mHub Chicago is an award-winning startup business ecosytem for manufacturing . Its goal to help ensure that the manufacturing industry which has been so important in Illinois and the Midwest over the years continues to accelerate, grow and thrive. Although it’s a nonprofit, it probably best is described as a public-private partnership, funded with both public money and corporate sponsorships.
Melissa Lederer, Chief Experience Officer at mHub, joined The Savvy Entrepreneur show recently to talk about the mHub community and some of its programs and accomplishments.
The mHub community includes over 350 active and alumni startups, supported by a deep talent pool of product designers and developers, entrepreneurs, engineers and manufacturers and a host of other experts designed to help support commercialization of new manufacturing related businesses, resulting in intellectual property growth, along with revenue and job creation.
Since launching in 2017, it has helped companies launch more than 1200 products new products, hired more than 2100 employees, and raised nearly 702 million in capital. mHub’s close partnerships with area manufacturing companies offers more rapid go-to-market opportunities, real-time mentoring and feedback, and expedited exit strategies to its member startup companies.
It has also recently branched out to create a formal accelerator program, offering startup seed funding to innovative manufacturing startups in exchange for equity. The new offering has attracted startups not only from the Midwest, but from across the U.S. and internationally as well.
The mHub community is thriving and vibrant, and Melissa shares some of the ecosytem’s successes. Having seen lots of companies come through the program and drawing upon her past experience with 1871 and Matter in Chicago, she offers some advice to help startup businesses increase their chances of success.
It’s a great read — Melissa’s enthusiasm for mHub and what they are doing there shines through! Or, go here if you’d prefer to listen to an on-demand recording of the show.
Doris Nagel 0:42
Welcome to The Savvy Entrepreneur show!
We’re broadcasting from the Greater Chicago Milwaukee area.
If you’re an entrepreneur or a small businessperson, or thinking about becoming one, this show is for you.
I’m Doris Nagel, your host for the next hour. I’m a serial entrepreneur. But I’ve also advised startups and small businesses over the past 30 years. I’m here to share what I’ve learned and find others willing to share as well. And to help with that I have guests every week on the show.
This week’s guest is Melissa Lederer, who’s the Chief Experience Officer at mHub, an award-winning business startup ecosystem for manufacturing based in Chicago. Melissa says mHub is a leading manufacturing innovation center, designed to help ensure that the manufacturing industry which has been so important here in the Midwest over the years, continues to accelerate, grow and thrive.
The mHub community includes over 350 active and alumni startups, supported by a deep talent pool of product designers and developers, entrepreneurs, engineers and manufacturers and a host of other experts designed to help support commercialization of new manufacturing related businesses, resulting in intellectual property growth, create and creation along with revenue and job creation.
Since launching in 2017, it has helped companies launch more than 1200 products new products, hired more than 2100 employees, and raised nearly 702 million in capital.
At mHub, Melissa focuses on leading teams that drive engagement, collaboration and success. She’s a seasoned business professional with experience in corporate and agency settings.
She was a member of the founding team of 1871, which is Chicago’s Innovation Hub, and is well known throughout the region and frankly throughout the country and even the world. Following her time at 1871, Melissa helped found Chicago’s healthcare incubator and innovation center called Matter, where she was responsible for defining and building the matter brand, and managing the company’s marketing and communication functions.
She previously served as the Senior Vice President of Marketing for a company called Q Interactive, which was formerly called Cool Savings, where she was on the leadership team overseeing all the marketing, Communications and Creative functions. She was recognized in 2019 and 2020 as one of Crain’s Chicago business notable women in manufacturing.
Melissa, thanks so much for being on the show today. Welcome to The Savvy Entrepreneur.
Melissa Lederer
Thanks so much!
Doris Nagel
mHub was founded in 2017. Why was it founded specifically? What need was it designed to fill?
Melissa Lederer 4:12
I think you threw in an idea in the introduction, which is that the manufacturing sector in the Midwest has always been a really important part of our economy. We’ve always been a nationally, if not globally, recognized manufacturing leader.
I think that if you look at the manufacturing sector over the last several years, there isn’t necessarily this perception that there’s a lot of innovation coming out of the sector, or that there’s a lot of new talent going in that, or that there’s a lot of innovation and change.
