S4,E17 - Nora Spillane, Craig Witmer

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This is Talk CNY, a semi-monthly podcast by CenterState CEO, recording in the production studio at CenterState's INSPYRE Innovation Hub. CenterState CEO is 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. CenterState CEO opened INSPYRE Innovation Hub in downtown Syracuse one year ago this September. Since its opening, INSPYRE has hosted more than 100 events, its expanded programming, and its continued to provide even greater resources to the Central New York innovation and entrepreneurship communities. And we have much more planned for the next year ahead. On this episode of Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, we are joined by Center State's Senior Vice President of Inclusive Growth, Honora Spillane, and Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Craig Witmer, to discuss what's happened so far at INSPYRE in its first year and what we'll see down the line.

Craig, Nora, thank you both so much for being here.

Yeah, thanks so much. Happy to be here.

Absolutely. So we are celebrating one year at CenterState's INSPYRE Innovation Hub this month, which is a pretty big milestone for us. It is. It's been a big year. Nora, can you tell me a little bit about, reflect on the year? I mean, like I said, it's been a busy, big year for us in this new building.

Yeah, I mean, it's been really incredible, and we've just been so lucky with the support from everybody across the network and everybody across the community. I think we were doing math earlier, and we've got over 5,000 visitors who have come through. We've got our amazing slate of tenants. We had a squirrel visit us a couple of times. It's all creatures and shapes and sizes. We've had some really impactful events here, which has been really nice to see folks who maybe never saw themselves in what was the old Tech Garden and what we envisioned being this place in space actually be here. And we have some fun.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, a fun thing that we've done this year at INSPYRE is hire a new vice president of innovation and entrepreneurship. Craig, we're so excited to have you with us. What was it about INSPYRE that made you want to be a part of the work happening here?

Oh my goodness. Many things, but I think in particular is the people. That's what makes this place such an amazing space to be growing as either an entrepreneur, an individual, but the people are what really drew me in. And that's easy to say when you have such an incredibly well-designed building that jumps out. And so of course you want to see what's inside, you want to be involved, but really the team, the individuals, folks that I knew who had kind of been involved here before, that's what really drew me here.

Now we're celebrating one year in this building, but it's been a project that has been much longer than just this year and the programs as well as the physical building project. So Nora, talk a little bit about the road it took to get to this anniversary date. Yeah, no, it's a funny story. When I was still working at the City of Syracuse with Mayor Walsh. Me, Rob Simpson, Mayor Walsh, County Executive McMahon, me and another city staffer headed down to New York City to meet with the head of Empire State Development. Long story short, then we had to drive back in a blizzard, and that was a really fun road trip with the mayor and the county executive.

Everyone made it back safe.

Everybody did make it back safely. The mayor's a very safe driver.

That's good.

And that was 10-ish years ago. We had a vision. The mayor had a vision for this part of downtown. Southern downtown didn't really have an anchor. We've always had equitable, but after COVID, with the Salt City Market opening up and the Tech Garden had been a draw, but it just wasn't quite as welcoming. So the vision 10 years ago, all that planning work was to build a space that was more welcoming and more representative of the entrepreneurship community in Syracuse and Central New York. COVID, everything got more expensive, went and fundraised some more, and we got this building open. I really got to give a shout out to Huber Breuer, particularly. They did the construction. It was not easy. I mean, putting two more stories on an old parking garage, quite the engineering feat.

Yes.

And our design team at QPK also did an awesome job. And just everybody here who chipped in, opening a new building is really fun. A lot of hard work. But all that to say, literal journeys, but a really good outcome. We have the whole staff here this week because we're getting our other offices painted and stuff. So it's been fun to have the entirety of the CenterState family and team here too. And it's just bustling, and it's been really fun. And Craig's here and that's been really great for me.

What a tremendous time to be stepping in and physically being someplace when you get to have the whole team around, and you get to know everybody through osmosis and just being in a shared space. If you'd done coworking spaces before or you've been in a kind of shared hot desk space before, all the big name brand ones, coming here and seeing everyone together and having the opportunity to meet the folks across the CenterState team has been awesome for me. But then also getting organic connections with all of our awesome clients and tenants has been great to see the building full and lively and a really wonderful welcome on my end.

