S2,E21 - John Liddy

This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, a semi-monthly podcast by CenterState CEO, Central New York's premier leadership and economic development organization. Join us as we meet the people and explore the projects driving the regional economy forward. This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, Director of Communications at CenterState CEO and your host for Talk CNY. One of the most exciting projects that we have underway at CenterState CEO right now is expanding the Tech Garden site into a new center of innovation. This is a physical symbol of the progress the region has made and just how far our innovation economy has come. But we're not just expanding the physical space, but the programs inside of it too. We want this to be a space open to everyone embracing all forms of entrepreneurship. Helping to lead this vision to reality is CenterState CEO's, Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship John Liddy. He joins me today on this episode of Talk CNY to talk about the expansion project and the future of innovation in Central New York. John, thanks so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me.

So to start off, you've been in this position with CenterState for about a little over two years now, but you've been working with businesses, helping them start and grow for many years prior to this position. So can you tell me a little bit about the work you were doing before you joined CenterState?

Sure. I like to joke that I'm a, I remember recovering entrepreneur and so I sold my fifth business on 9/11, the day, to give you some context over 20 years ago. After that, I went to the corporate world for about 10 years and then I was approached by the predecessor to CenterState CEO, the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce and Syracuse University to start an accelerator for students that are seeking to execute on their business ideas. And I started something called the Student Sandbox. It was housed over at the Tech Garden. They were given a good experience. We took a look at some other accelerator programs that were nationally known and mimicked some of those, did some things on our own and had a really solid first cohort, so much so that one of the teams there was able to go out and eventually sell themselves for $50 million. So we had some nice success early. That accelerator work just blossomed into other work with other universities, other economic development organizations. And then finally I served as the entrepreneur-in-residence for the GENIUS NY program. And so I would help the teams on their entrepreneurial journey. And then fast forward a little bit, and I was asked to come in on the administrative side as the VP of innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Now in this role you're in now, you are deeply involved in the current Tech Garden expansion project. So before we get into any details of what's going on there, can you kind of give us an update on the timeline? Where are we in terms of opening up the new building, how far along we've come since breaking ground on the project. What's going on? What's the latest?

Well, anyone that's been downtown at the corner of Harrison and Warren Street has certainly seen the amount of work that's being gone on. Steel is all up. We have the inside is being boxed in. The second floor is pretty much all done on the studs. We're starting sheetrock now. The roof is all in, and so the goal is to box it all up so we have it ready for the winter to complete it. That being said, our goal is May 2025 to have an opening.

That's great. That's so exciting. Now the physicality of it, the growth that people can see is obvious, but we are also opening up some of the programming, expanding that beyond what the previous iteration of The Tech Garden had offered. So can you tell me a little bit about how we're expanding programming, and what's the difference between what was offered at the original Tech Garden and what will be offered in the new space?

Yeah, so the tech garden, if you think about the entrepreneurial journey, and I think I might've said this on the last podcast, so forgive me for repeating

myself. Hey, it's been over a year. People need the reminder.

So if you go from ideation, coming up with an idea. Validation, is there a product market fit and then scale. Those are kind of the three main areas of the entrepreneurial journey. We at The Tech Garden have played in that validation space. The middle space, you have an idea that you're starting to test with markets that really lends itself well to cohort-led opportunity, like the GENIUS NY program, like the EPIC program. And so we've been really good in that space, but particularly for venture backable technology companies. And so it is - and what does that mean?

So that means I'm going to have significant growth over the next 18 to 24 months. And so it's like I got the fit and now I'm going to explode.

And we've had a couple of companies that have gone through that and been successful, but that really narrows the scope of who we offer that for. And the entrepreneurial education that happens with that really transcends no matter what kind of business you're in, if you're a pizza shop, if you are an app developer or if you're a retail, they all kind of fit. Now you have varying degrees of subject matter expertise. You have to bring in there, like the GENIUS NY program that we bring in a lot of the UAS folks to get the subject matter side of that. And so in that validation space, we did it for a tight group of tech venture backable companies. We wanted to expand that to a broader diversity of founders.

