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BizVoice/Indiana Chamber – July/August 2017
Trying to attract entrepreneurs to a community requires innovative approaches as the
competition is intense. A partnership led by Anderson University (AU) did just that earlier this year
with one of the early successes music to the ears of university and city officials.
Kirby Gilliam, owner of PlainSong Music Services, grew up in Anderson and is a 2010 AU grad
with a degree in music education. She started her business in mid-2016 with services including the
growing field of music therapy (using music as a tool to reach non-musical goals), adaptive lessons
(music training for people with special needs) and private lessons (guitar, piano, ukulele and voice).
Preparing for her June 2017 wedding, she and her fiancé “had been talking about moving to
Noblesville or Indianapolis. But the Anderson Now program has given us incentive to stay. The
more we researched and thought about it, we realized we could do good things in this community –
there’s so much need and possibility there.”
Anderson Now is
selecting 10 Indiana college
graduates who are willing to
move or start their business
in the city and providing
them with up to $25,000
each in educational loan
repayment. That initially
attracts some, including
Gilliam.
“I thought it was really
neat,” she says of her initial
reaction. “But I had already
established a business and I
didn’t know if this was for
me. I was a little
apprehensive. I read about it
a little bit more and my fiancé said, ‘Go for it!’ So I went for it and here we are.”
While the loan repayment might be the attention grabber, both Gilliam and Deborah Miller-
Fox, an AU professor and director of the university’s IDEA-U initiative, believe the other aspects of
the program carry greater significance.
“It’s the mentoring and support. Owning your own business can be a really lonely road. And
starting a new business can be overwhelming and lonely and terrifying,” Miller-Fox imparts with a
chuckle. “Because you don’t really know what you don’t know. This is an opportunity to become
part of a community of other small business owners here in the city of Anderson.
“Another really valuable piece is that you have to complete an online application through the
Bankable microloan program. You’re not required to accept a microloan, but that process helps us
to vet their application. It helps us determine if they are viable for the program and it makes them
pre-approved for a loan if and when they need that. Bankable also does a lot of mentoring and
education.”
All Anderson Now participants will have access to the IDEA-U innovation lab, created to foster
collaboration and entrepreneurship on the AU campus. It will function as a type of co-working
space, with the added ability of “drawing on the intellectual capital of faculty and staff.”
PlainSong Music Services and a lawn care/landscaping business were part of the program as of
this interview in mid-May. Miller-Fox notes a handful of others were far along in the application
process. There were 24 inquiries in the first three months, with approximately two-thirds having
some connection to AU.
“Our alums seem excited about the program and the way that we’re trying to attract people to
the city of Anderson,” she conveys. We’re trying to be as non-prescriptive as possible. We’re
willing to be surprised. We don’t want to squelch a business or an opportunity because it didn’t fit
into the box that we imagined initially. We do require that they live here in Anderson. We want
them engaged in the community.”
TECH TALK: COMPANIES, SPACES AND PEOPLE
Co-working spaces are emerging
with increasing frequency. But how
many meet these criteria:
• An insurance and risk management
company is leading the way
• There is absolutely no cost to utilizing
the space
• It’s located in a small city
The community is Wabash. Parker
Beauchamp is CEO of INGUARD, a
business that traces its roots back nearly
150 years. He describes what makes this
collaboration special.
“It’s unique that a university
(Manchester) has partnered with a
private, for-profit organization like
INGUARD, has their signage on our
building and has space throughout our
building. With a third partner in there
(the Economic Development Group of
Wabash County), what a perfect
marriage between government, a
collegiate institution and private
enterprise. That’s cool, and I think a
lot’s going to come from it.
“We’re doing it for free and we
didn’t use anybody else’s money to build
it,’ Beauchamp continues. “We’re doing
it for free because I want to make a
contribution and we’re drawing a battle
line for rural America right here in
Wabash, Indiana. It’s a fight that I want
to help in any way I can.”
Adversity struck early. Just a week
after the February 28 grand opening of
Innovate at INGUARD, a nearby lumber
yard fire necessitated more than a month
of work to remove the smell from the
building. But users have come, with
Beauchamp estimating 500 people taking
advantage of the space in its first 45 days.
A variety of entrepreneurship,
fellowship and business consulting
programs are among the offerings.
Schools and non-profits are taking
advantage. One of the first users was
researchers from Duke University, in
town to study the Wabash County
Promise program.
Beauchamp says it will be a number
of years before its success can be
determined. But for now, he cites
“university signage in downtown
Wabash, on a company on the move
Co-Working With
a Twist in Wabash
Anderson: We Want Your Businesses Now
RESOURCES:
Anderson Now at
www.anderson.edu/academics/idea-u/anderson-now| Kirby Gilliam,
PlainSong Music Services, at
www.facebook.com/plainsongmusicservicesAnderson Now participants will be able to utilize the IDEA-U space
on the Anderson University campus.
Technology and Innovation: Yearlong series