How Silicon Valley has Invested in Warsaw, Indiana to Become the “Orthopedic Capital of the World”

In med tech and orthopedics, you can come work out of the global headquarters of Zimmer Biomet. Every startup around the world will want to do that. It's so fascinating that Warsaw, from an orthopedic standpoint started with a version of the splint RV Capital of the World, Orthopedic Capital of the World. We have all of the elements to do something really impactful for Plug and Play here in Northeast Indiana.

Like where is the craziest building you ended up walking in trying to convince them to come to Fort Wayne?

From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get IN, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spanel, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. getindiana.com is your one-stop shop for everything Indiana.

From festival and event guides, to blog posts covering hidden gems, local businesses, small towns, and more. Check it out and learn something new about the Hoosier state@getindiana.com. And don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter right there at the top. My guest today is Brandon Noll. He grew up on a small rural farm in Pleasant Lake, Indiana that's up near the Fort Wayne area.

Where they raised cows, chickens and he developed a strong work ethic. He then earned a bachelor's degree in finance and economics from Huntington University while playing baseball there. Today he leads Plug and Play's Indiana operations, helping bring global innovation and startup acceleration to the Hoosier State.

Plug and Play is a global innovation platform headquartered in Silicon Valley. Its mission is to accelerate innovation globally by connecting the best startups to the world's leading corporations, while bringing Silicon Valley level startup resources to emerging regions like Indiana. They say emerging.

I say we're, we're on the precipice right there. Today we're gonna talk about growing up in Northeastern Indiana. We're gonna talk about Plug and Play big bet on Warsaw and what that means for the entire state. And we're just gonna chop it up a little bit about the state of Indiana. Brandon, welcome. Love it.

Need you to come around with me to be my hype guy. There we go. I mean, gimme like two takes at it and I can really, really rip it, man. Good. That was good. Um, I love it. We're talking all things, pleasant Lake, pleasant Lake for those that are unfamiliar. Geography. Where's this At the suburbs of Angola, the, the suburbs of Angola.

Beautiful. Steuben County baby. Go Hornets. Go Hornets. Yeah. Come on. Class of oh four, let's go. They're, and they're, uh, while we're taping this, they won sectionals, so, oh, they face the dude from, uh, Knox. That's who they have. That's who they have. So good luck. Go hornets. Well, by the time this comes out, we'll already know how that unfolds.

Let me just tell you, miles McLaughlin is the real deal. Well, yes dude, he's about to break. Derrick Henry's record. Insane. Do you bad Early Will Angola stop. Miles McLaughlin and the Max and his team, my understanding is this is kind of a Cinderella story for the Hornets, so. They're going up against a, this is like a David Go Goliath, David and Goliath situation.

Alright. Well, we'll, we'll, well, the listeners will know by this point, uh, what happened in that story and how that turned out. Yeah. But best of luck. Thanks. I mean, but on the other side, it's a Cinderella story that this small farm kid from Indiana could wind up, you know, competing with Derrick Henry for the national record.

Yeah. But you're no stranger. Small farm kids can do a lot of big things. They can, and that's where your story takes off was from what some people might call a hobby farm. Mm-hmm. But like, you know, this is their early two thousands. Having, raising animals, learning that responsibility, like helps put food on the table.

Talk to me about growing up in, in that rural culture. Yeah. I mean, we didn't have a lot financially, but we were very rich in love. I had, I have two parents who, uh, just loved and poured into my brothers. Nice. I have two, I have two younger brothers. They're twins and, and, and you. Everyone thinks it's cool that I do this venture capital.

One's a, one's a fireman, the other one's a police officer. So their lives are far, like exponentially more important in what they're doing than what I do in, uh, in Angola? In Angola. Oh, all in Steuben County. Heck yeah. So yeah, we had cows and chickens growing up and it wasn't like, Hey, let's make a lot of money.

It was more probably, Hey, got three boys mouths to feed. Yeah. And, and so if, if we were able to raise 10 head of cattle and, you know, we, we sold off nine of them. Could that pay for the 10th one where we would kind of have a free freezer full of beef and then we hunted and fished and had chickens with eggs and, and all of that.

I did not know that that was something that people did for fun. I thought that was like, Hey, this is how we're going to eat. So, yeah. Um, to fill the freezer. And so it, it was, it was our way of lifestyle. It was, you know, pre-social media, pre-internet, pre, you know, really having direct tv. It was, we had whatever the, the bunny ears would get on the tv.

So we were outside from. From morning until night. Yeah. And, and it was a, it was a, a fun lifestyle looking back on it. Yeah. Oh, it was like, oh, like super appreciative of how I was raised. Yeah. I, I totally agree. Coming from a small town, like I love, I used always say Bourbon was the best place to be from.

Yeah. Like, it's, it's spectacular. We never, we never went to Fort Wayne. My family would say, if, if we don't, if we can't have it in Pleasant Lake or Angola, why would we, why do we need it? So going to Fort Wayne, that was the big city to us. Oh yeah. It was massive. They had a mall. It was wild. It's pretty wild to think about that.

Um, and that's 21 years ago, like when you graduated high school. Yeah. 21 years ago. Um, was college always the plan? I think a lot of times in small towns, like people don't end up going to college. No, it wasn't. So I, I, I was thankful my, my mom, it would've been when I was in middle school, she chose to go back to school to be a teacher.

So she went to what was Tri-State University? No, Trine Thunder. Yeah. Um, she went back to school. She was like a server at Pizza Hut at night and went to school during the day and I learned. Like doing flashcards with her, for her to pass biology. Um, and so I watched her go back to school. And so for me, I, I, it would've been sophomore or junior year of high school, they said, you know, what do you, what do you wanna be?

And it's like, I don't wanna be poor. So like, I searched, we got a computer lab my junior year of high school. I searched like, who makes a lot of money? And it said financial advisors. And so I was like, well, I'm really good at math. I like supply and demand. I'm gonna go finance and I'm gonna go to college and I'm gonna leverage athletics to get to college to help pay for some of the college.

'cause we didn't have the money to pay for college. And then kind of from there, that's, that's how I chose to go to college. That was also, I mean, in that generation that was sold the bill of goods of like, you have to go to college to make all this money and you need to take on all this debt. It was really after I had graduated college, shortly thereafter, we had student loan debt crisis and all that that's going on today.

Isn't it crazy? We were talking about this the other day of like moments slash conversations. That alter your life. Yeah. Like someone, like you get a computer lab and you make this Google search of who makes a lot of, it's probably like Ask Gs. Yeah. Or my, my man Scott Jones had chacha. You're like texting there.

2, 4, 2 2, 4 2 asking what, what career. And that like impacted you. Yeah. You're like, cool. Yeah. Like I bet. How long do you actually think you gave it research on? Five minutes. 10 minutes? Yeah. Yeah. All I had, all I saw was how much money they made per year and I was like, done. Yeah. I can do finance. That's no problem.

Okay, so you end up going, so you go to JUCO for a year. Where's it at? Glen Oaks Community College. Played college baseball there. Where's Glen Oaks? Uh, Sturgis, Michigan. Centreville, Michigan. But closest Sur And I was, I was a really good football player in high school. Um, and so I thought I would go play like college or yeah, go play college football somewhere.

And then, uh, it would've been my senior year, I decided, oh, I'm gonna play baseball. I was really good at it growing up. Let's, let's go play high school baseball. So I waited till my senior year to play high school baseball. I ran track. Uh, the baseball coach pulled me outta biology and was like, Hey, are you being serious about wanting to play baseball?

I said, yeah. And so it was the winter time and there was basketball going on, so I went hit in the cage and, uh, ended up playing my senior year. We ended up winning regionals and, uh, after the regional championship game or before the sectional championship game, I get this phone call from a guy named Junie Melendez, the head baseball coach at, um, at, uh, uh, at Glen Oaks Community College.

So my graduation cake said Ghost Spartans. I was gonna go to Manchester and play football. So my graduation, my graduation cake says Ghost Spartans, Manchester. Juni calls me, he says, Hey, I just had a guy drop out of a scholarship. Would you be interested? And this was leading into the, this was the morning of the sectional championship game that we had for baseball.

We ended up winning, going to regionals. He's there at regionals. We were playing South Bend, St. Joe. Um, we win. I kind of scored the game winning run and committed to him when I walked off the field. No way. So I went to Glen Oaks Community College and played baseball even though all of my graduation photos have Manchester, Spartans all over the cake.

Well, okay. What did you learn from a year at juco? Like why, and because that's a two year thing usually, right? Two year thing. So So you go for a year. Yeah, went for a year. I mean, it was wild. So there was, there's no dormitory. So you, all of a sudden you went from high school to now you're in an apartment with a bunch of dudes, like a, a bunch of however old, 18, 19 year olds.

And they were three to a room. And we were all in the same sort of apartment complex and. You were kind of like, well now you just like learn like you're doing life. Like you said, like, okay, now we make dinner. Now we make dinner. And like, okay, what does that look like? How do you do that? Like, how do you do anything that's like crazy?

Because like other times, like you go, like, I went to DePauw and we had like a food hall and Yeah, like, so you kind of get like baby steps into the real world. No, like now the, the education component was very much high school, but you went to Glen Oaks and we basically played baseball and then you took some classes, um, and then you lived in an apartment.

Yeah. And, and our coach Junie, and it's so funny to look back on it, he was like 25, 26 years old as our head coach. He's now, I believe he's the number one scout for the Cleveland guardians. Junie Melendez. No way. Yeah. So, um, so Junie was our head coach and uh, we had basically three days a year off, and it was Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Other than that, we played on weekends. We played Saturdays, Sundays. Um, we just played baseball all of the time. Represent the team. I grew up rooting for the Cleveland Guardians. No way. Yeah, so, so he's 25? Yeah, he was 25 and he was our head coach. And, and he had, he had no wife or kids, so he was like, I'm just going to make these college kids play baseball all the time.

So that's what we did and it was, it was a blast. Um, but then, uh, I ended up staying there a year and then went to Huntington University. Yeah. Played baseball there. Okay. You ended up finishing out at Huntington? Yeah, so I actually quit going into my senior year of baseball and that was because, um, I was afforded this opportunity to, so I went business, finance and economics.

And this internship at Merrill Lynch opened up in Fort Wayne. And uh, I ended up getting it and I had to make a decision, do I take this unpaid internship, which I don't know if you're allowed to do anymore. I never got paid for an internship. Uh oh. Yeah. You're just getting experience. You're getting experience, you're getting compensated with your experience.

Experience, yeah. Yeah. So. I had to make a decision. Like I, I didn't come from a business background. My family doesn't have a lot of connections in the business world, so I saw this as I was either going to, you know, play baseball or I was gonna do life, and I had to figure that out. Yeah. So I, I chose to take the Merrill Lynch internship and, um, stop playing baseball at Huntington.

But then I took over kind of the investment club and they had a company on campus called Sweet Satisfaction, which ran all the vending machines. So I became president of that and, um, did this internship at Merrill Lynch. And, and it ended up, um, being really good for my career as kind of, yeah, when everyone was graduating, I could at least say no.

I spent time at Merrill Lynch. Okay. So you end up graduating and you're like, now let's go pursue a career in finance. In finance. What did you wanna do? Uh, I thought being a financial advisor. Okay. So, so during the internship I recognized quickly that the, the gentleman I, I interned with, his name's Darren Gray, he has since passed.

Darren wasn't like a genius at finance, but he was really good at relationships. And so I thought, oh, well, this is just being one of the guys. Like, you know, be really good at relationships, be, you know, have some level of expertise in the world of finance and, and you can make a really great career out of this.

So I graduated college in 2008 with a finance degree, and then I had a job lined up, um, in Durham, North Carolina with one of the top financial advisors out there in kind of the Raleigh Durham area. How'd you get that set up? So again, Merrill Lynch internship, he knew that guy, Hey, I have this, you know, this kid that would be really good on your team.

And it was, it was sort of this prototype. Now they have these roles. Early on it was like this associate advisor where I'd kind of come on. I would do a lot of the, the back office work. I would learn kind of the trade. I would do all of my licensing, um, and, and then kind of work your way up into it being a more full fledged financial advisor.

And so I graduate in 2008. Have no money. Um, I work, I used to work at a fireworks store in Angola called Johnny Limas. Shout out Johnny Limas. Yeah. Um, I worked there for two weeks to get enough money to drive out to North Carolina. I get out there, uh, it's a hundred degrees. My car breaks down by eight blocks from the guy's office.

I'm in a full suit. I have to go meet him to basically like finalize the deal. I have to push my car into a bank parking lot and then I sprint eight blocks. I get there. The nice lady at the front desk goes, honey, why don't, why don't you go to the, the restroom and freshen up? 'cause I'm just dripping sweat, just dripping sweat.

And so I'm, you know, getting myself together. I'm thinking in the back of my head. I have $20 in my bank account and I have a car that's not working. I have no family around here. Like, what have I done? Do you have a place to live? I, I did have an apartment. Okay. And so go in. Meet the guy. Everything's great.

Wonderful. I think it was like a Tuesday. He's like, you'll get your offer on Monday. He calls me on Friday. We're in the midst of a financial crisis and Merrill Lynch has done a hiring freeze. All of finance did a hiring freeze in in 2008. So I had no job or 12 month lease on a, an apartment in Raleigh, a car that's broken that's not running.

And I'm somehow a college educated, college degree individual who is poorer than I was growing up on a farm in rural SA County. Whoa. You get the call Friday says, Hey, hiring freeze. And he goes, it'll probably last a few weeks. Don't worry about it. Well, I have to like do something now. So I found this company, um, this had to probably been like a Ponzi scheme of some sorts, but they, he, he said, Hey, uh, it's like we have, uh, the Fort Wayne TinCaps up where I'm at.

You guys have what? Indianapolis Indians down here? Yeah. Yeah. So you would basically get these, um, coupons, like a coupon book of, uh, hey, for 20 bucks you can get six tickets to the Carolina Mudcats, and, and you would sell them door to door or like, they would have like a, a frozen treats, like a cold stone creamery.

It's like, oh, for 20 bucks you get $80 worth of coupons. And so, and you got paid 10 to 20 bucks on each one of these packets. So I would park at one end in downtown Raleigh, and I would go to every business and walk in and try and sell these things. So all of the no solicitation signs, like I just breezed past, I was trying and get to the person and I mean, I had no money and so I wouldn't stop to eat.

I was in a full suit. I was trying to just pedal these coupon books, what to Make ends meet. And it was the worst. And how long did you do that for? Four months. And then at night I worked at Express for Men in the Mall so I could, so I could get a discount on work clothes, on like nice dress clothes, bro.

And, and, and so I'm sitting there in apartment and, and by the way, no, like, I'm sitting there in this apartment and I'm like, so this is the, this is, this is the college dream. This is the dream. Like this is the worst. And so do what does the guy from Merrill Lynch ever say anything? Never got the job. And so it would've been about four-ish months in, uh, a gentleman who, who ran a farm bureau insurance back in my hometown of Angola, reached out and said, you know, there's a job opportunity should you want it fly back.

So I flew back. Um, he paid for my flight to come back, so I flew back and, and met. Um, with the hiring people at Farm Bureau and they ended up saying, well, we can't have you do the one in Angola, but we have this brand new agent role, um, in Fort Wayne and you'll make $40,000 a year. I was like, done. I, I will start tomorrow because whatever life I have out here in North Carolina is miserable and I will come do that.

And so Did you have any friends in North Carolina? No, I had, I had two people I knew Jew. Yeah, it was, it was awful. Holy smoke. It was awful. Now, full circle moment years later, um, I'm helping a buddy and maybe we'll get into this. I'm helping a buddy open up plastics rig grinding facility in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And I chose on a Saturday to drive to Raleigh. Um, because not only did my car break down that one time, it broke down again and I took it to a gentleman. Um, he actually came and towed it and it was like a mom and pop shop. It's like a younger guy just doing mechanic work and I'm sitting there knowing I don't have the money to fix my car.

Like, I don't have a credit card, I don't have any money. And knowing like he's fixing it, I'm gonna hand him my card, it will get declined, and then I gotta figure out like I ought to get out of it. He was so kind that he's like, you're good man. Like, don't worry about it. And so I went back to try and find him to give him money and hug him and thank him and I, they, he had closed up his, his house.

Oh, that's good on you for going back. Well, good on him for, but, but it, but it also brought up like, again, I so much about life is about perspective. Yeah. And without one growing up probably how I grew up, the timeout in North Carolina, you don't appreciate the moments you have like today. And so, uh, I went back to like kind of relive some of those battle scars, so to speak.

Yeah. Wow. I mean, that would've been, I mean, that would've been so cool if you would've found him. And he's like an older man now and just like. You, you're, you're one of the good ones. Well, as if he, if he listens, I don't even remember his name, but yeah. Avid listeners. Smith Smiths Tire engine service out there in Raleigh.

Get Raleigh, come on. Yeah. Insane. So you ended up coming back to Fort Wayne? Came back. Came back Fort Wayne to do insurance. To do insurance, yeah. How long does that last? Two years. And I, I was, I was good at the relationship sales part. What I was not good at is selling life insurance, which was a big push.

It's like, sell life insurance, sell. And I was like, I have no life experience to recognize the importance of life insurance. I was good at selling auto insurance, good at selling, um, homeowners insurance, but I, I had always wanted to do something in finance. And so a job opened up at a, a financial firm in Fort Wayne, um, as like a entry level portfolio analyst.

So I took a big pay decrease, um, to go take that position. And then I was in that role for a couple years and then worked my way into the director. And then, uh, we were kind of overseeing around $110 million and over the course of a few years, grew it to 300 million. So I was 28 managing, I dunno, $300 million in the stock market.

There you go. That was cool. And that's, that's the college dream right there. That was, that was, I think, I think when you go to study fighting, it's like that's what you want to end up doing something like that. Right. It it is. Uh, but you end up getting out of that. Yeah. Well, you ever seen the movie for Gump?

I have. So you know how for starts running? Yeah. And then like all of a sudden he gets, he's like out in the desert and he turns on and he's like, nah, I think I'll go home now. Yeah. Well, and and all of a sudden he's like, returns, returns of kickoff and, and Alabama football game, like all this. Right? Yeah.

But, uh, I equate my, my finance days to that. I mean, I, I worked all of the time. Mm-hmm. I had no personal life. Um, I was really, you know, what's going on in Asian markets? What's going on in Greek debt crisis, um, and managing money. It's, it's, uh, I'm assuming this is why people are addicted to gambling. I mean, every day there's winners and losers when it pertains to the stock market.

And you can watch your account go up and down. Um, that was wildly addicting to someone who's fairly competitive and yeah. Um, so I worked all the time and that's all I cared about. Didn't care really about relationships or finding the next thing. So I ended up, uh, leaving that position. Um, coached a, helped one of my best friends coached Woodside Middle School football that goes into homestead.

Filters into homestead, and then just like took a break from Yep. Everything. And you're like, I'm just gonna coach football. Yep. And then did that and then went out to Charlotte, North Carolina, hope a buddy open a plastics regrinding facility there. And spent, uh, the next three months kinda in Davidson, um, which Steph Curry, shout out to Steph, Steph Curry, and then also Avid listener in the pod.

Yeah. Huge listener of the pod. Um, and so yeah, uh, went out there and kind of listened to podcasts and was figuring out kind of like, what do I wanna do next? So the one buddy, um, he drove the semi-truck and I drove a forklift and we worked. All week getting in. Plastics were grinding, plastics are grinding.

So yeah, so like, uh, bottle caps, they re grind 'em into finer, smaller plastics and you make coat hangers and such out of them. And so, um, did that for a few months. And then a gentleman named Nate Nate Reusser with ReussReusser Design outta Roanoke, Indiana technology company, called me and said, Hey, I, I need help, you know, building a sales and marketing team here.

I've kind of grown this, um, organically over the last 18 years. Could you come help? And I was like, no. Like I was just doing finance. Like I'm not showing up to sell websites. Like that sounds like zero fun. But either way, he, uh, begged me to come back. I came back, um, listened to what he had to say and he was very adamant about work life balance, which I had no idea what that was, but I take the role and help him kind of building out Reusser Design.

And, uh, he says, you know, you can't work more than 45 hours a week. He was like a very early adopter of the four day work week. So Monday through Thursday, everyone worked 10 hour days. Yeah. Um, Fridays were off. I used Fridays as like a flex day where I'd work kind of half a day, do proposals and such. And then, um, through my time there, I think I did it, you know, four or five years.

Then the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership reached out and they had a business development position opened up. Um, at this moment I'd met my, my wife and she kind of brought a lot of stability to my life and really probably changed my perspective on, you know, just like doing things not selfishly.

Yeah. Because now you had another person there and she encouraged me to take the, the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership position. What does, what does doing business development for, uh, a regional partnership, economic development. Yeah. What does that entail? Yeah, so I worked closely with, uh, there's a group of people called Site Consultants.

So, um, if you're a big multinational corporation, you'll hire this site consultant whose job is to understand your challenges or your wants and desires, and then find markets where it would be advantageous for you to open up a manufacturing facility or all space. So I worked a lot with them. So I was traveling around the United States, going to a lot of the major Metropolitans meeting with C-suite executives.

I'm like, come to Indiana and here's why. Like, where was the craziest building you ended up walking in trying to convince them to come to Fort Wayne? Oh, I, I was on like the guy underneath Elon Musk. I talked to Tesla. So when Tesla was trying to do their gigafactory, which they launched in like outside of Austin, Texas.

Yeah, yeah. There's a company outta Fort Wayne that does all of their fire protection for all of Amazon's and all of, um, all of Amazon, all of Tesla. And they had a, a high up contact. And so we were trying to get Indiana on the map to get something along those lines. That was many years ago. I mean, that could have been kind of fun.

It would've been sick. Um, I mean, I mean, and then turns out northeast Indiana. Ends up getting ev just in a different way a little bit later. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny how all that works out. I, I tell you what, I appreciate my time in economic development because it makes you appreciate everything you see around you.

Um, because there's, it's so much time, effort, energy by unnamed people, like oftentimes the people that are cutting the ribbon or shovel putting the, the, the shovel in the dirt for the ceremonial photo had nothing or limited to do with how that all got there. There's people in the back of the room that did all of the work that got, you know, things to that point.

Yeah. And so I don't think a lot of people understand that's how it happens. Like when. Whoever big company is choosing a place to go. It's not like they're just like, okay, close my eyes and throw it out on a map. Yeah. Like it's, there's so much that goes on behind the scenes where you're recruiting these companies to expand to your region and like, what are the thing like labor, like how much, what's the labor availability?

What are the factors that go into recruiting companies to a region? Yeah. I mean it's labor, cost of land. What are your taxes? What sort of abatements are there, are there any incentives? Um, you'll get into like, how close are their customers? We missed out on a big project in northeast Indiana. They ended up going to northwest Ohio because it was about, I don't know, an hour and a half closer to their biggest customer.

So it was nothing that we did wrong. Everything was apples to apples, just happened to be a little closer to their biggest customer. Mm-hmm. So sometimes, or sometimes the wife of the CEO was like, I had a bad experience that one time in. At say Nomos. And I'm not gonna go to Never. That would never happen.

That will never happen. Hey, you know that Never, that will never happen. No. So true. Shout, say Nomos. That's so, you never know. Like all the, the crazy little, like, um, we had Lucas Oil on Morgan and Katie were talking about, uh, Forrest Lucas. So that would be Dad that's Yeah. Helped start this thing. Um, he was from Harrison County, Southern Indiana.

And then when he got to the position to open a factory, he was like, oh, I'm gonna put it back near home so I can help out my home. Yeah. Community. And it's like that. There it is. Yeah. Done could, no matter, there could have been better places. Yeah. Like Illinois, Missouri could have said, oh no, we want you to be here.

And he's like, no, I, I wanna be there for this specific reason. There was a story about Smith and Nephew. So Smith and Nephew's, a big orthopedic company. Um, they're based out of Memphis, Tennessee. And, and, and this is a story, they were between like the, the wife was from somewhere in California. The, the husband was from like the Warsaw area.

And they couldn't decide whether they'd be in California or Warsaw. So they picked like a middle ground who went Memphis, Tennessee, random, like so, and, and sometimes that's just the way it is sometimes. Yeah. What were there big wins that you had during your time in economic development? Like how, and like the sales cycles long, how many new projects are getting announced from like an economic development standpoint in a region in any given year?

Yeah. Well, I mean, it, it depends. So like on the wins you're getting a handful of wins a year, but what would count as a win if you, it's like if you, if new jobs, new capital investment Yeah. Into, into the community. I will say we were working a massive multi-billion dollar deal on a plot of land in Fort Wayne that is now the home of the Google Data Center.

So if it wasn't for all the groundwork that quite frankly the Northeast Indian Regional Partnership and Greater Fort Wayne Inc. And others were putting into it, um, then it wouldn't have been uncovered that this land was available for Google. And if that all of a sudden gets us flagged and mean and in trouble because everybody's up in arms about data centers.

Apologies. I mean, they, they are big capital investments. Yeah. It, it's, it's, it's interesting. I understand the power piece of it, but yeah, they're, they're massive capital investments. There's not a lot of wage. There's, so there's a big tax benefit that happens. Yeah. But also I'm not living near one, so it's kind of shame on me for giving much of an opinion on it.

'cause I don't have to live near a big data center if there's noise or if there's Yeah. Whatever happening. I mean it, but it's interesting too where like so much of these things, the, I, it makes me glad that I'm not a person that has to make those decisions. Yeah. Because it's like you're danged if you do, and you're danged if you don't because you know, you're bringing in more tax revenue and helping out, like, you know, you look at some of these places and it's like fixing potholes and, you know, making the quality of living better.

But like that is only, it can happen if you have things to fund it. Yeah. It's like, yeah. It's, and, and then I think there's an, in anything, there's an education component. You know, both for like the public on, on kind of, whether it's data centers or solar panels or, you know, even just a new factory coming in, wind turbines.

Like, I mean, the, the thing is that you're never gonna make everyone happy. You're not like, you know, you could, I mean, these places that put up wind turbines and all of a sudden, like, they're ugly. I hate them, but like, we got new roads. Yeah. So like, I think it on the north side of Cincinnati, Ohio, I think they have a casino and it was like everyone was fighting like, no, can't have this casino.

Don't have the casino. And I think it's some percentage of their profits, like 5% of their profits go to the school system in greater Cincinnati. So it funds all of public education, but you have this casino and so it's kinda like, eh, like that and like it, that's just the balancing act that is politics, I feel like.

Yeah. And you know, and like economic development, whatever it is, it's like to get innovations, uh, to get advancements in your quality of life. There have to be taxes or there have to be something on the other side to fund it. Yeah. You can't just like wave your magic wand and make it happen. Like, so I think my days in economic development, I, I mean, when it's, you're dealing with a lot of different stakeholders, a lot of different people, um, with different wants and needs and desires, and you're kind of.