But both the city and state are really looking at how we can continue to evolve and infuse innovation into a sector where we have leadership. How do we connect the dots between this robust technology and innovation community that we have with various sectors where we thrive as an economy?
That’s really how mHub came to be. Going back to my experience at 1871 — that was really what started this entrepreneurial community in Chicago and in the region.
After that, the city started looking at various sectors. Matter became a way of supporting innovation in healthcare, and then it was an obvious transit transition to say, “Well, what about manufacturing?” And that’s really how mHub came to be.
Doris Nagel
I feel personally connected to the downturn in Midwest manufacturing. I grew up in a small town that was centered around a General Electric plant. There’s maybe a little bit of manufacturing still there, but almost of the jobs are gone, offshored for the most part. And my little hometown is not alone — there’s dozens – maybe hundreds — of small towns that have had similar things happen.
I think it’s unfortunate that the Midwest has unfortunately gotten this label of being the Rust Belt, because that sounds like the rusted carcass of what’s left of big manufacturing.
Does mHub focus on a particular area of manufacturing?
Melissa Lederer
We really look at it broadly. Our focus is specifically on physical products or hard tech. So any tangible goods, really, across many different sectors make sense at mHub.
And I think what we’ve become really good at — because of the density of this sort of talent within the community of lots of engineering, electrical, mechanical engineering talent — is that there’s a lot of connected devices at mHub.
Really, as you think about where manufacturing is going, the focuses are on automation and integration process improvement. A lot of manufacturing today is really how do you how do you improve processes? How do you become smarter and more efficient?
And that’s really where connected devices come in, tied to electronics, which is really what we’re good at.
But it’s really across everything. So consumer products, robotics, med tech – really, everything.
Doris Nagel
Where did the funding and the energy to create mHub come from? What was the catalyst that got it started?
Melissa Lederer
We were really incubated out of World Business Chicago, which is the economic office, the public/private sector office of the city.
We are a nonprofit — a 501(c)( 3) entity. The dollars came from corporate partnerships. At an early stage, there was a belief from large manufacturers within the region that there was an opportunity here that they wanted to be a part of it, both for the philanthropic but also very much for the business opportunity.
It was appealing to large area manufacturers to have a pipeline into early stage innovation that might be interesting or useful to them. We had companies like GE and Marmon and Molex and Underwriters Laboratory, who were all buying into this idea of this innovation center that they could get behind and help fuel the manufacturing sector.
Really, that’s what helped us get off the ground.
Doris Nagel
Does mHub have any links to any of the local universities? You mentioned engineering talent. Obviously, the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana has one of the world’s premier engineering programs almost across the board of types of engineering, as well as a great Computer Science program.
The wealth of university resources is really quite astounding in the Greater Chicago area, and within a 300 mile radius, right?
Melissa Lederer
You’re totally right. And the universities and our top universities in the region are a real driver of a lot of the new technology and innovation that’s happening in this sector and other sectors.
We have really tight alliances with the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, the University of Chicago & its Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship, The Garage at Northwestern University, and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
There’s lots of incredible talent and lots of new IP and technology coming out of the universities. And when those when those entrepreneurs start bumping up against the resources that are provided to them through the university, and they look for continuing toward the path of commercialization, we’re a great landing pad. And so we have a really good relationship and have become a feeder from many of the universities for that talent and those budding entrepreneurs.
Doris Nagel
What kind of companies are you looking for to be part of mHub? And how do companies find you? Or how do you find them?
Melissa Lederer
Great question. A year ago I would have told you we’re easy to find — we host a ton of events. And there’s many ways to engage and come by and network. It’s been a quiet year for that.
We’ve remained active. There’s lots of curriculum and courses and events that we host online. And we’re getting back to in person — it’ll be happening over the summer, and well into the fall, we expect to be ramping up again.
But we are active networking within the community, both through the universities that I mentioned, and other innovation centers. We really actively open our doors to have individuals come and learn more participate in a talk and check things out.
One great way to spread the word are the panel talks we host on really interesting topics. We have serial entrepreneurs and business leaders present keynote talks.
Tomorrow as a matter of fact, I’m actually moderating a conversation with the founders of Shinola out of Detroit. They’ll be telling about their journey and their brand and why US manufacturing if key. I think that topic is really spot on for what we’re trying to do.
In terms of what we’re looking for, I think our sweet spot is physical goods — hard tech, physical products. There’s a real cross pollination within our community of hard tech engineers and developers, as well as software engineers or embedded software engineers, because there’s the ying yang there, right, as we work on connected devices.
