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An Open Letter to Indiana about Life Sciences
There's no doubt how important Roche and Eli Lilly are to our economy here in central Indiana. As well, I'm forever appreciative of the work these folks do and the impact it will have on the human race. I have friends at both companies and have helped them with their technology and social media strategies. I'm looking forward to seeing how technology will transform their industries.
That said, my next remarks are not meant to anger the industry... rather to promote a different one. Indiana - please stop placing all your bets on Life Sciences. Knowing that Lilly will reduce its workforce by 5,500 employees by 2011 should stop all the Life Sciences promotion dead in its tracks.
Roche is already hard at work laying off employees world-wide employees as well.
There won't be jobs for graduates of local universities in these areas. There isn't any way to slow this down or 'save it'. Any more additional taxpayer dollars won't be realized in any investment in that industry.
Stop promoting life sciences with grants, tax breaks and investments. These companies' layoffs will be costing our economy plenty of money in years to come as we have more out of work, educated talent looking for jobs.
Let it go.
Instead, I'd recommend a deep hard look at the industries here in town that will grow, will grow fast, and provide white collar employment for graduates to make a great living directly out of college... the technology sector. Web 2.0 and the widestream adoption of new technologies will grow our local economy and can easily make us a force to reckon with nationally.
We've got great schools, a great city, great professional sports franchises, a low cost of living, good housing, and a vibrant city ready to go. Let's move the spotlight off of Silicon Valley and begin the investment in Silicorn Valley.
Companies like ExactTarget, Interactive Intelligence, Aprimo, Interactions, Patronpath, BlueLock, Lifeline DataCenters, Bitwise Solutions, Compendium Blogware, Apparatus, RICS software, Right On Interactive, Cantaloupe... these are all successful companies. They are well-managed and primed for growth.
There's also a tertiary level of entrepreneurial talent here in the area that NEEDS your attention. The demand for my company's services has been enormous - more than I can handle. However, I lack the capital and don't appear to have the 'starry-eyed' ideas that your grants and funds seem to be going to. If you provided me a grant, I could triple my staff and quadruple my business overnight.
There are one-hundred other technical entrepreneurs like me. If you really want to GROW the economy, quit gambling on shiny objects or sure losers and begin investing in businesses with a solid future and proven leadership. Heck, I'll do one better - my company is Veteran-owned. My kids go to school here. My son is an Honors student at IUPUI. This is my home. I love Indiana and love Indianapolis. Invest in your own talent... not some huge corporation with layoffs planned out for the next decade.
Invest in the technology sector. Please.
Thanks,
Douglas Karr
President and CEO
DK New Media
That said, my next remarks are not meant to anger the industry... rather to promote a different one. Indiana - please stop placing all your bets on Life Sciences. Knowing that Lilly will reduce its workforce by 5,500 employees by 2011 should stop all the Life Sciences promotion dead in its tracks.
Roche is already hard at work laying off employees world-wide employees as well.
There won't be jobs for graduates of local universities in these areas. There isn't any way to slow this down or 'save it'. Any more additional taxpayer dollars won't be realized in any investment in that industry.
Stop promoting life sciences with grants, tax breaks and investments. These companies' layoffs will be costing our economy plenty of money in years to come as we have more out of work, educated talent looking for jobs.
Let it go.
Instead, I'd recommend a deep hard look at the industries here in town that will grow, will grow fast, and provide white collar employment for graduates to make a great living directly out of college... the technology sector. Web 2.0 and the widestream adoption of new technologies will grow our local economy and can easily make us a force to reckon with nationally.
We've got great schools, a great city, great professional sports franchises, a low cost of living, good housing, and a vibrant city ready to go. Let's move the spotlight off of Silicon Valley and begin the investment in Silicorn Valley.
Companies like ExactTarget, Interactive Intelligence, Aprimo, Interactions, Patronpath, BlueLock, Lifeline DataCenters, Bitwise Solutions, Compendium Blogware, Apparatus, RICS software, Right On Interactive, Cantaloupe... these are all successful companies. They are well-managed and primed for growth.
There's also a tertiary level of entrepreneurial talent here in the area that NEEDS your attention. The demand for my company's services has been enormous - more than I can handle. However, I lack the capital and don't appear to have the 'starry-eyed' ideas that your grants and funds seem to be going to. If you provided me a grant, I could triple my staff and quadruple my business overnight.
There are one-hundred other technical entrepreneurs like me. If you really want to GROW the economy, quit gambling on shiny objects or sure losers and begin investing in businesses with a solid future and proven leadership. Heck, I'll do one better - my company is Veteran-owned. My kids go to school here. My son is an Honors student at IUPUI. This is my home. I love Indiana and love Indianapolis. Invest in your own talent... not some huge corporation with layoffs planned out for the next decade.
Invest in the technology sector. Please.