Yeah. I mean, how would you describe the building to someone who hasn't been inside of it yet? I know that we do try to make a lot of opportunities for folks to get into the building, to see it, and we always are happy to give tours as well. But for those who might still be just walking past and being like, oh, that's definitely new, what do you hope that they see when they come inside?

I hope they see that they can come inside because that was a big problem before. Nobody could find the front door. So having opened up not only the literal footprint of the first floor, but it's all transparent, it's glass, you can see what's happening here. You can see the maker space, you can see all of us having weird meetings in chairs all around the place. The screens are really exciting and the content that the marcom team puts up there. When people walk in, I want them to feel like they're welcome here. Kat at the front desk is the best front desk person ever. She just has such a spirit about her and so embodies this place. But I want people to feel like they can walk in here and that they can ask a question and get a little self-guided tour and meet some cool people who are milling about and the tenants are awesome and we've got the best signage up finally, which is very exciting for me.

I like a wayfinding journey, but that's what I hope that people both literally come in, but also that they feel like the space is now something that they can recognize what's happening in there. It's not just this weird concrete building with dumpsters on the side of Harrison Street. Not a great look.

No, much better now.

Yes. Landscaping.

Yeah.

Totally agree. I think being able to see yourself here is kind of the best part. Having the opportunity for people to see themselves here, to engage in the different kinds of programming, to know that there is a vast network of people, resources, spaces, potential collaborators, potential customers, potential employees all in one space. That's the kind of thing that I'm hoping that anybody on the street who's walking by trying to get involved. And even if you're not just walking by and seeing something, if you are in the community, in the region, in the state, wherever you find yourself located, knowing that this is a place where you can grow and develop, either yourself, your business, whatever sort of project you're involved in, that's the hope.

So let's talk about inside a little bit. What's been going on here? I mean, a lot, but one of the things is our expanded programming. So for the past year since we've been open, we have not only continued our programs, but expanded them, adapted them. Can you talk a little bit about how that's been with the new clients and expanded programming? What's been the impact on people?

I'm sure we have really good data about this that somebody could flash across the bottom of the screen, but I think a couple of things. We recognized when we did customer discovery, as the building was shut down, and Craig's predecessor, John Liddy, who really led a lot of that process, did an amazing job. We found out that people didn't know what was in here, and if they did know what was in here, they didn't think it was for them. So by opening up what we call clientship to various tiers of engagement and entrepreneurial support, we hope that really anybody, whatever industry you're in, whatever stage you are in your business, that you feel like you can come here and get support. And it's not just from the team here, although they are fantastic, but it is with other partners in this building, whether it's Ascend, who can do some financing for you with a small business development center who are here and are a great team of business advisors and tip of the spear of a statewide network.

We've got Armory Square Ventures here, so if you're one of those kinds of companies and you need venture money or at least just to pick Somak's Brain, that's great.

But clientship and the way that we have structured that now to be a little bit more a la carte and self-serve has been really the biggest change. I think I've learned a lot about how you meet entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey and how you hold them and hold us accountable. We're really lucky to have the entirety of the CenterState Network behind us so that you need an accountant, you need an architect, you need an insurance agent. We can tap into that whole membership side of this too, which is I think one of the unique aspects of what we do here, Greg and the mentorship program. Connecting folks to those resources, whether they're tangible and they're actual money, because we do have some resources to support businesses, it's not grants to start your business; that's not a thing. But to support technical assistance and really help people reach into the community and find that partner who they really can be trusting with is super important. On the other side, we have a good stable set of cohort-based programming.

So obviously a lot of people know about GENIUS New York. We have the Upstart Accelerator. We have our Clean Tech Accelerator. Those folks are in very industry specific curriculum driven groups. They'll come out and everybody coming out of a program that's a year of clientship built in because we want to make sure that not only do you finish your program, but you have runway to success and you have that support from us. So those are the two big kind of things. We've got clientship on one side, and we've got the cohort-based programming, and they're all clients. They're all part of the family, but that's what's happening in here, and it's been a real experience figuring out how this space lends itself to that service delivery. And it's been interesting.

