Stoking the Entrepreneurial Fire at Startup Maine: Katie Shorey

And as such, I have with me today Katie Horri, who is the director of Engagement of Live and work in Maine, and also the President of Startup Maine. I feel like you're the perfect person, Katie, to talk with us about creativity and the human spirit. So welcome to Radio Maine. Thank you for having me. Katie. I'm fascinated to know that you won an award for Maine Biz 40 under 40 in 2023, but then there's a whole long list of things that you've done in, I guess an impressively short period of time. How did you end up boomeranging back to Maine to do all the work you're doing here, but also working elsewhere to understand, oh, there's good stuff happening that I think I can replicate and I think I can bring value to my home state? So I grew up in the small town of Sweden, out near Freberg and Western Maine. Went to Freberg Academy and I then set off for St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. Really at that time not knowing what was growing in Maine, what was available in Maine, but I'd always had this passion for what was happening in our communities. I knew Maine was special. So after school, I headed off to dc, got involved in politics, but still followed closely what was happening in Maine. And I got involved. My first few jobs were while in the political and then consulting sector, I would say the work that I did was really focused on partnerships and convening. So that's where that type of work started for me. And then I was briefly in San Francisco, and then by accident, I was sort of home one summer and I saw on the radio there was this conference going on in Portland called Maine Startup and Create Week, that's what it was called at the time. And I said, I had no idea that Maine had a startup scene, let alone a culture and a conference. So I, I attended, I'm happy to talk more about the details of that conference, but long story short, I made a very impulsive decision and I said, I want to be back in Maine. I want to be here. I want to be part of this action. So I moved back into Maine and immediately got involved in that startup group. We now are called Startup Maine, and I worked locally for a few years. I was the community relations person at a bank. So that means I got to meet all of these different nonprofits and organizations and really get the lay of the land, what was happening in the business scene. And Startup Maine became a great resource for people who wanted to start their own business, relocate their business here. And then I landed at my day job at Live and work in Maine, and we work on recruiting and retaining talent to the state. So I have my hands in a lot of the fun economic development initiatives that are going on around the state. It is interesting that there is such an overlap between your day job and I guess your volunteer job. Talk to me about that. A lot of people think, well, I can't come back to Maine because it doesn't have the, I don't know, academic job that I want or the corporate job that I want. But what you're saying is, well, if there isn't the job that you want, then why don't you create it? I think it's both. And I think Maine, we're so humble and we don't often do the best job of touting what we are building or working on or what we have here. So I've seen from my perspective, we have a lot of interesting clusters of types of companies. We have a great healthcare sector. We have an animal health and vet tech industry thanks to idexx. And then the subsequent companies that sort of spun off after that, we have biotech, we have the Bioscience Association of Maine, and there are over 515 life science companies in the state, great manufacturing sector. And now we're seeing our traditional industries, farming, fishing, aquaculture, and then the intersection of technology. And so that is really enabling people who care about, I think those heritage industries, but then we have this great tech sector that's growing here as well. So I would say those are the industries that are often people don't realize that we might have great jobs there, but separately, we have such an entrepreneurial spirit. 98% of the companies in Maine, the businesses in Maine are considered small business. And we also have so many resources that exist to help people start their company, expand, grow, and everything from the main technology institute, which helps essentially seven industry sectors. We have the main center for Entrepreneurs, CEI, women's Business Center Score. We now have the RU Institute on the scene for the last few years that focuses on very specific areas and has graduate studies, but then also has an entrepreneurial arm that has founder residencies and a lot of resources to help scalable high tech companies launch here. And so I think for those who are curious about not only the jobs that we have, those are here, you can find them on live and work in maine.com, but also if you want to start your own endeavor, we have the support for you and a great, great community. How is it that, I guess we've sort of stealthily begun to accumulate all these wonderful jobs in these sectors that you're describing? I think in some ways under the radar for many, because I think when I talk to people and they're like, well, you can work for the hospital or you can work for LL Bean, and there you are, but you're describing just this incredible network of really robust businesses that have been doing good work for decades. Why have we not known about this? I think going back to what I said, we need to brag a little bit more. So for example, we have idexx, but then from the people that worked at IDEXX for a long time, you then saw a cluster of other startups form from First Vets, first Choice, covets, Ellevet Sciences, Putney, DACA Pharmaceuticals, blue Rabbit. There's all of these little companies that kind of orbit that one ecosystem. And then with life sciences, we of course have Jackson Labs, Bigelow Labs, M-D-I-B-L. But then because of how close we are connected to Boston, there's a bunch of smaller companies and large companies in the manufacturing, precision manufacturing space as well that are just popping up, not even popping up left and right have been here but are growing. So I think that's partially our job at Live and work in Maine is to share these success stories. Maine has, for