It's a balancing act to try not to make everybody mad at you or everybody like you. It's so important. But it's a thankless gig. It is a super thankless. It is. It's, it's a, it's a definite thankless gig. 'cause it's always like, what have you done for me lately? Yep. You know? And, and then it's like the other side of people like complaining that they don't want this or that or the other thing.

Yep. It is a thankless job. Yeah. And, uh, so, so, so shout out to all of y'all who do economic development. You are important. Yes. And you matter. And you're work. We understand that is a thankless job, but you're getting a thanks from us. Shout out economic developers. Yeah. Right. Okay. And that, so that leads you into, I meet, Plug and Play.

Okay. Take me back to meeting, Plug and Play. It probably all ties back to how I was raised. Um, we're out at a conference called SelectUSA, the state of Indiana has a big booth, Northeast Indiana. We decided, well, we want our own booth. We want to do kind of our own thing, bring in our own leads, have our own conversations, and so we have our own booth.

And, um, I'm getting ready and you have a ton of meetings. So select USA. Uh, tens of thousands of foreign companies come to Washington, DC to try and find where they can land next or have their first US operations. And so you have a lot of meetings. I'm sitting there at the booth, I'm getting ready to have another meeting.

I'm kind of turned prepping, and I turn and look and there's this gentleman standing there at the, at, at our podium. He's just smiling at me and he is like northeast Indiana. What's the difference between Northeast Indiana and Indiana and like, I don't know who this guy is, but uh, yeah, we're northeast Indiana.

We're in the northeast corner, a lot of advanced manufacturing. Kinda like, not thrilled. I'm having conversations like, well I'm Allen and I work for Plug and Play, like I I what's Plug and Play? And he's like, oh, we're this venture capital firm accelerator. And he's like, um, our chief revenue officer is gonna speak on the main stage soon.

Like, you should go listen and, and and see if maybe that would be something that the state of Indiana would like. I said, okay, well tell, tell me more about what this is. And so he starts getting into, like most active venture capital firm, we run these accelerator programs on industry verticals. And he's like, what, what?

I mean, what does Indiana do well? And I'm like, well, you know, in northeast Indiana, 25% of our labor market and is advanced manufacturing. You have the RV Capital of the World and kind of the Elkhart South Bend area. You have the Orthopedic Capital of the World in Warsaw, Indiana. Um, steel dynamics. I started naming kind of everything Northeast Indiana related.

And he's like, why don't you come listen to this guy talk? And so I go, listen, and I'm like listening to all of the things that Plug and Play does, and I'm like, man, we should really have this in Indiana. This would be a massive get if we can get them and, um, come back and kudos to our CEO Stephane Frijia.

Shout out Stefan. You know, he had heard a Plug and Play before and so he was very much like, I'll take whatever meeting you have, you need to just go listen to this chief revenue officer. And so they basically said like, Hey, pitch him. When he comes off the stage, he's the one making decisions on like where we could go next.

And so I stood there with my little booklet and as soon as he came off the stage, I pitched him on Indiana. And um, he's like, well, let's have a call next week and, and we'll kind of go from there. I have no idea why we would come to Indiana, but you have, uh, you're very passionate about it, so let's have a conversation next week.

So I got on a call and pitched him, why Indiana? And then that got me on a plane two weeks later to Silicon Valley to meet with Saeed Amidi, the CEO. And then two or three weeks after that, Saeed got on a plane and flew to the state of Indiana and we, um, met with a bunch of people in Warsaw. What was the sales pitch We have?

An initiative up in, in northeast Indiana, um, called Electric Works. Yeah. Former, former GE Campus. Yeah. Beautiful place. Incredible place. Yeah. Um, it's where like all of innovation was happening at General Electric. I, and I would even say like, ghostmen Day working there, you can get a good lunch. You like coffee, you grab a beer.

Yeah. Like it's a cool little vibe. They sell burn apparel. Yeah. Which I, this is a whole new thing that I've learned about is burn. Yeah. The, the work wear brand. But, uh, up in Electric Works, is it like, do it best headquartered there? Yep. Do it best. Is headquartered one of the largest private employers in the state of Indiana?

Yes, sir. A bunch of hardware stores. Yep. Like franchise, co-op. Co-op. It's a co-op, it's co-op. And listen to our episode with Pat Sullivan. You learn about the do it best co-op program. Yeah. I, I use that as like my thought of like, Hey, here's this Silicon Valley based venture capital firm accelerator that wants to do innovation at scale.

Here's a community in northeast Indiana that grew on innovation, but maybe we've lost our way a little bit. Using like kind of General Electric and all of the innovation that happened in Warsaw and quite frankly like steel dynamics and they were making big investments in Mexico. It's like we, we have all of the elements to do something really impactful for Plug and Play here in Northeast Indiana.

And so I pitched him on, you know, did you know all of the vaccines were manufactured here? Only say if that happens, you know, RV Capital of the World, Orthopedic Capital of the World. Uh, talking about kind of, you know, Fort Wayne and the housing market up there, uh, was a top five housing market place to live. And you have all of these smaller universities in northeast Indiana.

There's 42,000 college students in northeast Indiana at nine different or 10 different universities and they're all in the 11 county region of Northeast Indiana. So start, what are the 11 counties? The 11 counties? Steuben Lag Grange. Okay. Noble, DeKalb, Allen, Wells, Whitley, Kosciusko, Wabash, Wabash Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Kosciusko, LA Grange, noble, Uben.

Wabash, Wells Whitley. There you go. Yeah. So you have this, so this en encompasses, uh, what, like Huntington, Purdue Fort Wayne, trine Grace. Oh, I forgot about Grace Manchester. And then probably a bunch of Ivy Techs in Indiana Tech in Oh yeah. Yeah. So you end up getting a, a good group. Yeah. You said 11? 11. I think there's 10 in the 11 counties.

Wow, okay. So a lot of, yeah. That's way more colleges than I anticipated. So I pitched them on that and then they, when they flew in, we met with a bunch of orthopedic executives in Warsaw and, you know, the orthopedic head honchos. And you're like, Hey, we're bringing, like, how were they re because they're not like orthopedics manufacturing is not venture capital.

Correct. So OrthoWorx Yeah. Is the entity that's up in, in northeast Indiana that really focuses on the orthopedic industry. Um, we tapped them. Bob Veto was running at, at the time and we said, Bob, we're gonna do this dinner. Here's this great opportunity. Where was dinner at? Um, One Ten Craft Meatery, I believe is the name I'm interested in.

A metery. Yes. Uh, so you bring in the crew from Silicon Valley Yep. And the local representation. Yep. And this is like the meeting and we have a big dinner and Plug and Play talks about what they're doing and, uh, outta that meeting. And this is all serendipitous. So Jim Lancaster was leading global recon for Zimmer Biomet.

Avan. Tornos had recently become promoted to the CEO of Zimmer Biomet. And he wanted people to do something bold. And after dinner, Saeed gets in Jim Lancaster's truck and Jim drives him to Building 3. The global headquarters is, or Biomet, which is Cattycorner to where we had dinner and basically was like, you know, if you come to Indiana, your office can be in there.

And so Ed's going, well, I talked to Starz from around the world in med tech and orthopedics. I could tell any of them. You can come work out of the global headquarters of Zimmer Biomet. Every startup around the world will want to do that. And so that kind of started this conversation of Zimmer Biomet being involved.

Paragon Medical OrthoPediatrics was involved. The state of Indiana came in, and then there was some strategic development commission dollars that, that rounded out the, the ask. And we launched our first office in Warsaw. Is that, that, that's like the huge building right after Detroit Street. Yeah. Yeah.

That thing's, that thing's sweet. It's, it's, it's a really big building. Pretty building. So we have an office there. Okay. And so, um, yeah, it was, so it would've been like November of 23. Um, Plug and Play is moving forward on, on launching an office there. And, and what was the final, the final thing, like what got Plug and Play saying, Hey, we're in.

I mean, it's having someone like Zimmer Biomet be committed to it. How big, like for those that don't know. 'cause not everyone knows I grew up right in the area. I know. How big is Zimmer Biomet and Warsaw Indiana's global impact on orthopedics? Oh, well, I mean they're an $8 billion orthopedic manufacturing company.

Um, I'm not sure how many people they employ in Warsaw, but I mean, that orthopedic industry turns out billions of dollars of GDP. Um, so it's not just Zimmer Biomet, it's all of the other companies that like it's on the New York shop. It's on the New York Stock Exchange, publicly traded market cap, 17 and a half billion dollars.

Like that's insanity at a Warsaw, Indiana. Yeah, so I think having a Zimmer Biomet, so there was no med tech program in all of Plug and Play. So Plug and Play is in 63 locations, 27 countries. They operate 25 different industry verticals. There was no med tech. We had like a digital health platform. And so this was a whole new vertical, whole new industry with whole new set of partners and a whole new market, and that was very attractive to Plug and Play.

I think they also looked at it as, we may have found like shame on us for flying over the state of Indiana to go to New Jersey. It was one of those, like, we may have found some gold here that we should probably do a little more digging. It is interesting when you think about that, especially those two, you think of Zimmer Biomet there, and then you think of like Thor and you know RVs up in Elkhart County, which like as the market goes, so does Elkhart County Lippert, Chemcrest.

Yeah. And then you drive two hours to South and you have Lilly and you have Roche Diagnostics, which represents I think 30% of Big Roche. And then you go another hour to the south and you have Cook, and then you have Indiana University, Purdue University, Notre Dame. Those are three. Prestigious R one institutions.

Like it does seem like there's all of this interesting piece and I think you, I do think we need some background on Plug and Play. Yeah. From, uh, like who are they, like the average Midwesterners is not gonna know Plug and Play. This is your idea. Yeah. So, uh, Plug and Play was started in, in, I by Saeed Amidi and his brother, they owned a building, um, was it called Plug and Play originally?

No. What was it called? Uh, they, and no, I'll tell you this story. So they were selling Persian rugs, um, off University Avenue in Palo Alto, so near Stanford's campus. And on the top level of their building, um, there were some Persian rugs. Top part. They had an office space. Met a guy named Peter Thiel who had this little company called PayPal.

And uh, Peter needed office space, gave him office space. Um, Peter paid two years rent up upfront, say, and his brother gave him back one year of the rent, which is about a hundred grand, uh, in equity in PayPal. And so when PayPal was acquired and Saeed and his brother exited the position, they made $7 million.

And they thought, well, this is, this business is way better than selling rugs. And, and the next company to come by was these three guys with this idea called Google. And so Google, so Google then builds there and, and many companies went through there. Did they, did they get in on Google's? Yeah. So it's, it's called the Lucky Building.

You can look it up. Lucky building in, in Palo Alto. And Saeed jokes Saeed's like, I would charge rent and I would charge for karma because it, because it, uh, a lot of startups got their start in the lucky building. Yeah. 165 University Ave. Lucky Building or Karma building. Yeah. That's what I say about our studio here.

This, this right here in Broad Ripple. Come on. Hopefully. Hundred, 100%. Dude, that's crazy. Okay. Wait, so what we see Google, PayPal, Logitech. Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. So then he, uh, decides like, okay, well we're doing all this with this small office space. Let's go buy a, a former, um, semiconductor building in Sunnyvale, California.

That's our, our corporate headquarters today. I think there's 180,000 square feet there. There's 500 startups in there, 200 Plug and Play employees. Um, and that's where we do all of our kind of accelerator venture capital dollars out of, uh, our Sunnyvale, California headquarters. Okay. So it's not just a vc that is an important point to note too.

Yeah. So we're, we're a globally known, highly rated accelerator program. We run accelerators on industry specific basis. Okay. So hence what we're doing in med tech. Um, but we have a, a, an advanced manufacturing. We have brand and retail. We have a real estate company, FinTech and InsurTech. So we have 25 or 26 different industry verticals that we run.

Um, there's, we have 700 employees, again, 63 locations in 27 countries. Um. And so and so, yeah, so we, we won run accelerator programs on these industry verticals. So I think we did 2200 startups last year. We accelerated o over 100 accelerator programs happened last year within Plug and Play's ecosystem. And then we turn around and make investments.

So we'll make roughly 250 investments a year, making us one of the most active venture capital firms in the world. And if you look up any, you know, statistical measure of, of, of venture capital, we normally have the most exits of startups. That we've invested in. So we have 2000 portfolio companies, 31 unicorns.

Yeah, I think it's a few more than that, but yeah. 30 plus unicorns. There you go. There we go. There you go. Plus don't forget, but I'm looking through and it's, I see, uh, manscaped. I see. True. Bill knew them. Um, 'cause they sold to Rocket. Okay. That's like the true bill is like the rocket money. Yeah. Uh, I see.

Holy smokes. Obviously PayPal's on there. That's kind of crazy. But then Honey, I remember that that's like the discounts was a coupon and there was one more that Oh, Dropbox. Maybe you've heard of that. That's crazy. So then, so it is kind of in the, in the midst of this, they, they decided to, they start focusing on industry verticals and then start doing this kind of corporate innovation.

And, and what we've done is, um, we launch again accelerator programs on industry specific basis that have clusters of corporations in that industry that want to participate in kind of corporate innovation. And, uh, we have those corporate partners both pay and participate and then they're part of our ecosystem.

They get to dictate. The focus areas and themes of each accelerator that goes through. And we run, uh, in Warsaw and now in Indianapolis, we run two accelerators per year. You get anywhere between 12 to 15 startups going through each accelerator, and each of those startups are from around the world, and they spend a period of time in this great state of Indiana.

Um, we were just at Launch Fishers this morning with a bunch of startups, um, in the med tech space that are spending a day in Launch Fishers. And they'll spend the next two days in Warsaw and we teach 'em about the ecosystem and what's going on. And then throughout the program they learn about, uh, pitch polishing, and they go through workshops and they, we help 'em clean up their cap table.

We introduce 'em to a bunch of corporate partners of ours. We introduced 'em to a bunch of VCs. We work with 200 other venture capital firms, um, mostly based off of Sandhill Road in Silicon Valley. Um, so it's kind of wild, like my, my, my life has become rather small, where I used to think like, oh, how would I ever talk to someone in Europe or Japan or California?

I mean, I was just on a call before I came into here with the EMEA team. EMEA. Yeah. Em, emea. What's emea? Uh, what is it? Europe? Mm, Asia, middle East, whatever. Middle East. E-M-E-A-E, em. Europe, the Middle East and Africa. There you go. Wow. So, yeah, we have a team over there. We have a team in Japan, the inaugural, uh, accelerator in, in Warsaw.

How many companies? Yeah. Where were they from? How long did they stay? How many of them stayed? I think, and I want to, I wanna, I wanna really hammer this part home. I think that these are great opportunities for our state. The part that stinks is that a lot of times we'll like, help get them off the ground and then they'll leave and go, like, grow their company somewhere else.

So, so if we go back to November of 23, I'm on a flight from Dallas where I just met with a bunch of site consultants back to Indiana, and Saeed calls me and said, I, I want to offer you the position to run the Warsaw office. And I said, Saeed, I wanna run the state of Indiana. I think I can do this in, in other markets.

I think we have other industries that we can accelerate in the state of Indiana. And with him not knowing fully about the state of Indiana, he is like, sure, whatever. So I became the director of Indiana, started January of 24, and then the first cohort started November of 24. Or I'm sorry, March of 24. So you had two Two months before.

Two months. Yep. But did they already know what companies were coming in? No, we, we figured that out rather quickly with the team outta Silicon Valley. And then I hired a program manager, Eileen Albertine, and then hired um, a ventures associate in, in Med Tech. Carlin JOAs. So let's see, the first batch, I think we had eight startups in it.

We really worked closely with, like, again, Zimmer Biomet, Paragon Medical, and at the time OrthoPediatrics. So there were eight startups. They were from all over the place, all around the world. I couldn't tell you exactly where they were all from, but I think we had eight in batch. One maybe 11 in batch, nine in batch two, 11 in batch three.

And we have 12 here in batch number four. And they come from all over. I mean, they company from Chicago, a cover company from Switzerland, from Australia. Um, up in Michigan. Um, so they kinda come from everywhere. We've, we've had one in med Tech. We've had one startup from Indiana that has gone through our med tech program.

Wow, okay. So lots of new companies are getting exposure to Indiana. Yeah. And then so, uh, we've had five stay. Okay. Stay in Warsaw. Stay in Warsaw. Okay. We have a number of other companies still talking to the state of Indiana and other entities throughout the state that may stay. They come here. Here's what I think people need to understand.

Um, I'm super thankful that I've been able to travel around 'cause I could see other cities and other markets and, and that has given me a perspective of like, you know what, Indiana's not so bad. Um, we have a lot of great things here and these startups who are coming from around the world into our ecosystem and community, they recognize that there's a lot of people that want to see them win.

And I think that, that for a startup. It's kinda wind in your sails. Like, oh, I have people that want me to win. Oh, and it's not that expensive to be here. Oh. And if I'm in Warsaw, I'm 50 minutes from Notre Dame, or maybe I can tap into that engineering talent. Or it's like, you know, I really want, I have some tie to West Lafayette because someone I know went to Purdue.

Like, you can start to, you kind of open people's eyes that this state is pretty great and, and people should lean into it. And so these startups are end up like, you know what, I'm gonna stay a little longer. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm in, I'm in the Orthopedic Capital of the World, so if I need something to be like small batch produced, I can go work with a Paragon Medical or some other small entity in the, in the ecosystem.

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There's been four so far, or they're, you're coming up on the fourth one? We're in the middle of batch number four. Okay. So we've accelerated 28 startups so far. Okay. And, and the last batch has 12 in it, so, so it'll be 40 total. Sure, yeah. Uh, at the end of this batch. Yep. And five have stayed thus far. Thus far.

What would it take to get a hundred percent of them to stay? Oh, well, well, you, what do they need? Well, when they all need capital and customers, that's what every startup needs. So they need Zimmer Biomet to be their customer and they need Plug and Play to write them a big check. What are the, what are like the typical businesses?

Like what are some of the, what like, let me wrap my head around what's growing there. Like in the, in the med tech space. Yeah. So it's like, think of sensor technologies, robotics, a lot of pre-op, um, like a pre-surgical, like how can we do, um, how can, how can a surgeon look at your knee, give specific parameters and numbers, and then actually have it go 3D printed for you to get your own personal orthopedic.