Yeah. How have you seen that in action since you've. I mean, Craig, it's been since July, so I know you're working with just a few months here, but I'm sure you've already seen a lot happening.

I think fun is the word, right? There's a tremendous amount of work that goes into being an entrepreneur, having the courage to engage in this kind of programming, raising your hand and saying that I want to build something, I want to grow, I want to access these resources, I want to be vulnerable enough to ask questions about something I'm working on. And so seeing all of that happen live here, fun is the word, right? It's such a privilege to get to work with folks who will go to the kinds of workshops that we put on, who will engage in the events, who will put their effort into applying to the programs that we put on and dedicate their time to doing this kind of work. And so it's just been excellent to see. And the kinds of workshops that we do, focusing them on the needs of our community and needs of the entrepreneurs and getting really world-class speakers, individuals from our community to speak to people in our community, it's just been, I'll say it a third time, fun to be a part of.

Fun

For the third time.

Fun for the third time, fun for a fourth time. This has been really fun. We'll have more fun after the break, but first we have a quick word from our presenting sponsor, NBT Bank.

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This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, Director of Communications at CenterState CEO and your host for Talk CNY. I am joined on this episode by CenterState's Nora Spillane and Craig Witmer. Thank you both for joining us here today.

Yeah, thanks so much for having us.

Really still good to be here.

Well, that's good. We're still at INSPYRE Innovation Hub. We are celebrating one year. So let's take time to look back a bit again, reflect on what do you think's really working well so far, and what are some of the lessons we are still learning and looking to improve in this next year at INSPYRE?

Both something that's really working well and something we want to continue to improve on is the events that we host, not only the ones that we put on and are responsible for the content and are intended for our client audiences and the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial community, but we've also been really fortunate to have great community engagement and support. So events that are aligned with CenterState's mission and aligned with the goals of this place were please come on down. I got to give a shout out to our events manager here, Lexi Kelly, who is a tireless event planner and extraordinaire, does amazing work in the entire events team to put things on. I think the first event we held here was accidentally a gala, which was fun. It was great. It was the Good Life Foundation, and they were tremendous to work with, but it was right out the gate.

Yeah, it was go time.

It was go time. That was a fun night. I was not in my gala gear, but that's been really exciting. I think fine-tuning that, we're not an event host, we're not an event space. And so figuring out how to blend that demand, which has been really positive with the fact that we are actually just a business incubator with a good couple of spaces that we can help people with. And there was demand in the market in downtown for bigger spaces, but that's been really exciting, but a challenge. I think the other thing that's been really exciting is to see some of the clientship in practice, see the folks who are a client and are in a startup program and they're here in the building and they come in after hours and they're able to take meetings and live in the space. It's not just about coming in and out for your class and your program and event, but finding that place to work, sitting and co-working, having some of the coffee.

But that's, I think, the other thing that we didn't really have at the Tech Garden was that sort of constant flow of the clients and the tenants in and out of the space.

Yeah. And Craig, you came in with fresh eyes. So what are some of the things that you saw that you were like, "Wow, this is really great." And some of the things that you are dedicating your time to now in your first few months?

So I think that there is a tremendous legacy when it comes to programming here, whether that's Start It, Upstart, our work in Clean Tech and sustainability, and obviously GENIUS New York plus the general spirit of supporting small businesses, entrepreneurs. And that comes across so clearly in the orientation of all of the folks who work in the building. And so that has just given such a strong foundation to enable me to bring that fresh perspective to some other things when it comes to reviewing the space. I have a bit of background in hospitality, and so when I think through the spaces and I'm seeing little things like how are we ensuring that we have a really hospitable and welcoming space at all times for folks? How are we ensuring that the amenities that are available, the services that are available, what we are providing and how we are providing it, those are the kinds of things that I key into and I think what could we do to improve there?

We are just about to wrap up the renewal period for our tenants. So we've done by we, I want to give a very special shout out to Beverly Mack and Brandon Mastrangelo who have led the engagement with our current tenants on renewals and spent significant amount of time engaging with them to try to understand why are folks choosing to stay here and why are some folks maybe pivoting towards clientship? And so getting into that data and really trying to understand how we can tailor services, tailor our approach to what folks need, that's something that I'm excited for.