We started the Surge program last year. And so that was a pilot program we ran was very successful. That is a program for BIPOC founders in tech-adjacent spaces. So we weren't as constrained. It's got to be tech, it could be near tech, they all were kind of techy but can be near. And that gave us an opportunity to serve a broader audience. If you look at the ideation side, how is it that we're creating that funnel of ideas? How is it that people are coming with ideas, testing them, figuring those out? And our education institutions do a lot of great work with that, whether they be the university setting, whether they be training organizations or our high schools.

And so we're going to be working with those kinds of organizations to help salt the validation space. Now I got validation. Now I want to scale. How is it that I have access to capital? And we've seen the flyover states don't always have great access to capital and we've started to get a little bit better about that. We will have a venture capital firm in the Tech Garden when we launch. And so we'll have an opportunity for those companies not only to validate their idea, but then to scale by getting access to capital.

Now why is this expansion of programming so important right now in this moment in Central New York to have this new innovation facility that is expanding programmatic offerings, offering more spaces and more resources to more people? What kind of impact can that have on our not only downtown space but overall regional economy?

If you take look at, we were talking about access to capital and look at the vicinity right around the Tech Garden in that community, less than one. It's about half of a percent of all venture backable companies were founded by Black founders. And so that is a really big disconnect. And so our opportunity is to help bridge that gap. That's one thing. And so we're going to be community-based. We'll have opportunities for physical locations for community members to come in, whether they have events there, they can partake in some of our programming. And so we will be a venue to convene people, activate the space, building a physical building post-COVID, that's a little bit of a tricky thing. How are you going to get people to come in? So we have this saying we're going to earn the commute. And so by having that activated space, we're going to have the opportunity for folks to come in.

Now I know inclusivity and making sure it's a welcoming space has been a huge part of this process from start to the point we're at now and I'm sure to finish as well. But everything from the physical building to the programs inside have been sort of underpinned by making sure that it's welcoming to all. So can you get into a few of the details of what kind of programs or other details you're putting into the space to make sure that it is that community-based welcoming space?

Sure. One of the critiques of the physical building in the past was that people would walk by it. It's a glass building. I don't see myself in there and I am afraid to go up to it. I'm not sure there a bunch of white dudes going in there. What is that one? Very really interesting. If you look at where the door it is looking to the southwest side of Syracuse, and so it's facing a community that really has been underserved. How is it we are being more welcoming?

On Harrison Street, where the makerspace is - makerspace, where you're going to have 3D printers and we will have an opportunity for people to create prototypes, minimum viable products. There'll be windows in there so that students, as they're going to the STEAM school a block away will be able to say, Hey, there's people in there making things. I could see myself there. Programmatically, we've teamed up with an organization to provide day passes for those people to come into the building, and so they will have that access. We're teaming up with another educational institution to provide interns from the university to come down and work with those students. And so we'll see. We'll have high school students, college students all working to start and so they can see themselves. The other thing is we have to start at home. If I take a look at the innovation and entrepreneurship staff 18 months ago, we were 15% underrepresented populations. Now we're at 33%. And so we're doing that at home. One of the business advisors we hired has written an MBA for inner city populations and has brought that to a hundred different cities in the United States. And so we're kind of starting at home and going from there.

Now, there's a lot going on with this project, lots that we'll see come to life in the next few months. But what are you personally most excited to see on the ground on the ribbon cutting day? What are you kind of really excited and looking forward to?

Well, I think the drone deck and the terrace on the second floor will get a lot of the publicity. The production room, so we can have podcasts like this. Absolutely, we'll get a lot of play. But frankly, the thing I'm most interested in is our multipurpose theater on the second floor. It'll have access. It'll have space for 200 people. We have a catering space so we can have a lot of events. And we're aiming to have a hundred events there in the first year we're open. In the second year, 200. In the third year, 300.

Big goals. We're setting those out there. We want to be that community location where we are a convener of people that are thinking about entrepreneurship. Maybe they're adjacent to entrepreneurship, but all of a sudden we get them in that building, and we can have those collisions with entrepreneurs. They can see themselves in it. And so I like that multipurpose theater is the thing that I'm really the most excited about.