It's very much like patient friendly care, like patient, patient-centric care. Yeah. And then, you know, there's a cool company right now that I think is outta, outta Japan maybe, or Korea. And um, they basically, like you set up your, they're an app and you set up your, your phone over there and you're doing your workout and it hits like 18 different biomarkers on like, what's your, you know, extension and how are you doing?

And then it'll tell you like, you need to do more. And that's for post-op. So like, companies like Zimmer, Biomet, they look for those sorts of things. There's, there's one of those in the sports tech HQ world, uh, that's doing the same thing for training for soccer clubs. Yeah. You can like do your cone drill and all the stuff.

Yeah. And it like knows it, it like looks at you and like predicts like how athletic you are. Yeah. And I did one of the ones at, uh. Oh, it was, uh, Ted Sports. I did it and did not score that one. Ah, turns out I'm not an athlete anymore. Okay. Um, okay. But so, so capital and customers, capital and customers now.

And you also have startups that want to learn like it's teaching 'em pitch polishing, getting in front of other venture capitalists to pitch, um, their idea or their product. And so, so I think to keep them here, we don't have a ton of venture capital dollars in the state of Indiana. So if you're in life sciences or med tech, you're normally running out to Boston or you're running out to San Francisco or San Diego to get money.

So I think where my brain has gone is how do I start drawing some of them that those Boston, San Francisco, San Diego VCs and bring 'em to the state of Indiana to kind of do a road show. Like come to the Indy 500 and let's like show you around to the startups that we have here in this great state.

Because here, here's my hypothesis, if you make an investment, wouldn't you want them to be in an environment like Indiana where you're not taxed? There's not a lot of regulatory. You have Eli Lilly, Zimmer, Biomet, you have these large corporations here. You can get really good talent from Indiana University, Purdue University, Notre Dame, Rose Holman, ball State.

Um, and it's not that expensive for talent, for that talent relative to Boston, San Francisco, San Diego. So if you're making a, an a strategic investment in life sciences or med tech, why wouldn't you want that startup to be in the state of Indiana? Like, why? I mean, you could just get on a plane.

Indianapolis has one of the best airports, so get on a plane to go fly out to San Francisco, but run your business here in the state of Indiana. And so that's what I'm telling startup. Yeah. I mean, like you think of, uh, PayPal from the beginning. Yeah. $200,000 for two years of rent. Like you're not paying that here.

Not paying that here. I mean, not for like you can get yourself a building. Yeah. So, so that's how I look at it, is. You know, if, if we're gonna start investing, you know, Plug and Play dollars into these two industries that I kinda oversee. Yeah. MedTech and life sciences. Well, and I'm eager to hear how one, uh, the med tech parlayed into the life sciences.

Yeah. So we were up and running and, and doing well and had an established program. How do you, how do you quantify doing? Well, we ask two, two, there's two kind of entities that we're, we're working with our corporate partners mm-hmm. And our startups. Mm-hmm. And so we ask both of them before every batch during every year, kind of to score us on, on, on, on different measurables.

And really it comes under like an NPS score. Yeah. And so we'll ask startups, you know, on the front end we do an intake, Hey, what's like, what are your wants and needs? How can we help you? Da da da da. And then at the end of it, we, they score us. And so by every statistical measure, our med tech program in Warsaw, Indiana is the, is the highest rated program in all of Plug and Play.

So all around the world. Best one, Warsaw, Indiana. Now go a step further is there's a couple other MedTech accelerators. Um, especially in the United States. We've had startups go through our program and their program and have said the Plug and Play program was better, so that's great. Let's keep going. So that's how we kind of quantify it.

Now on the corporate side, you know, are they seeing high quality startups? Are they seeing startups they wanna invest in? Are they seeing startups they wanted to get into POCs or pilots with? So we keep close contact with our corporates, making sure they're seeing the right deal flow of Corp of Startups coming to them.

Yeah. Is the tip, like, have there been any acquisitions has similar, like seen a one of those companies come through like, yeah, I'll buy that TBD Oh, well you have to keep things confidential, so, Ooh. I just know that they're happy with the startups that they're seeing. Well, hey, uh, Zimmer Biomet, if you want to come on and talk about it and like hype this up a little bit.

The door is always open. You're welcome. So it's, it's actually kinda, um, it's really cool. It's weird for me. I met with the head of Nvidia Global Health and then not five minutes after that meeting, met with two individuals who were six months into their startup journey trying to figure out like, uh, how do we go to the next level?

That's a weird place to be like, to listen to both sides of that equation. And so I think for me and my team, like that's a, that's fun. 'cause then we can take all that information and help the state of Indiana. But that's how we kinda quantify it. We make sure our corporate partners are really happy. Make sure the startups feel that they're, the program that they're going through is valuable to them.

'cause ultimately, like we don't take any money from the startup. We take no equity in the startup for them to go through the Plug and Play program, it is free. It is $0. And so we really wanna see the startup be the best version of themselves at the end. How, how many of them come out on the backside and do you guys write checks into?

So if you think about we accelerated 2200 startups last year, big Plug and Play. Um, and we made 250 investments. So roughly 10%. Yeah. Ish, something like that. We've made three, I think, uh, investments in med tech up to this point. And we accelerated 28, so yeah, about 10%. Yeah. That, that math checks out. Yeah. Um, and then so now you have this second accelerator Yeah.

Starting in partnership with the lab. IU LAB, yeah. Yeah. So that, that's really cool. Um, again, we're doing great work in Warsaw. Uh, I had been running around the state kind of telling everybody about Plug and Play in this opportunity and really trying to strategically figure out like, okay, what would be the next logical industry?

And like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out like, oh, if you're doing something in Indiana, you should either do advanced manufacturing or life sciences. I mean, Indiana's the number one exporter in life sciences. It's a $99 billion industry for the state of Indiana. So again, we are the number one exporter in life sciences.

More than California, both on the life sciences side and the pharmaceutical side. So for, for me, I started going, coming down to Indianapolis, spending some time with the folks at Lilly, going down to Indiana University, going to Purdue, um, trying to figure out like, hey, do we launch a, a life science program in Indianapolis?

And at, at that same time, um, the, the team at Indiana University was putting together a proposal for the Lilly Endowment to, to do IU LAB. And um, so we got to be a part of those conversations. And in December, uh, the, I think the Lilly Endowment or Lilly Endowment, uh, agreed to pay $138 million for IU to build a six story building at 16 Tech.

That will be called the IU LAB. And there's an accelerator component and there's a pre-accelerator component. And the accelerator is run by Plug and Play. And the pre-accelerator is run by gener8tor. And we work closely with the CICP and BioCrossroads on kinda that concierge white glove approaches.

These startups come into our ecosystem to know that they have all of the tools here. Um, to be successful and they should stay in Indiana. Wow. Yeah. $138 million development. Yeah. And it's, it'll be really cool. So groundbreaking was a couple weeks ago. Um, and so it's, what can we, like, is it like an actual lab?

Uh, yeah. So in 2027, the building will be built. So there's six stories. I believe. There's, there is lab space in IU LAB, or you can go use BioCrossroads, or we have a couple other lab facilities in Wow. In central Indiana. That's crazy. Yeah. And I, and if you, this is all because what was the guy's name that sat outside your, uh, that sat, uh, at your booth?

Alan, she a shout out. Shout out. Shout out Alan. She shout out. Shout out to Alan. He's, by the way, he is a close friend of mine. Yeah. So we work, we work in tandem. I talk to him nearly every day. Um, he is a close friend. He loves Indiana. Yeah. Uh, he wants to move to Carmel. Oh, Al, where's he at now? Uh, he's out there in Silicon Valley.

He is realizing that a million dollars in Indiana is different than a million dollars in just a little bit. I mean, I'll let you know if you think a million dollars in Carmel is something, wait till you get a million dollars in Sheridan buddy. Like you, you want a homestead. We'll get, you might be able to buy like a, a third of a city block and share maybe the whole thing.

You might get a Pleasant Lake, Indiana. You might go to buy Pleasant Lake, Indiana. Honestly, for a million dollars you could get a nice chunk of bourbon's Main Street. Oh, for sure. For sure. That it's all my bucket list. It's all my goals. Oh, you need a million dollars. Oh, just a million bucks, dude. Um, okay, so yeah, so we're running this accelerator program in concert with, uh, Indiana University and IU Health and BioCrossroads and gener8tor.

And it's really cool. And, um, and my, my belief is, is this will continue to evolve and you'll end up seeing. You know, a lot of other entities, not just Indiana life science entities that are partnering in to what we're doing in, in the state of Indiana. Yeah. What do you think Indiana needs to really capitalize on this momentum from like a startup accelerator position, venture capital dollars.

This is all well and good. I was just saying this to someone the other day. So the Fort Wayne TinCaps are the minor league, single A team to the San Diego Padres. If we don't start bringing venture capital dollars at scale into the state of Indiana to invest big dollars and big checks into life science and med tech startups, we'll only ever be the minor leagues to Boston, San Francisco and San Diego.