You really super duper wanted umbrellas on the Community Bank Terrace, and he is absolutely correct that it is in need of shade. Yes. However, I vetoed it because they are definitely projectiles. And so we're going to look at sun shades next year.

Sunshades are great.

Speaking of next year, what is on top of mind for both of you? I mean, we spent some time reflecting. It's very fun to celebrate one year, but that means there are many years ahead for us now. So what are you guys looking down the road to?

Snowball fights.

Oh, that's speaking of projectiles.

Yeah. I'm very excited to see what the space looks like during the fall, the wintertime, what we can plan over the coming months to elevate. How do we go from, what are the lessons learned over the course of the last 12, 18, 24 months that we can draw from to try to improve and what are some maybe different kinds of events, programming, those kinds of things that we can experiment with and see whether or not folks like them. And if that's anything from trying to do different kinds of activations of the spaces with either pitch nights or bagels and coffee for the community or just offering spaces that folks can kind of engage with and facilitate themselves, I'm trying to engage the folks on our event side to enable them to lead that charge as they're the folks who have been on the front lines and engaging with folks every day.

Yeah. Two big things for me. One, we are going to be welcoming in later September, the GENIUS 10 cohort. So that will be a big milestone of 10 years of GENIUS New York. We've got a really exciting crop of competitors this year, so that's really cool.

We're looking towards the future of GENIUS also, so stay tuned for that. The other thing is I think we're going to start looking at the third floor. When we built this space, made a lot more financial sense to put on two floors knowing that there could be demand, but taking a little bit of space and time to understand what the market demand is, how we settled into the building. So getting a design team on board, working with a potential anchor tenant up there and seeing what else we need to do here. So that's on my radar, so we'll see, but third floor.

It's exciting, all of it, but I want to zoom out a little bit to end here. How does INSPYRE fit into the greater Central New York picture right now? We are going through a time we love to talk about this period of growth in our region, and it is exciting, but it's complex too. So can you give us a little bit of a full picture of how INSPYRE works with some of the other strategic initiatives and projects happening right now?

I think one thing, not one thing, a very important thing that we were intentional about before we opened the space is making sure that all of our partners in the work of small business and entrepreneurship felt that this was a space for them too. So we have done things like host office hours with the Apex Accelerator. The SBDC has an office here, I mentioned. There are business incubators at Le Moyne and SU and around the region who we want to make sure that they know if I'm going to host an event, or I need a space or I got to be downtown and I need an office to meet with a client that this space is their space too. So we've been thoughtful about that before we moved in, about talking with them about that. Over the course of the past year, we've had regular meetings with that group of folks and it's an ever fluctuating crowd, but we're all trying to tackle the same larger opportunity, which is how do we support the growth of the business community in Syracuse?

And whether that's your side hustle that you want to make your full-time gig or it's your full-time gig that you need to scale, there's a piece or a part or partner in this community to help you get there. And we just want to be the front door for some of that, but we're not the only answer out there.

I think the front door for the ecosystem is really the best way of thinking about it, of we can connect to all of the other opportunities, all of the other partners in the region. This is a gathering place for, and it's a nexus point for so many different initiatives, so many different organizations, industries that I think really making connections and introducing people to opportunities. INSPYRE serving as a front door is tremendous, right? Providing access to opportunities, providing access to resources, providing access to organizations, serving as a connector to everything from employment opportunities to technical assistance to guidance when it comes to navigating the Micron moment of it all. I think that that's one of the goals with having such a flagship space downtown, right? It's the sort of figurative flag saying that we are here to support small businesses and entrepreneurs, but also it is a literal grounding piece that we are committed to engaging very seriously and very thoughtfully with our community to enable growth.

Well, thank you so much to both of you for being here today. Here is to One Year at INPSYRE and many more.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, is recorded in the production studio at CenterState's INSPYRE Innovation Hub. Talk CNY is available on all major podcast platforms or centerstateceo.com. Additional content and clips can be seen across CenterState CEO's social media channels. For new episode reminders, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast listening app and don't forget to leave a quick review or five-star rating. Thanks for listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank.