For Ohio to soar as a technology hub, entrepreneurs and the establishment alike need to lean into its history, lean more on each other and stand a little taller, said speakers at a statewide industry conference.
Building the "Silicon Heartland" today is like moving to a Palo Alto orchard four decades ago, panelists at the second annual OhioX Tech Summit said. But the foundation needs to stay true to traditions of innovation, hard work and collaboration.
Think Wright Brothers.
"We have a very, very long history of innovation – building companies and building things – in Ohio," said Doug McCollough, co-founder and CEO of Color Coded Labs, a Columbus coding boot camp. "We tend to forget that. We’re not good at tooting our own horn.
“Take advantage not only of this moment, but start thinking in decade cycles," he said. "We've got to stop thinking in quarters."
OhioX's soldout event in the Ohio Union at Ohio State University urged building the momentum from a decade of tech industry growth – vaulted forward by Intel Corp.'s epochal decision to build its first ground-up U.S. semiconductor manufacturing complex in New Albany.
"We can't be passive," said Kumi Walker, co-founder and managing partner of Embedded Services, a Columbus consulting firm for growing startups. "If we’re aggressive and thoughtful and strategic, we can make this more of a destination."
Kevin Hoggatt grew up Wilmington when the drumbeat of news tolled jobs marching out of the state. Now he's Intel's director of state government affairs in Ohio.
Although Intel has been sustaining financial losses and job cuts at the corporate level, Hoggatt repeated to the crowd the company's commitment to the New Albany fabs as a core strategy.
Ohio One, as the complex is called, increases the U.S. share of chip production – as much a national security issue as preventing supply chain disruptions. The fabs will make the company's latest generation of chips, and help kick off Intel's "foundry" model of manufacturing chips designed by outside clients.
"We are rebalancing that global manufacturing capacity," Hoggatt said. "We will be building literally the most advanced thing humanity makes, right here in Ohio."
Intel is recruiting now for the technicians to run those plants when they open in two years, he said, and so far it's a healthy mix of Ohio natives, Intel veterans looking to move, and industry veterans new to the company.
'Doing it the truly Ohio way'
Panelists had a mix of origins: childcare staffing startup Tandem co-founder and CEO Olivia Weinstock, who grew up in Bexley and stayed; Walker, an industry veteran who grew up in Maryland and moved to Columbus from Silicon Valley; and Cal Al-Dhubaib, who was raised in Saudi Arabia, came to his mother's hometown of Cleveland for college, and stayed to build AI startup Pandata.
What keeps all of them here, they said, is the supportive networks they've formed.
While Ohio employers fret about finding enough recruits, McCollough said, the future talent pools are waiting in neighborhoods like Linden, Hilltop and Bronzeville King-Lincoln.
"We've got an enormous level of people who are available, who are waiting, who are not being approached," he said.
Ohio could benefit by adopting some Silicon Valley business "hacks," Walker said. For example, the founders of Slack unabashedly asked former co-workers to use their then-faulty first product free, giving them a list of impressive Silicon Valley users to show investors when raising money to improve the product.
Meeting new people and offering to help, or make introductions, makes contacts feel "you are providing them a service beyond selling," he said.
Ohio's large corporations can ensure the state produces tomorrow's large corporations by coaching entrepreneurs with candid feedback – helping them pivot, build their teams, and find product-market fit, Al-Dhubaib said.
"Understand the first version of that idea is probably going to be bad," he said. "What if we normalized working with entrepreneurs? That’s amazing intellectual capital you could use. What if we change how we look at risk and start celebrating it?"
Ohioans need to shake the psychological effects of past job losses and the outdated "rust belt" label, JobsOhio CEO J.P. Nauseef said. He gave an overview of how the private nonprofit economic development model boosted business attraction and job creation since 2011, including wins like Intel.
"We’re humble people, we’re practical people," Nauseef said. "Doing it the truly Ohio way, but embracing the Ohio that we are, we’re a top 10 business state.
"Be proud of where you’re from. We don’t have to be like anybody else, we can be ourselves."