And I say that where they can come here, they can proof a concept, have an idea, maybe even get it, you know, get a product. But then when they need actual big dollars to scale, they, they feel like they have to go to Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, they end up being the major leagues. Then they have a big exit.

All of the money stays in those localities. And we were the ones who kind of helped build them and foster 'em. And it's like, and then we lose out to those places. So I am trying to be like, how do we, how do we circumvent the system? Yeah. How do I get people from Boston to actually come to Indiana to write checks Or your podcast just blows up, you make some really good investments and then you can be your own like life science venture capital firm.

That's How did you know that? That's what I was planning on doing. Yes. There you go. Lamar Wilkerson, this is a perfect example of this. Okay. He is now playing for, uh, in IU Bloomington playing basketball. Lamar Wilkers Wilkerson came up in the mid major Sam Houston. Like, you know he, yeah, Sam Houston made him who he is.

Yeah. He signs a huge NIL contract. All the stuff with IU pays back over six figures to Sam Houston as a thank you for helping him develop. Incredible. This is like very, you know. Yeah. Except for they're not paying back their mid-major contract, the state of Indiana. You know, it's like you develop these places and then they go and capitalize out there.

They get their exit and then they deploy the capital back in those areas. Yeah. I mean, look what I mean. When ExactTarget was acquired by Salesforce, like it spun out high alpha and a lot of that money stayed here. A lot of that wealth stayed here. Yeah. Um, a lot of that wealth when it, when it goes to either coast, it stays in either coast.

So I, I'm, I'm, I mean this, I want it to come here. This is whole thing. Techstars Sports Accelerator. Yeah. Like they incubated and accelerated a lot of tech companies here, but like, I don't know how many of them stayed. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. And so it's like you come, you get plugged in, you the Pacers, the Colts, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway becomes customers, blah, blah, blah.

But then you pick up and three months later you leave and then you leave. But you already have those relationships and, and like the thing is that ERs do wanna see you win. Yeah. So it's not, they're gonna be like, oh, we don't wanna help you anymore, even though now you reside in San Francisco. And I, I think the benefit, if I think about IU LAB and Plug and Play.

Yeah. Um, and the relationship we have, I mean, IU LAB is run by David Rosenberg, who's the former Secretary of Commerce for the state of Indiana. Jillian Turner, I think she oversaw all of foreign direct investment for the state of Indiana. I come from regional economic development. My program manager, Eileen Albertine, she comes from economic development.

I think us in particular. We think about all of this stuff. Yeah. From with through the lens of economic development. And shout out jaws with IU LAB as well. He was with, he was at the IEDC. There we go. But I think for us, we're looking at this on an economic development basis. Like not only can we accelerate these startups from around the world, but how can we then keep him here in the state of Indiana because we have all of the things that a startup would want and need.

Yeah. Um, we just need to increase the venture capital dollars. I do wanna know. Yeah. We have to talk through real quickly the history that made Warsaw, Indiana, the Orthopedic Capital of the World. Okay. How did that happen? So a gentleman named Reverend DePuy got off of a train in Warsaw, Indiana in I think the early 19 hundreds.

Um, he figured out how to make a splint. He found a bunch of farmers were breaking fingers, and he built a splint that helped farmers in their fingers. And that started DePuy. Um, inside of DePuy. So Reverend Passes, reverend's widow takes over. DePuy inside of DePuy was this really good sales guy named Justin Zimmer or Justin Zimmer, and he had this other revolutionary idea that ended up not being done through DePuy.

He spins out his own company called Zimmer. So now you have DePuy and Zimmer battling each other in this town of 16,000 people in wars all over splints. Um, inside of Zimmer in the seven in, in 1970s was a gentleman named Dane Miller, a genius engineer. He spun out his own company named Biomet. And so at one point in time you had DePuy, uh, DePuy, Zimmer, and Biomet, all in a town of 16,000 people having their multinational global corporate headquarters there in Warsaw, Indiana.

And so just from those three entities, you have a ton of companies that spin out just from that family tree. Um, and then obviously DePuy Synthes becomes j and j Med Tech, j and j Med Tech just spun DePuy back out. It's now DePuy is its own orthopedic, um, spin out of j and j Med Tech now Zimmer and Biome, I think in 2016 merged create Biome.

Huge news. It was, it was massive. So it is fun talking to Zimmer Biomet folks. 'cause you know, people who are Biomet folks and people who are Zimmer folks. So Zimmer was buttoned up, I mean, suit and tie every day. Biomet was like, flip flops, Hawaiian shirt. No way. And then you merged those two cultures together.

Wait, wait, what do they wear now that they're they're probably more like this. They're, they're a little more laid back. Uh, so we lost the Hawaiian shirts and the flip flops, but we spun down the suit a little bit. Moved up a little bit. Yeah. So that's how it became, uh, Orthopedic Capital of the World. And I think, um, you know, there's, there's $30 million in ORI money, um, the Orthopedic Retention Act.

That was in the state legislator a couple years ago by, by rep Craig Snow. Um, to build a facility up there to really continue to push orthopedic innovation and make sure that remains the Orthopedic Capital of the World. Making sure companies like Zimmer, Biomet, Medtronic, Paragon Medical or Pediatrics and others stay there, don't leave there.

They feel like they have all the assets there. Did they ever sell, like obviously, you know, DePuy sold the Johnson and Johnson mm-hmm. And so did Zimmer at some point, but then was spun back off? I don't know the answer to that. I think, like, I think that it's interesting that they didn't just get PE Unified.

Mm-hmm. You know, like they like broke velocity to become Yeah. New York Stock Exchange, like that kind of company. 'cause a lot of times you'll see, I know someone builds a big company in Indiana and then they end up selling to PE and then they just try like Paragon Medical. Paragon Medical was bought out by pe Yeah.

They're a amtech company now. Okay. Which I think is out of Pennsylvania. And how, how is that? It's weird the first year or two 'cause they're looking to cut costs and make sure that you are driving revenue and then it becomes more normalized. It depends. I've heard great stories about PE and I've heard terrible stories about pe.

It just really depends on, on the company that comes in and, and makes the purchase. It's so fascinating that it all started. It's so fascinating that everything from Warsaw, from an orthopedic standpoint started with the, the, uh, a version of the splint. Yeah, let me think of again, Eli Lilly. I mean, that's one person who came up with a way of doing drug delivery through gelatin capsules.

Um, that was in the late 18 hundreds I believe. And he was in the Civil War. And so yeah, think, think, think of how much money, not only Eli Lilly with all of the employees they have here in the state, but also the foundation and the endowment and how much money they reinvest into this state. I mean, that is an asset in itself that we should all be super appreciative of.

Yeah, it's, it's the fifth biggest or top five. Endowment. It's insane in the, on the world. It's insane. Yes. And they, and they give money out to all universities in all places. Like it's not just centrally Indiana focused. Um, I mean I know Grace College received Eli Lilly money recently and for initiatives they're doing.

So I think it's just, it's fantastic and, and it's an asset that our state has that, that, uh, we should all really appreciate, um, the company, Eli Lilly. 'cause then also if you see a lot of executives at different universities or different places, I mean, I just listened to someone this morning on a panel that's like, I was 22 years at Eli Lilly.

You have a lot of those folks in our community in positions of leadership where they grew through. Eli Lilly. So again, that was one person at one time that started a company. And, and look what it, it did, same thing like Lucas Oil. I mean, again, you had Chuck on Sweetwater, like you have so many of these really cool stories where an entrepreneur is a startup and then they kind of stay here.

They set roots here and then they grew here and then they stayed here and they reinvested here. I mean, VE Bradley, they have a hotel called the Bradley up in Fort Wayne. Like they reinvest in Fort Wayne. Yeah. Chuck Reinvest in Fort Wayne. So I think it's such a blessing that we have those sorts of people.

'cause it would be easy for them to, to make their money and then run away. Yeah. And, and they don't, they they hit challenges head on. Like, we're staying here. This is what we're doing. Um, and so, yeah. Super appreciative of those folks. Dude, I could talk about this all day long. I, I love the state of Indiana.

I have, I have people from California, my teammates from California will come here and they rave about this place. Come on. Indiana is where it's at. We do dinner at St. Elmo's. Shout out St. Elmo's. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and they're blown away by it. Blown away by St. Elmo's. Amen. Okay, we've come to the part of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana.

Great. A little bit of rapid fire here. Yeah. This question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com. My question for you, why do you call Indiana home?

I've had the opportunity to go other places and there's just something that keeps bringing me back here. I think this is a great place to raise a family. I think it's a great place for sports. Um, even though we're entering winter and I'm not a huge fan of the cold, it makes me appreciate the spring and it makes me appreciate the summer.

It makes me appreciate the fall. We have hundreds of lakes in the state of Indiana. We may not have mountains. We have hundreds of lakes. You can go down to Bloomington and it's beautiful. You can go up to Angola 101 lakes in Steuben County and be on the lakes and guess what? 60 miles is, 60 minutes. That is so true.