We'll be back with John in just a moment, but first a word from our presenting sponsor NBT Bank.

What I'm looking for in a bank is one that's looking out for me, like NBT. I want a relationship and a team that supports me and my dreams like NBT. And let's face it, life can get challenging. I need a bank that's focused on me, they've been rated tops in all the things that matter, like trust, customer service, and financial advice. So when I need a bank I can trust. It's always NBT and me.

This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky here today with CenterState CEO's Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship John Liddy. John, thanks for being here.

Happy to be here.

So we've been talking about the Tech Garden expansion project and the new entrepreneurs that would come into this space, but Central New York also has a really rich history of companies that are innovating for regional and global needs, and we want this to be a space for them too. So how will existing businesses fit into this picture of innovation and new ideas in this economy?

Innovation in large firms is always an interesting concept. Do I do it out of R&D? Do I do it on the front line? Is there a separate innovation part of that organization? And a lot of larger firms don't have that capability internally. Even as I speak to our larger employers locally, some of them have it in other locations, some of them want it here. I was speaking with a defense contractor just the other day about how excited he is about our space. And one of the things that we've done in that the third floor of the Tech Garden is a shell, and we're talking to large firms to ask them what is it that they want as a physical location in an innovation space.

Now we have the programming that we've designed an intrapreneurship program that historically we have all these members of CenterState but haven't taken advantage of them. We have access to, Hey, what are your problems? How can we be solving them?

We have technology or innovations that could solve an issue that you already have. How do we show them that they have access to them? By the way, these young entrepreneurs that are working on products that may or may not survive, they'd be great employees at your organization. And so there's a plethora of reasons why large companies should be involved in an innovation hub like The Tech Garden. And as you take a look at it, if I'm a large firm, there's a McKinsey study that says, alright, 70% of all efforts are going to be on what I'm doing right now. Another 20% is on what's the next year and then it's that 10% after that. What am I doing two to three years out? The companies aren't thinking about, and if you think about it, they're incentive programs for the people that are working aren't really aligned for that.

If we can create a physical location, programmatic opportunities, access to innovation and training around that, we're going to be really interesting to those companies so they can come participate. One other thing is that large companies have problems, but they don't want to tell you what their problems are.

Sure.

So we can be the anonymizer for that, right?

Hey, I happen to have talked to four different RF companies in the last month that have the same problem. We're not going to name names…blow anybody in or anything like that. And then we can say, alright, here's a hackathon around that. Here's a day-long workshop on design thinking to figure out what that is. And so people can have opportunity to solve problems that they have, but they're really little. They don't want to be so forthcoming about telling them about.

Yeah, I mean this sounds like a really holistic space, both for not just the typical thought of what an incubator space could be, but like you said, the intrapreneurship with existing businesses and opening it up to all sorts of entrepreneurship. I mean, how kind of special is that in a community to have a space designed this way?

We did a lot of customer discovery as we're building the building. We wanted to figure out who else does this well. And what we found is people do it well in discreet parts. We do well on the ideation side. We do well on the validation side. We do well on the scale side, but doing all three at once is really a little bit of a unicorn. And so we should be happy. And I think that really speaks to how an economic development organization like CenterState thinks about innovation and they think about it a lot broader than it's just pigeonholed into some R&D arm or it's into some industry.

Now we hear a lot about how large companies impact our economy, of course, and that's never to be discounted. But startups and small businesses also play a really big role in making our local economy a richer and more vibrant space. Can you tell me a little bit about why it's so important to invest in innovation and in these startups and small businesses?

There was a study done, I'm not going to get the year right, that was 85% of all new wealth comes from innovation. It is why companies succeed and what brings them to growth.

So you've been in this space for quite a while. You've had a lot of experience working with businesses, starting them, growing them. Can you kind of give perspective to how far the Central New York community has come from where we were even 10 years ago to now when it comes to innovation and how we value it, how we talk about it, and how we're succeeding in this space?

The answer to that, what is it? Copying is the ultimate form of flattery.

Yes.