Doris Nagel 12:05
There’s not much anymore, that doesn’t have a software component to it, it seems.
Melissa, are the companies that become part of mHub mostly Midwestern companies or Illinois companies? Or are they from all sorts of places?
Melissa Lederer 12:21
That’s an interesting question. Certainly the majority of teams are from Illinois or the regional Midwest. That said, we’ve established something that’s pretty unique in terms of what we offer.
For example, the resources: we have a 63,000 square foot space with $6 million worth of prototyping equipment, nearly 1000 innovators across domain expertise, access to all these different networks. It is a pretty unique community or ecosystem that we’ve established.
And because of our tight connection to the regional manufacturing ecosystem, startups from around the country have actually found us. We’ve had teams move from the Bay Area who have said they recognized the resources that we have, and they also recognized the opportunity to tap into the regional manufacturing supply chain, as well as sort of broader industry leaders who can become customers.
So we are seeing more companies from outside the region as our name has started to get out and we become more visible.
In addition, we recently launched an accelerator program that actually sources teams from around the world. Our first cohort just joined about three weeks ago for a six month hands on intensive program that is happening at mHub.
We brought in nine teams from all over. There were three teams from the Bay Area, one from London, and one from Minneapolis. So we’re starting to get more visibility, but also bringing teams that we hope will put down roots into the Midwest and build their businesses here as well.
Doris Nagel 30:31
what is the accelerator called?
Melissa Lederer 14:05
It’s formally called the mHub Accelerated Incubation Program. It’s a series of sector specific, really intensive, hands on programs. Teams apply and go through an application process to participate in this program. If they get accepted into this program, they come to Chicago for six months of intensive hands on acceleration.
The first cohort, which I mentioned, is on site now and is focused on smart manufacturing, or industrial IoT. There are nine teams interested in a wide range of technologies.
The second cohort, which we will be announcing in a couple of weeks, will focus on medical devices, so med tech. It will likely be followed by one in energy tech.
We surround these teams with the resources of access to mentorship, access to industry. But we also bring in corporate partners who are interested in the particular technology area. And they help us to find the market on the front end.
And then we source teams that align with their interests. Because we believe that we’re creating market demand on the front end. So then at the back end, there’s the potential for partnerships, pilots, acquisitions, and things like that for the teams.
Doris Nagel 15:25
That’s more of a traditional accelerator model where you actually take a small percentage of the shares of the company as part of the as part of the model?.
Melissa Lederer 15:41
That’s right. As I mentioned before, mHub over the last three or four years has been a traditional 501c3 nonprofit entity established to support economic development of the region.
Doris Nagel 15:55
For the more traditional or historic services that mHub provides, what is the business model? Do you charge a fee for service?
Melissa Lederer 16:15
For the nonprofit arm, its membership. Teams apply to be part of our space, and pay a really affordable month to month payment. They pay essentially for a co working space — it’s about $350 monthly to have access to the shared space, to have a place to work, and then access to all the resources that we have. And that includes the mentorship and our curriculum, the prototyping labs, and the equipment.
And that’s really a pay as you go, month to month model. They stay as long as we continue to provide value and they scale. The cost of the nonprofit to participate in our platform is relatively inexpensive. The whole point is to reduce the barriers of entry for those early stage entrepreneurs, to help them be successful. And some of that cost is obviously offset by our corporate partners.
Doris Nagel
Talk about some of the some of the successes that you’ve had with mHub.
Melissa Lederer 17:34
I would love to! There’s so many that I could go on and on — I get really excited thinking about it! I would love for everyone to check out our website at mHubChicago.com, and learn more about what we’re doing with some of these teams. I think that it’s inspiring, and they’re all coming up with really innovative ideas.
But if I were just to pick a few, one is NeoPenda. I really like this team – it has two female founders. They’re in medical technology, and are focused on medical devices for emerging markets.
Their first product is a product called Neoguard. It’s a wearable device that they are targeting for third world countries. It does continuous patient monitoring, and their first country is in Uganda and they are marketing neonatal monitoring.
What’s interesting is that they’re going after this emerging market first. There’s a real need, because there’s a real shortage of the healthcare workers, and to be able to manage and monitor more of these babies is really important in that type of environment.
