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42

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/plainsongmusicservices

Anderson Now participants will be able to utilize the IDEA-U space

on the Anderson University campus.

Technology and Innovation: Yearlong series