There's something in that line. When we started the sandbox in 2009, we drew in five teams from Syracuse University in the second year. Again, we had 12 teams. In the third year we had 35 teams. And those teams came from not just Syracuse University. They came from Clarkson. They came from RIT. They came from as far as Florida. They came from Cornell. And so what happened is that program then worked for a couple of years. Then all the universities took them back because they recognized the value of that experiential education and creating innovation. And so if copying is the biggest form of flattery, I think that would really show what that is.

Now you've, like we said before, have experience here and you've been doing this for a while. So what keeps you coming back to it? What excites you about the entrepreneurial journey and working with businesses, helping them take their next steps?

Yeah. Last week I went to a book opening of a former entrepreneur that I'd worked with and it was great. She shared her journey and she had little lessons about it. I wrote a testimonial in it. And the empowerment that you provide an entrepreneur to go out and provide not only for themselves but for their families, for their employees. And she had this thing, she had never heard of it. A lot of people have since is she had imposter syndrome. And what we see with entrepreneurs is most of them have it at some level. And frankly, if you don't have it a little bit, I don't know if I want to work with you a little just too brash, but those people that have, I'm not sure if I could, I'm not sure if I should. And to see them get over that hump, that is really rewarding.

I'm sure every time it's a different version of it, but it's rewarding every time. Now we're talking about all these entrepreneurial journeys and innovation. What would be some advice to people who are looking to maybe start their own business right now? Or something that you would say to someone who's like, should I, shouldn't I, had this idea for a while? I don't know if I want to take the next step yet.

Yeah, well, ideas are perishable, right? If you don't execute on them, they're never going to be anything. And that jump is really hard. And these old Nike just do it. And that's what I would tell people why. If you take a look at why people don't do it, it's usually it's fear of failure. And there's a misconception that entrepreneurs are big risk takers. They are risk takers, but they're known risk takers. And studies show that. And what they do is they compartmentalize what risk they're taking. And so if they do fail, they fail fast and they fail cheap.

What we can do as an organization is show them that pathway, how that works. And if you come into the Tech Garden, we can say, all right, this is how you do customer discovery. This is how you do market validation. This is how you do productization, and we can show how you can ensure that you're building a product or a service that the market's going to want. What we do then is limit that risk and we can do it at a very low cost. And so that starts to take away a lot of that anxiety people have about starting businesses.

We've talked a lot about the Teck Garden today, but the innovation and entrepreneurship team here does a lot of work, a bunch of different things. So going into 2025, aside from the Tech Garden project, what else are you looking forward to from your team and this organization?

One of the things we've done over the last 18, 24 months is really a solid collaboration with the organization writ large. And so it's no longer on an island in a building across town that we are trying to figure that out. And so we're working very closely with MBX. How is it that we're providing value to our membership writ large? We're talking to the economic development. Hey, I have an entrepreneur that has started to outgrow some of this space or her space in The Tech Garden. How is it that I'm putting them in a physical location? If you take a look at up and down Warren Street, the technology corridor there, a lot of those, if not all those were graduates of the tech Garden, which is great.

We have this kind of dual thing. I'm trying to fill that building and at the same time, I'm trying to get everybody out.

Two at once. And so our goal there is to create programs that introduce people. We recognize that the first six months are going to be fits and starts, and knowing that going in and getting people's expectations set is an appropriate part of that. And so it's making sure we have the programs, the newer programs that we'll be doing with collaborating on the ideation side, the scaling side with the venture capital. We're really excited about the intrapreneurship. The amount of times I now spend with larger companies talking about innovation is far outpacing before where they're, oh, that's just, maybe I'll go to an event. Now it's like, how do I see myself as a large organization, large member at CenterState interacting with the innovation space.

John, thank you so much for your time today. It was great talking to you.

My pleasure.

CenterState CEO's podcast Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank is available on clickcny.com and all major podcast platforms. After each episode, you can join us on Click, where we'll continue to talk about this topic and provide additional resources and links. In Click, you can listen to or watch every episode of Talk CNY. Click is CenterState CEO's digital chamber platform where our members connect, learn, and receive support from our staff. For new episode reminders, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast listening app. If you're enjoying Talk CNY, consider leaving a quick review or a five-star rating.