Unless you're dealing with like whatever's happening on the north side of Indy, but most spots in Indiana, 60 miles, 60 minutes. So it's easy to get around. I love how close we're to cities like Chicago. Um, and, and for me, I mean from the cost of living. We have a great house. We live a perfect middle class life, and, um, we don't have anybody infringing on what we're doing.

We can live the life that we want to live as a family, and I just really appreciate kind of how nice people are. Um, we, we underestimate that piece. There's, there's like this humble Hoosier, this Yeah. Midwest nicety. I mean, people are kind to one another and people are so quick to like open doors for people.

It's like, oh, you should talk to so and so and then all of a sudden you have an email. Introduction. Yeah. And then this there to like the person, it's like, well, okay. I think those, you just start piling all of those pieces together. This is a great place. This is such a great place. Amen. It's not, is not a flyover state if you're still of the opinion like Indiana, flyover state.

It's at your own peril. Well, in that vein, this is, this brings us perfectly to, uh, we need to talk about, you know, as you go around and sell the state of Indiana Yeah. To med tech companies, to investors, all the things. What's something the world needs to know about Indiana? You can come to Indiana and people want to see you succeed.

Yeah. I think that is sort of our secret sauce. Like, I want this podcast to be the biggest podcast ever, ever, ever. We're on the way. Watch out Joe Rogan. That'd be so sick. And here's the thing, like if that were to happen, like I would celebrate, I would, I would act like this was my podcast. And I think there's so many people in the dude state of Indiana who feel that way.

It's true. Yeah. And like when, and I'll just get so hype when, you know, a company that you guys accelerated that closes their seed round and, you know, cures cancer here in, in the state of Indiana. Yeah. That'll be insane. As a lab. Yeah. I mean, like, I think that's, yeah, that's, that's like what it's about for the state of Indiana.

Okay. Now we've come to the time where you get to, to share a spot that means a ton to you. What is a hidden gem In Indiana, uh, Joseph Decuis the farm, and so Joseph Decuis and in Roanoke, Indiana, they have a Wagyu beef farm. I think they have 200 head. Um, Pete Eshelman started, uh, Joseph Decuis and he actually, you need to look up that story.

That's a great story of Pete Eshelman. Pete got hurt in minor league baseball. He was with the Yankees. He ends up bugging George Steinbrenner for three days to get a job at the front office of the Yankees. So he, he works for a number of years with the Yankees in the front office, and during that time he was trying to make more money.

So he went into the world of insurance and figured out kind of sports insurance and sports contract insurance. And so he launched a sports tech insur, or a sports contract insurance company in Roanoke, Indiana, and was flying these multimillion dollar folks in. And so he wanted to do something private.

So he bought an old bank in Roanoke and created a restaurant called Joseph Decuis. And then he is like, okay, who is, who was Joseph Decuis? I don't know who Joseph was, I just know who Pete Eshelman was. Who, who runs? But he's the guy. So the guy was, his name wasn't Joseph? No. Pete Eshelman. Oh. So, so in, in 1720 when our ancestor Joseph Decuis's grandfather came to the new world, people ate only what they hunted, bartered for, raised or bought from someone nearby their food.

Wow. Farm to table. So, so Pete creates this restaurant and he's like, well now I need really good food. And so he goes to Japan, learns about Wagyu beef and brought it back to the state of Indiana. And now he has some of the best Wagyu beef in North America. I think he runs like the North American Wagyu Beef Association.

No way. Okay, so, so in the middle of nowhere in northeast Indiana, there is a 200 head Wagyu beef farm that is some of the best Wagyu beef in beef in North America. That's great. The Eselman family, Pete, Allison, and Tim, there you go. Are the founders and owners of Joseph Decuis they named the restaurant in honor of their Louisiana ancestor, whom they credit their belief in the power of the American dream and the importance of perpetuating the family's long standing tradition of fine dining.

There you go. 200 head of Wagyu beef and it's incredible. And they'll do tours up there. You can do a tour and eat dinner like a five course meal on the farm. No, it's, it's, it's incredible. Incredible. That's insane. The Wagyu, huh? Yep. Wild. Alright, I'm gonna have to do a little bit of digging in there. There you go.

This is my final question for you. Okay. This is where we source ideas for new guests. Yeah. Just people that are doing inspiring things. Who's the Hoosier we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. I have a couple of them. Okay. David Rosenberg, running IU LAB, former Secretary of Commerce.

Incredible individual. Very committed to the state of Indiana being as great can, as it can be. Um, Kalen Jackson. So, uh, Kaylyn is now one of the three daughters who own the cults. Um, I gotta spend a ton of time with Kaylyn long before the position she's in today. Um, she is the sweetest, nicest, kindest, best individual.

She's not in the headset on, on sat on Sundays. She's not, she's not. But she, she is, she is the best. Like we in the state of Indiana who root for the, the Indianapolis Colts. We have a, we can take a lot of pride in the three individuals that are running the team. They're as whatever you see on social media.

They are more genuine, more kind, and they care deeply about this community. And so, um, those would be two people that, that you should really try and have a conversation raised. Yeah. Um, both, both are incredible individuals. I love that. Uh, I think that's so cool. And yeah, the colts of men, all the rage go colts.

Yeah. Come on. Alright. And finally you had a question for me. Yes. Or like a thought experiment maybe. I wanted to hear from the beginning. So I, I love everything you're doing. I mean, I, I, again, like I think, you know, you and I got connected and I'm like, oh, someone who's hyping up Indiana, like, let's go. And you just do it way more, uh, out there than I do.

I just run around the state talking about you have a podcast you like, you just get like, uh, you know, companies to relocate to the state of Indiana and people to invest millions of dollars. Yeah. But my, my podcast is really doing it, man. So I want to amplify like what you're doing in the state of Indiana more so if I gave you five grand Okay.

What would you do with it? Like to make the most of it? If you gave me five grand. I would match it. So then we'd have 10 grand, what are we gonna do? And I would start at the bottom from an economic development, uh, or economic rating. So I'd go to whoever is 92nd, the county that's 92nd on the list, and I would go and I would find a small business there, and I would just spend a portion of it and I would work up the list.

So if we had $10,000, let's say we spent, uh, $250, so how many would that give us? Four That give us 40 counties. Okay. So the bottom 50% in economic prosperity in the city, we're going to that county, we'd go and open up a tab at the local bar and buy $250 worth of drinks or food or whoever. And we'd sit and chat and learn about the issues that each of those places have done.

I think that would be fun. Done. We start like, oh my actually, I wanna know. Done. There we go. And you just learn about what those, and that's, let's quantify whatever economic, socioeconomic, however we wanna qualify. Finalist, yeah. And then let's pick, you said 40 40. And we spend $250. So you go there, you sit down and you say, Hey, done.

Anyone who wants to have a drink can have one on us. We sit and chitchat and learn about the place done. When do we start New Year? 2026. Okay. We knock off one a month. Done, done. Let Handshake, let's go right there. Let's go 10. 10 grand up for it. And I do think that that right there and if we document it, even if we didn't record it while we're act, 'cause that makes some people, like they don't wanna be on screen.

But if. Let's say this, we spent there for dinner once a month. Yeah. At a different county. Whoever wants to come and chit chat with us, you sit at the bar, you can learn so much, so much, and then you come back and you just document the process. Hey, we were in Wells County. Yeah. We sat there for two hours.

We met old Jimbo. Yep. Jimbo's been there for 92 years. And you know, he's a regular at the local bar, but he talks through the generations and the history of that place and what they love about Welles County, what they need in Welles County. Do that for a year. We'll know more about the truth of Indiana than anyone.

A hundred percent. And then there's a generational knowledge transfer that happens that's super important to what we continue to do in the state of Indiana, dude. And then people will come and listen and they'll be like, oh my gosh. Like this county. Like that's my, that's my home. Yeah. Yeah. They were there.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. So maybe we should start your hometown. My hometown. Okay. And then, and then we'll go from there. Deal. You show it. 2026 Angola Pleasant Lake, Indiana. We're coming. 2026. Yeah. Bourbon. Bourbon. We're coming. We're coming. I mean, okay. I had a, a pinch fee moment and then we'll, we'll wrap this one up 'cause we're yapping.

Um, I partnered with St. Elmo and their distillery Rare Saint and I did an activation at my hometown dive bar and we served shrimp cocktail and we poured whiskey for free and we did a big fundraiser, uh, after our town was hit by a tornado and it, we raised 27 grand and it was like a pinch me moment.

Yeah. That St. Elmo we rode there in their Mercedes sprinter van up to bourbon, hung out all night. All my friends came like, free bourbon, free shrimp cocktail in. A town of 1600 people, so Awesome. It was sick, dude. I love it. So awesome. Alright. Hey Brandon, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you for all you're doing.

Hyping up Indiana, sharing this message not only amongst the state of Indiana but with the world. I think it's incredible and I'm really, really excited for the continued impact that Plug and Play is gonna have on our state. And I'm excited for our dinner series coming. Let's go in 2026. 2026. I'm so in.

I'm a hundred percent in. Here we go. Alright, we'll talk soon. All right, thank you. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater.

If you want a behind the scenes look at everything we're doing across the state. Make sure you follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Nate Spanel. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hoosier State. Great. We'll see you next time here on Get IN.