They also had a bit of a pivot — or an opportunity — through COVID, because their technology also allows for remote patient monitoring. And so they did have some opportunity to expand into supporting COVID.
I just really like where they’re going. I like the way that they think. And it’s been really inspiring to watch them grow.
There’s another company called 3DHubs that came to us internationally. We actually were contacted by Rahm Emanuel’s office when he was mayor about this company that was coming from the Netherlands. They wanted to put a home base in the United States. They selected Chicago, and it ended up that mHub became their home.
They were acquired recently by Proto Labs for $320 million. They came to us about two years ago and they do on demand manufacturing and prototyping.
They basically have come up with this global network of manufacturers with 3D printers. So if a customer has a job, they can find the most efficient, fastest production of that job from this network of manufacturers around the world.
And 3D printing is obviously going to be an important component for the transformation of manufacturing going forward. But, but there’s this practical problem of, you know, actually getting the thing printed out, right. So that’s pretty cool.
And they’re not only expediting the process to get the print job done, but they’re giving business to manufacturers around the world. I just think that that’s a really smart model. And as I said, they were just acquired, so obviously others saw this as a big opportunity.
One more might be New Current, which has been around with mHub since its beginning. The offer wireless charging solutions. They are probably one of the later stage companies in our organizations, and they have lots of different interesting applications for wireless charging.
You can imagine that is a huge opportunity within many different industry segments. They have customers like Honeywell, but they now are licensing their technology to Popsocket.
It might not be obvious as first, but if you think about phones and these thick cases that people, or people putting these different things on the back, like Popsockets, you can’t actually charge your phone on your wireless charger today. So they’ve come up with a variation of that so that you can still charge your phone wirelessly using a Popsocket.
I think that’s also a really interesting one, because wireless charging is such a hot area in so many different fields.
Doris Nagel
How many companies at any one time are part of mHub’s traditional program?
Melissa Lederer 22:06
We probably have about 270 to 275 companies today. We’ve probably supported about 400 companies since we launched four years ago. It ebbs and flows as to who’s in the space in a given time. Some are there a couple days a week, sometimes are there more, it all depends. But each is capitalizing on the different resources that they need at the different points in their trajectory.
Doris Nagel 22:33
I imagine the conversations around the coffee machine must be absolutely amazing.
Melissa Lederer 22:41
I totally agree. While I’m not an engineer, I love listening to the conversations, I’m always so fascinated.
We also do these design sessions, where if there’s a member who’s working on a problem or product, and maybe they’re stumbling, or they just want some other insight from the community, we’ll do these lunch and learns where we’ll buy everybody lunch.
And then they get this whole host of their community members, their peers coming in, and they say, here’s my challenge. And you just get this wealth of information and talent and ideas that help them solve with one another. Just listening to those is just fascinating.
Doris Nagel 23:23
How long do companies typically stay as part of the program?
Melissa Lederer 23:29
The typical timeline of a startup is about 18 to 24 months, and that tends that’s beyond mHub. That’s just generally if you look at statistics. Because within that timeframe, they’re either going to scale and raise a round and continue, or they’re going to reach that point of realizing they’re not going anywhere, and they need to go get revenue elsewhere.
Doris Nagel 24:03
Looking back –and I’m sure you’ll draw upon your experience at 1871 and with Matter as well — talk about your perspective about what makes companies and teams most successful? You’ve seen so many come through that you may almost able to predict better than most, just from the get go who’s going to have a decent shot of success? What are those characteristics that you see that make for good odds for a startup company?
Melissa Lederer 24:41
I think that there’s a handful of things. The first is really the pedigree of the entrepreneur. And by that I mean, what’s their background? Have they been successful before? Are they a serial entrepreneur? Did they come out of that market? What kind of successes have they had in their own career? Who else is helping them? Do they have advisors? are they thinking about mentors, other people that are already kind of guiding them?
Then there’s the idea. Is the technology disruptive? What’s the market potential that’s out there? What’s the competition within that market? How many other players are there? Is it saturated? Are they really coming up with something that’s different and unique in a way of solving a particular problem?
Then there’s flexibility. How willing are they to accept advice or mentorship? How willing are they to pivot? Because a lot of times your first inclination is not always right. How much customer discovery are they doing? Are they spending time thinking about the product market fit? Are they open to doing more of that? Because, again, your first inclination is often wrong.
