Gov. Mike Braun appointed Brian Schutt as the director of the new Indiana Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Schutt is the co-founder of Refinery46, a co-working space and startup incubator in Indianapolis, as well as Homesense Heating and Cooling.
He graduated from Purdue University’s College of Business in 2003. Schutt said part of the office’s role is to feature successful, homegrown startups in Indiana. “The most inspiring thing is just to know somebody else’s story.
And I think we have a lot of those,” Schutt said. “A big part of the job is connecting with some of the flourishing businesses that already exist and sharing those stories. I don’t think the state can force entrepreneurship, but we can help tell more stories that inspire people to recognize their gifts and become problem solvers.
The Indiana General Assembly established the office earlier this year to support the growth of small businesses, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
Schutt noted that while starting a business in Indiana is relatively easy in the legal sense, he didn’t see the office as prescriptively telling businesses how to flourish, but rather finding “where we can come alongside and where we can get out of the way.
Gov. Braun, who made the announcement Monday morning, tied the office’s launch to his own experience as a business owner. (First Lady) Maureen and I lived the American dream of growing Main Street businesses in our hometown, and I want every Hoosier to have that opportunity.
Indiana entrepreneurship support effort
Our goal is to make Indiana the best place in the country to start and build your own business, and the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, led by Brian Schutt, will be a nation-leading resource to help Main Street entrepreneurs,” he said in a release. The office will report to Secretary of Commerce David Adams and oversee the state’s certified technology parks.
Schutt’s role also directs him to identify ways to support rural communities, underrepresented socioeconomic communities, and youth entrepreneurship. “There is no thriving community without a thriving entrepreneur base,” said Schutt. “We’re not going to come through with this idea that central Indiana, Indianapolis, has all the answers.
It has to be a collaborative effort. And a lot of solutions are, necessarily, community-led.”
According to the Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship, Indiana lags behind its national peers in establishing new business opportunities. In 2020, Indiana’s rate of new entrepreneurs was only 0.25%, compared to the national rate of 0.34%.
Additionally, those startups created just 3.5 jobs for every 1,000 people, compared to the national average of five jobs. Schutt has previously considered how to nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs, including a 2022 commentary in the Indianapolis Business Journal on the role of parents, to help Hoosier children “see problems as opportunities.”
“If you see problems as opportunities, there’s never going to be a shortage of opportunities,” Schutt said, highlighting the Innovate WithIN and High School Hustle programs. “These are programs that already exist that focus on that mindset … the capacity to see a problem as an opportunity and not necessarily look around for someone else to be a problem solver.”
Lemonade stands are a longtime favorite for Schutt, and he spent six years as a board member of Lemonade Day in Indianapolis, a program geared toward children.
“Lemonade stands are a great foundation. There’s something catalytic when a kid is allowed to create something on their own and earn that first dollar,” said Schutt.