example, this space consortium. There's a lot of companies that are like blueshift Aerospace, which is really into the rocket and space sector. And now Maine is getting a lot of outside attention from investors and people that are curious about, oh, Maine is a player in this now. And so we're seeing a lot of outside investment as well come to the state to lift up some of these industries. And then the last example I'll give, I think is when I said the intersection of technology in our heritage industries. We have aquaculture, for example, and then now there's so many people that are creating technology for the farmers. But Maine last year was awarded a designation as a tech hub by the White House for the forest industry and all of the forest byproducts that exist in the state or could exist in the state. So we're seeing our mills repurposed for some great work when it comes to products and wood products. So we are on an uphill trajectory. I'm very bullish about what's happening in Maine, and we just got to get the word out there more that we have these opportunities. So to your point, how are you getting the word out there? What is it that you're using a strategy for bragging about the work that has been going on for a long time or maybe has evolved to an even more significant place now? So live and work in Maine, we are a nonprofit and we exist as a private public partnership. So we get our funding from private employers, but also from the state. For example, this past year, the past two years, actually 2021 and 2022, we were awarded a contract by the Department of Health and Human Services, and they wanted to put some money toward a marketing campaign, and they specifically wanted to focus on recruiting early careers in healthcare, so that could be medical assistance, CNAs, lab techs, you name it. And they got input from Maine Hospital Association, Maine Healthcare Association, Maine Primary Care Association, and we live and work in Maine, orchestrated and pulled together the marketing campaign. So we had ads on the radio on, it's called OTT, so on Hulu and Amazon Prime, we had videos, we had digital ads, and then we drove them to an action, which would be to apply to jobs in Maine. Then another example is the Department of Education last year gave live and work in Maine over a million dollars to execute a national campaign. We had ads in the New York City subway on the Boston Tea in publications across the state, really just to highlight the great, great opportunities in education, we want to attract special ed teachers, teachers, administrators. So we were able to spend some money specifically from certain departments to try to drive people to live and work in Maine. So we exist in the partnership model. So there's a great organization called Boots to Roots, and they specifically work with transitioning military members and veterans and their families and help them relocate and get settled and get a job in Maine. So we had campaigns with them in Texas and New York and other parts of the country. So we exist to collaborate, but then really try to spread the message of the career opportunities in state. So it sounds like that you have to have a pretty broad skillset in order to accomplish this because you're talking about in some cases maybe branding, but definitely marketing, outreach, communication, relationship building. And for somebody like you who has a pretty broad background in a variety of different areas, it sounds like this could be actually a pretty perfect fit then For me. I feel like I have found the right job and I love what I do every single day, and I get to tap into this creative element. It's funny, I think a few years ago, I wouldn't have thought of myself necessarily, necessarily as a creative person, but I love coming up with new ideas and big picture thinking. One of my Gallup strength is futuristic, so I feel like I'm always kind of head in the sky, but I love executing too. So it's a very good matching of skills. And I also, I just love connecting people to resources and mentors and community and jobs. And so sometimes I just think of myself as the connecting plug for a lot of these things. And then when we have something that we need done that isn't in my skillset. So for example, a lot of these marketing campaigns that I just talked about, we needed creative teams, branding teams. So we've worked with organizations such as Anchor based in the Lewiston area to be our branding and creative partner. But then our team, which has all the relationships with the state, with the employers, we're then able to kind of be the folks on the ground who are getting the project done. So the project management element of that campaign. Now, talk to me about Startup Maine. When you describe the resources that are available for people who are interested in investigating startup work, what are some of the needs that you've identified as important to meet For those who are considering engaging in startup work? We're very fortunate to have clusters of resources all across the state. So whether you're in Portland or you are in the Waterville area, Bangor, Rockland, and then up in the county, we have so many organizations that can help companies. So for example, we have a national organization called score. They're in every state in the United States, but in Maine, they have won award after award after award for helping companies, and that could look like a free class on marketing or helping to build a business proposal or financials for investors. And so people can take advantage of that as a free resource. They have some great success stories around helping companies like Holy Donut and Sea Bags. They were part of their journey early on. And then we have some larger organizations like Maine Technology Institute that focus on seven industry sectors in Maine. They offer grants and loans for companies. And then we have CEI, women's Business Center, another example. They work across the state as well and have helped women business owners help them essentially get their idea off the ground. And then if you're a company who's a little further along and you're at this pivotal point of, do I want to go down this path or this path? They have an example is a program called Top Gun. And so if you're in a leadership team, a founding team, they help them along their journey and really figure out