And then there’s how quickly do they absorb and adapt? How willing are they to take the good with the bad? How flexible are they to pivot? It really comes down to the DNA of an individual who can handle the stress and the ups and downs. Because the road is very bumpy, as you know. And a lot of times, they don’t have the answers. Often, they may not have the skill sets to fully move a business into something that’s going to be sustainable or real.
So they have to be open to knowing that they need help, or open to maybe getting a co-founder or finding the right talent to support them. And to me, those are the things that I think we often see, with entrepreneurs who are successful and kind of bubble up to the top.
Doris Nagel 26:56
It’s a challenge, isn’t it? Because it takes a certain amount of ego and maybe even blind faith to start a company and believe that you can make a difference and that people will want your product.
So you need to have a certain amount of that. Because if you are wired up to go back and re-jigger everything every time you get feedback, then you get nowhere you’re constantly noodling. So you can’t be like that.
But you do have to be able to be able to listen. And when you hear the same feedback, maybe a couple of different times, you need to be able to step back.
Having worked with a lot of companies — not nearly as many as you have — I’m constantly struck by the fact that people surround themselves with the people they know. And so it becomes kind of an echo chamber.
I’m also amazed by the number of companies who don’t really do much market research. They’re convinced that it’s a neat idea, and people must want it.
I just read a study the other day that said the number one reason that small businesses fail is there’s no perceived market need. How can that possibly be?
Melissa Lederer 28:25
That’s right. Market research. And that is not hard, right? Get out and talk to your customers. It doesn’t require a lot of money. It’s just time. You have to really spend the time getting out of your own way and talking to customers and really listening to them and understanding what are their pain points? And how can you solve that?
Doris Nagel 28:48
And what are they willing to pay for? Customers may say, “Yes, that sounds great!” But ask them all, would you pay $100 for this? And if they say, “Well, no,” then you realize that maybe it wasn’t such a big pain point after all, right?
Melissa Lederer
That’s exactly right.
Doris Nagel
What kind of questions should companies ask before they become part of mHub or frankly, any kind of incubator accelerator ecosystem?
Melissa Lederer 29:19
I think it’s really an understanding of alignment with the resources. You know, where are you at in the growth of your product or business? What do you need? Where are the gaps? How can we help you? Do our resources align with what you need?
For us an interesting thing is, we’re our community, right? It’s an open co working space, and everyone is working together. There’s not a lot of room for concern over secret IP. I you’re worried about keeping this covert and not letting anyone see it, mHub’s probably not the right place.
Because it’s a community where everyone is building. You’re not seeing a lot of IP. But the whole point is that the community and the journey of entrepreneurship can be traveled within a community where you can learn from one another. You know, not make the same mistakes that someone else made, get value from one another.
That’s really interesting, because there are teams that have come in over the years, and this isn’t just mHub, but as I’ve experienced it over the other communities, where they’re really worried about the privacy. That’s probably not the person who is going to be engaging in a community with other entrepreneurs.
But I think in general for mHub, if the resources and what we have to offer align with what you’re trying to do, it could be a wonderful opportunity. Because it’s very affordable, and it is such a welcoming, sharing community that I know, for any physical product entrepreneur, there’s value to be had there.
As for the accelerator program, they’re giving up 5% equity or ownership in the company in exchange for cash. For this program, they’ve got to really got to be comfortable that we have what it takes to help move them forward, and ultimately introduce them to follow on investors and corporate partners.
So it’s important to really dig into those questions, right? It’s a bigger investment and decision for them. And I think they just need to understand both the tangible and intangible values.
To me what makes that unique is that the accelerator exists within the broader mHub ecosystem. And accelerator participants get to take advantage then of all of those additional resources.
So while they’re their cohort of 10, teams, they get to connect with and engage with these 1000s of innovators, they get our broad mentor pool, our investor network, our supplier network. All of that’s really unique, because most accelerators don’t have that breadth of resources that have already been built for a much broader community.
Doris Nagel 32:21
I was going to ask you how mHub has evolved. But I think you’ve already explained in part how mHub is branching out into more traditional accelerators.
Do you see that increasing? Is that an experiment? Or is that really more of a conscious decision to pivot mHub, and help it evolve?
Melissa Lederer 32:46
I think that mHub will always stay true to the foundation of its nonprofit mission, which is to support a wide as wide a net as we can of startups and small businesses in the region and try to infuse innovation into the manufacturing sector.
