs like MSP (i.e., the capital of the North), where much of the tech economy’s most exciting, cutting-edge advances are forged.
 
The second structural force is unique to MSP: Despite a strong economy, reasonable living costs and excellent quality-of-life metrics, the region perennially struggles to attract the country’s — and world’s — best and brightest. The upside is that once transplants find their way here, they tend to stick around.
 
“The cliche that it’s hard to get people to come here and even harder to get them to leave holds true,” Lewis noted at the workshop. “We need to change the conversation and make [MSP] a global destination for people who self-identify as innovators.” Doing so would solve both problems: the technological talent gap and MSP’s “attraction issue.”
 
Four self-identified innovators who already call MSP home piped up to offer their ideas. Scott Cole, co-founder of the local tech cooperative Collectivity, proposed a “comprehensive tech accelerator” that would combine and magnify the efforts of existing local initiatives like the Minnesota High Tech Association, Greater MSP, MN Cup, university-based tech groups and others. The ultimate goal: to create a pervasive culture of innovation wherein cash-strapped innovators with great ideas effortlessly connect with investors, mentors and customers.
 
Melissa Kjolsing, MN Cup director, highlighted the tech world’s persistent gender gap — an issue that has gotten plenty of press in MSP and elsewhere. She noted that while women run 30 percent of all U.S. companies, most are solo operators. The solution: “deeper peer networks for women,” she argued. Women entrepreneurs need positive role models, namely successful female business owners who have made it through the male-dominated startup gauntlet. 
 
Kjolsing noted that though MN Cup has yet to achieve parity, the prestigious tech competition is spearheading the drive to empower women entrepreneurs: In 2014, about one-third of MN Cup entries came from all-women teams, up from 25 percent the previous year; 45 percent of 2014’s teams had at least one woman on the roster.
 
Lee George of the James J. Hill Reference Library argued that MSP must do more to support ambitious people at the two biggest “pinch points”: the moment when the entrepreneur moves from tinkering with an idea in their spare time to quitting their day job and fully plunging into their startup; and the exit strategy, or the point at which the entrepreneur steps away from the company he or she founded to focus on a new project or simply “cash out.”
 
Without support from mentors, investors and talented employees, many entrepreneurs never make it past the first pinch point, and their dream either dies or goes into a long slumber. Meanwhile, those fortunate enough to be able to contemplate an exit strategy often don’t know how to forge the connections with leaders of the established firms that typically buy up successful startups. It’s worth noting, for instance, that though MSP has a deep bench of Fortune 500 firms capable of financing numerous buyouts, one of the region’s most successful startups — SmartThings — turned to a Korean firm (Samsung) for its exit.
 
George advised existing organizations like Greater MSP and MHTA to adjust their programming in two ways: creating better and more numerous mentorship opportunities for soon-to-be-full-time entrepreneurs, and deepening connections between successful startups and major firms.
 
David Berglund, the fourth speaker, exemplifies the power of connections between MSP’s startup community and established business players. He’s UnitedHealth’s “entrepreneur in residence” and co-founder of Hoodstarter, a real-estate crowdfunding app. At UnitedHealth, he’s more or less in charge of “building healthcare startups from the ground up.”
 
“We need to accelerate the pace of innovation in large, sometimes bureaucratic corporations,” he said. “To do that, we need to get off the corporate campus and out of our comfort zone.”
 
Berglund believes that MSP’s major corporations need to communicate better and experiment more, both with one another and with the region’s entrepreneurs. Knowledge — and knowledge sharing — is power, after all. Berglund’s dream: an MSP in which big companies, successful small businesses and fledgling startups “forge partnerships and come together without fear of stealing each other’s ideas.” Such an outcome could accelerate the pace of business formation here and transform MSP into a truly global innovation hub.