Thanks,
Douglas Karr
President and CEO
DK New Media
Tags: 21fund, braindrain, diagnostics, indiana, indianapolis, iupui, layoffs, lilly, roche, taxes
Add a Comment
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Comment by Douglas Karr on September 29, 2009 at 8:53am - And what do I read this AM? More of our tax money going to life sciences.
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Comment by Mike Seidle on September 17, 2009 at 1:06pm - Doug - Thanks for writing this - you captured my feelings exactly.
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Comment by Douglas Karr on September 17, 2009 at 12:52pm
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Thanks for all the kind comments - and I ALWAYS forget someone when I talk about the tech sector here in Indy - because there are too many to remember!
@Mark Hill - you've played an incredibly important role investing here locally. Diversity is key - but providing huge incentives (tax, grants, etc.) to a few large businesses is NOT investing in diversity, is it? The venture tax credit is awesome but there's not too many that can benefit from it - we don't have a large venture community here in town when compared to places like California (where there are 32 Billionaires in a single county). We NEED the government to infuse and invest if we're going to compete in that space. As a guy who was quickly disapproved by 21 fund without even an interview, I'm none to happy with them. I know for a fact that they're chasing some successful companies to give them money and improve their portfolio... that wasn't the spirit of the fund. AND they spent a long time avoiding tech altogether.
Great to see TECHPoint speaking openly as well.
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Comment by Sloane Thompson on September 17, 2009 at 12:08pm - Outstanding, thoughtful remarks. Thanks very much for taking the time to write this. I'm forwarding the link to the to my bosses, the deans of the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. We do some wonderful interdisciplinary academic work in our School, and I believe our graduates can add value to the technology sector here in Indiana, particularly when we encourage them to develop their technology skills along with whatever subject matter they choose for majors and minors. Thanks again for writing this persuasive, thought-provoking article.
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Comment by Chris Lucas on September 17, 2009 at 11:53am -
Doug, great post. And yes, I work for a SaaS/Tech company here in town - FormSpring, (which you didn't mention :) so I have a certain bias. I think as more companies like ours become successful we will see more attention paid to our sector. We have many growing companies and a lot of great talent here.
I think what Indy/Indiana should learn from the past is not to put all our eggs in one basket. By funding diverse companies, tech, life sciences, healthcare, green energy, etc., you allow for a deep and well rounded economy to emerge. This also makes the local economy more sheltered to the ebb and flow of market conditions in anyone sector.
Let's make a pact to make us all successful by supporting each other and continue kicking ass and make people have to pay attention to us :)!
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Comment by Jeb Banner on September 17, 2009 at 9:51am - right, I'm really just razzing Doug. There are probably about 50-100 companies like Small Box that could be listed. Thanks for the link to the Indiana Biz site, I'm glad to see a ground swell around tech. I love "Silicorn" btw!
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Comment by Pat Coyle on September 17, 2009 at 8:28am - Jim Jay wrote an article on this subject published this morning's Inside Indiana Biz: read it here. Like Doug, he didn't mention your company, Jeb, nor Smaller Indiana :-) Oh well...just keep swimming, right?
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Comment by Jeb Banner on September 17, 2009 at 7:38am
- Thanks Jon, I'll send you a DM.
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Comment by Jon D. Speer on September 17, 2009 at 12:46am - Jeb - What kind of funding are you interested and how much? There are quite a few investment resources in Indy area active in IT space.
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Comment by Jeb Banner on September 17, 2009 at 12:41am
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Amen! Would have loved to see another certain company listed in your post but I'm with ya!
I've got a two SaaS start ups that I'm working to get off the ground and a third project (Musicalfamilytree.com) that is about 6 months away from being a stand alone business.
Currently there is no access to funds that I am aware of, public of even private, so I have to fund these projects with our company's cash flow, fitting in development around paying projects. Doable but significantly slows the progress. Access to money would mean quicker growth, more jobs and everything that Doug outlined.
There needs to be a clearer process for entrepreneurs to get access to capital. Maybe this site could put together a simply DIY guide for small biz and tech start up funding. A wiki of sorts.
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1. Please use your real name (first and last) when you sign up, or we cannot open your account
2. Please do not use logos or commercial images for your profile photo
3. Events should be posted in the events calendar
4. You can post pretty much anything you want on your own personal page (self promotion, etc), and you can change the style of your personal profile page to reflect your corporate identification if you so choose.
5. Please keep all comments civil and polite. It's OK to feel strongly about a subject, and it's OK to be critical of ideas, but please refrain from personal attacks of any kind.
If you witness or experience any issues, please contact admin@smallerindiana.com and we will look into the matter.
6. Smaller Indiana is supported by its members, and by corporate sponsors. If you're interested in learning more about sponsorship, please call Pat Coyle at 317 332 7878.
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