I think what we also realize, though, is that we have an opportunity to really double down on high potential teams that align with corporate interest.
And we also know that corporates want to connect into early stage innovation to fill their own pipeline to fill their gaps, to partner in new technologies. And they don’t necessarily know how to get access to those teams, or even if they do, what to do with them. How do they de-risk it, how do they incubate a startup, it’s very difficult for a large corporate to do that.
So we’re doing that for them. And we’re giving them access to these teams. And then we’re helping incubate them with their involvement through mentorship and access.
At the end of the day, we think that that is a really good model, that’s really accelerating these teams faster than they would’ve under our traditional model. But it’s also giving a greater understanding of the potential investment to the corporate. They get a good look and an opportunity to work with those teams throughout that accelerator program, and then make an informed decision on what to do with those startups and whether they present an opportunity for their organization to grow.
Doris Nagel 34:25
Obviously, there’s a lot of different paths that companies can take once they leave the mHub environment. They could be acquired. They could head towards bigger and more robust fund raising rounds, I suppose. Or their technology could become like a tuck under kind of acquisition licensing deal with corporations.
What are you typically see in terms of trajectories for companies that have good ideas and are successful at developing them?
Melissa Lederer 35:02
I think it’s exactly what you said: it’s all of those things. There are teams like New Current, as an example, who is scaling their own business. They’re becoming a behemoth in wireless charging. To date they are not looking for an acquisition. They’re building their market, finding customers, and soliciting licensing opportunities with manufacturers for their technology.
And then there are certainly companies that I think will become a quick exit. Even if you look at 3D Hubs who I mentioned earlier, it makes sense that Proto Labs acquired them. They got to a point where they became a really interesting model. And it fits nicely into Proto Labs’ portfolio.
So, I think that there are there’s going to be many different roads. Certainly growth is good. As a product manufacturing business, if the scale is there, and the markets there and the opportunities, we want to help them scale.
If it’s an acquisition, because they’ve proven a technology that can fit underneath an umbrella of a larger corporate, that’s an amazing exit as well.
So I think I think we’re seeing the whole range across the board there.
Doris Nagel 36:24
It is interesting to watch as companies grow. Sometimes people with a great idea can actually launch the idea. And a lot of people talk about scaling as though it’s something you have to do. But I think some entrepreneurs don’t really want to scale. They’d rather move on to the next idea, right? That’s, that’s what they love to do.
And scaling requires you to let go of some of the fun parts. Suddenly, you’re an administrator, you’re a manager of other people doing stuff, which some for some people isn’t nearly as fun, right?
Melissa Lederer 36:58
Absolutely. And sometimes you’ll see the founders that created and started a business, aren’t really able to take it to that big next phase. And that’s when they’ll often bring in a seasoned CEO to run that business, once it kind of hits that scale point.
Doris Nagel
Where do you see mHub evolving in the next, say, five years?
Melissa Lederer 37:21
We will absolutely continue to scale the breadth and depth of the resources that we offer through the nonprofit. We just actually won a federal grant from the ADA to support scaling. Actually, it was us working with Matter and 1871.
We really want to be part of economic recovery. We want to get more access for small businesses, entrepreneurs, to be able to build an entrepreneurial business. So I think we’ll always stay true to the nonprofit mission.
But we also see opportunities that present themselves, not only in the accelerator model, but in the investment model. The mHub Launch Bay Fund is a product impact fund. It’s a $15 million fund, and that fund is what is investing in the startups that are part of the accelerator. And that’s a seed fund. Usually, it’s really hard for a hardtech entrepreneur to get early stage funding pre series A. In fact, it’s I think the investment dollars are like 15 to $1 for dollar for software vs hardware. But we feel like we’re helping fill the gap there at that pre series A level.
But then there’s also an opportunity for follow on investment. So I think we’re going to move forward toward a larger growth fund, where we can continue to invest in these teams as we support them and they accelerate.
I mentioned that we have this really robust talent pool — you know, 1000 innovators in our community. And, and we’ve found that manufacturers have come to us and say, “I have a challenge. I have an R & D product issue, we don’t have or we can’t find the talent for it, or we’re bumping up against a challenge that we can’t solve. How do we tap into your talent pool?” That’s another piece of our business that’s really scaling.