what steps they need to take to grow and scale. And then the RU Institute though, they have an academic arm institution affiliated with Northeastern. They also have a entrepreneurial sector as well, and they have founder residency programs and help companies either in Maine or they've relocated companies to Maine and help them scale. So Startup Maine, while we don't work one-on-one with a company, we offer up all of the resources that are available to them. So on our website, we have all of these resources that really help people figure out, okay, where are you in the journey? Okay, pick this one organization and go. And then we offer and host networking events about once a month. And this is an opportunity for people who are either, maybe they work for a startup in Maine, maybe they work for just a normal big company in Maine. They were a remote worker, maybe they're startup, curious, what is going on in the state? Who do I need to meet? Who is building what? We provide an opportunity for people to get together and meet and share ideas. So we've had just one-off events, and then we've also partnered with organizations to really bring different sectors together. That last piece seems particularly important. I know with the Art Gallery, one of the things that we do on a monthly basis is to bring people in for artist openings, which obviously showcases a particular artist or a set of artists, but also brings together the entire group of artists that works with the gallery and also community members, not just people who buy art. But I think that that sense of relationship community building that energy around that is so important. And I would think that with startups in particular, especially people who maybe there's only one or two people on their business or they're working remotely to have this idea that yes, other people are doing it, some people are further along in the journey, some people need the inspiration, they're earlier in the journey. But that idea that there is support for that actual physical support from real people, I would think is particularly important. Absolutely. We have so many examples of, say someone who is curious about what's it like going after investors, being able to hear somebody else's journey and what they went through and how they created their pitch deck. I mean, it's invaluable being able to share those kinds of experiences. And I would say Maine is very relationship oriented and people want to see other people succeed. It does. If we have a Burt, a big bustling startup scene, it benefits the larger companies and vice versa. People who want to essentially move here as well, they want to know that there's a very vibrant ecosystem of both small companies and big companies. And for the event that we're going to have at the art gallery, this one is very special. We have a great relationship with the consulate general of Canada in Boston. There's a woman, Susan Morris, she's the honorary delegate. So she represents Maine within New England, but building relationships with Canada. And so the consulate general, they know that Maine has so much going on, but they also want to help build business opportunities. So there's a bunch of individuals that are coming from Canada and from Boston to the art gallery, and we're bringing in a lot of different groups of people, investors, entrepreneurial support organizations, entrepreneurs themselves, remote workers, just trying to all get together to learn about what opportunities exist between Maine and Canada. So I'm very excited for that event. I Love hearing about that because I, having had my own small businesses and also working with the Art gallery, which of course is a small business, a lot of what happens is just straight up work. I mean, you show up and you open the emails and you make the phone calls, and you work on sales, you work on marketing. And even though it can be inspiring and it can be very fulfilling, it is showing up every single day and doing the work. So I think talking to other people who have done that and have been part of making their own success through doing their own work and persevering even when sometimes it can feel a little discouraging, I think that's really critical to understand. Another great example, this happened right before 2019, but sorry, this happened right before the pandemic in 2019, we startup at Maine took eight companies out to San Francisco to attend this very well-known conference called TechCrunch Disrupt. And it is a huge startup event where people come from all over the world and a Maine company had never gone let alone exhibited. So we took the eight companies and you walk into the huge center in San Francisco, and we were in Startup Alley. So you walk down and there were countries like France and South Korea, and then we had a Maine corridor. So it was just very cool to see Maine there represented and all of our companies. But the eight founders that came to that event and the teams, they hadn't really built a relationship in Maine, and it was great to see them bond in San Francisco and now they're in each other's orbits. I've seen them continue to get together and share challenges, share opportunities. So creating that kind of community and culture and support system is crucial for our ecosystem to thrive. Katie, how can people find out more about live and work in Maine or startup Maine? So live and work in Maine, we are mostly an online resource, live and work in maine.com. We also have a newsletter. We host community events all across the state, and we also like to share success stories of things that are going on across the state on LinkedIn, so people can find us@liveworkmaine.com. And then Startup Maine is Startup Maine, MAIN e.org. And we post all of the events that we're having as well as resources that exist for people across the state on our website as well. Well, Katie, it's really been a pleasure to speak with you today on Radio Maine. I'm Dr. Lisa Bealle. You have been listening to or watching Radio Maine where we explore creativity and the human spirit today with Katie Horri, who is the director of engagement at Live and work in Maine, and also the president of Startup Maine. I really appreciate your taking the time to come in and have this conversation with us today. Katie, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Happy to be a resource.