We’ve also been doing something we call Pac development. And the idea is that we can help kind of be the middleman for creating opportunities for outsourced R &D. It gives the corporates access to this wonderful talent pool.
For the talent pool, it’s incremental revenue — it’s cash in their pocket. That might be an entrepreneur who’s working on their business, but they’ve got 20% of their time to work on something else.
And it’s extending their runway of their own companies, but also giving them opportunities to work on different projects. And that’s really a win win that we’re seeing can scale. So I think that that’s another big area for us to continue to grow.
Doris Nagel 39:58
That’s huge. Do you see yourself always being Chicago-based, or possibly expanding?
Melissa Lederer 40:14
It’s a great question. We have, needless to say, been asked many times by other cities, other countries, in fact, about the idea of helping them build a similar model, or would we open an mHub in another city?
It comes up in our talks often. And I think the answer is we still don’t know.
Today, after four years, we know we still have a lot to do with mHub in Chicago. We are certainly creating broader tentacles through the accelerator, because the fund is going to bring in and touch teams beyond Illinois and the Midwest.
And then is that going to be the next phase that we would open an mHub in another location? I think that it’s always going to be up for consideration, and we will have to see, but right now, we know there’s still so much more we can do here and continue to build this out on a national level, even with it being in Chicago. If teams aren’t afraid to move to Chicago for six months to participate in our accelerator program, we know we have something special here and they’re willing to come for it.
Doris Nagel
I guess it’s like scaling any business. You need to think carefully about how you scale and make sure that you focus on the things that you’re really good at before trying to grow too fast.
Melissa Lederer
Exactly.
Doris Nagel
I saw on your website that you’re giving tours again, is that right?
Melissa Lederer
We are we are giving tours again. We just started up again.
You know, mHub was never closed during COVID, because we’re a manufacturing center. We were allowed to be open. And we always had some good traffic there , with teams that were working on products. In fact, many of our teams were actually working on solutions for COVID, PBE, ventilators and other solutions.
But we really kind of clamped down on the broader community coming in. And now that Illinois is moving to a more open stage, we’ve begun tours again in the last few weeks.
We also are having our first big public event, a barbecue in mid July, which will bring back the community. It was always one of our best events and it’s outdoors.
We’re excited. It feels like things are kind of getting back to normal and fun!
Doris Nagel
If people are interested in taking a tour, or they’re interested in becoming part of the community or maybe part of the next accelerator cohort, what’s the best way for them to reach you or learn more about mHub?
Melissa Lederer
They should definitely visit our website, which is mHubChicago.com. There is a link where you can schedule to participate in a tour and we’ll start hosting them again, multiple times a week. So check that out and check availability.
There’s also an events calendar on the website, which we’re going to start building back up, so keep an eye on that. It’s a great opportunity to come hear a talk or network with the community and get a flavor for what we have to offer.
Our accelerator program has a separate website. It’s mhubaccelerator.com. And that gives a whole overview on that program, as well as the details about the opening of the application window for the next cohort, which is focused on medical devices.
Doris Nagel
Well, I know I am going to try to take a tour one of the next times I’m downtown, Melissa. It sounds like an amazing community to be part of and to work in. Like I said earlier, I just can’t imagine some of the conversations just around the proverbial water cooler. It must be an amazing place.
Melissa Lederer
Yes, it is. It is always exciting. There’s always something going on and conversations in so many different directions that make it really fun and lively on a regular basis. But I would love to show you around. So please come and visit.
Doris Nagel
I want to take you up on that!
Melissa, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for being on the show. It was a delight having you.
Melissa Lederer
My pleasure. Thank you so much to Doris.
Doris Nagel
All right, folks, that’s our show for this week. Thanks so much for listening. And thanks again especially to my guest today Melissa Lederer, who’s the Chief Experience Officer at mHub, which is a manufacturing focused business ecosystem and now accelerator based in Chicago.
You can find more helpful information and resources on my website, which is globalocityservices.com. There’s a library there are blogs, tools and other resources that are free.
My door is always open for comments, questions, suggestions, or just to shoot the breeze. Email me at mailto:dnagel@lakesradio.org — I promise you’ll always get an answer back from me.
Be sure to join me again next Saturday at 11am Central noon Eastern.
But until then, I’m Doris Nagel, wishing you happy entrepreneuring!
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