I recently sat down with entrepreneur of year and former mayoral candidate Mark DeSantis. Since he left the political spotlight two years ago Mark now leads two start-ups in Pittsburgh, MobileFusion and Apangea.
Mark recently came out supporting independent candidate for Mayor Kevin Acklin, while we got into the campaign a little, I wanted to know his opinion on what makes Pittsburgh the number two city to start a small business and what it will take to get to number one. For full disclosure, I was a student of Mark’s at the Heinz College and worked on his campaign for mayor.
So, what makes Pittsburgh the second best place to start a business? “Experience.” Mark sums it up in one word, “During the dot com bubble a lot of people found success and they’ve stuck around.” Because of these success stories, Mark continues, “Pittsburgh now has more and more sophisticated, angel investors who want to be involved and make their investments a success.” Of course, that’s not it. After the success of some university spin-offs like Vivimio (MobileFusion is a spin-off as well) the university community saw the path to commercialization being blazed. “Both professors and students are more savvy and better understand how their research and technologies create products that have a market.” Have the university transfer offices been better at encouraging and assigning spin-offs? “Not really. From my perspective it’s been more that the university communities are seeing success which encourages more success.”
Then what will it take to move to number one? “We’re overtaxed by a not business friendly government. When comparing the cost of business in Pittsburgh to other cities, or even neighboring counties, Pittsburgh costs too much.” There are many things that come into play other than taxes and city government, though. “AlphaLab and InnovationWorks are great for financing start-ups, but we need more later-stage financing.” Mark speaks about what gets more money to come to town. “Success. And luck. Successes attract more money and luck plays a big part of it.” How does success attract more money? “Success brings more money into the city, and when they are here, they look all around.”
Why Kevin Acklin? “Kevin would be a great mayor. We need someone that brings intelligence and maturity to solve our tough problems.” On day one Kevin needs to take action to attract more investments in Pittsburgh. What does he need to do? “We need to ask if we need all of this bureaucracy. Can we do what we need to do with less and be better at it? Yes. No one believes that we are delivering our services in a meaningful way – not even the people working for the city.” Having worked in government and business Mark speaks with a passion to see his city succeed – to see real leaders step-up. He is quick to point out that leaders do not always have to be in charge, but that this city lacks leadership.
To be one of the successes that you think Pittsburgh needs, what advice to do you have for those starting out? “Expand your social network outside of the city. Technology and money are not enough. What makes and will continue to make Pittsburgh great are the relationships our entrepreneurs have with the rest of the world.”
Mark isn’t just passionate about building businesses; he is passionate about building better communities. His ask of you? “Have faith in the future of Pittsburgh. Get engaged and take personal responsibility. Ask the tough questions, and then demand answers.”
The Marines have a famous motto that states “no man left behind.” ClearCount Medical Solutions, a five year old Pittsburgh startup that recently secured $3.4 million in funding, is trying to help hospitals adopt a similar mantra: no sponge left behind.
“Retained foreign objects” is the term for items such as surgical sponges and instruments accidentally left inside a patient following a surgical procedure. This is clearly a problem, as a study published in 2003 by The New England Journal of Medicine found that approximately 4,000 sponges are accidentally left inside patients every year. In the majority of cases, the cause is a counting error by medical staff.
To help make this problem go away, ClearCount has created the SmartSponge System, which uses a RFID (radio frequency identification) chip embedded in the sponges so that they can be tracked in two ways: counted before they are used and then accounted for at the surgery’s close. The company is garnering a lot of positive buzz, including an article in Time magazine in June.
At first glance, you would think hospitals would balk at the need to pay for such a system, figuring they could just try to implement a more failsafe manual counting system. But, there’s a lot at stake here. For starters, malpractice litigation never seems to do anything but increase, so implementing technology like this seems like a reliable way to reduce lawsuits related to sponges left behind. Then there’s the recent announcement by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid that it will no longer cover the costs of 27 “Never events.” “Never events” are preventable injuries and infections that occur during hospital stays and, you guessed it, accidentally leaving a sponge behind after surgery is one of them. The average Medicare payment for admissions in which an object is left behind after surgery is over $63,000, so in addition to the obvious quality-of-care issue, it would seem financially prudent for hospitals to take a close look at ClearCount, one of only two companies currently providing RF-detectable surgical sponge technology.
With the recent funding and a solid product that appears to address a real market need, the future looks bright for ClearCount and, of course, for surgical patients.
With a name like The Resumator there is no need for a catchy title. An AlphaLab graduate, The Resumator is a company and product. The Resumator aims to make the hiring process simple, efficient and cheap. Currently aimed squarely at small and medium sized companies, The Resumator has gained traction with startups in Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley.
The premise is simple, just like the product. Resumator works to gather, categorize and gather statistics on any number of different areas for recruiters and “HR” folk. Unlike other products in the market, The Resumator does not offer a turn-key solution, rather, they create a product that is usable for someone expecting a decent number of applicants. It’s great for a growing and popular start up.
Locally it is used by MobileFusion (also an AlphaLab grad) as well as the better known Silicon Valley start up, Dropbox (the terrific online back-up and storage app). After being launched in January 2009, The Resumator was profiled by all of the big technology blogs including Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and CNet.
The Resumator delivers the power of a much larger HR management system for a comparatively infinitesimal price – ReadWriteWeb
This Pittsburgh start-up is another that isn’t about robotics or biotech. It’s solid business-to-business app that nicely meets it’s customers needs. The online “cloud” or SaaS (Software as a Service) apps are nothing new – small business get great advantages from using them. Popularized by 37Signals’ collaboration tool Basecamp, small business now have a suite of products from many innovative companies to meet their needs. Less Accounting, MailChimp, FreshBooks and others round out a number of apps that aim to support the small businesses by offering the traditional business needs in the cloud. The Resumator holds it’s own and so long as they keep innovating and producing a great product they will be another Pittsburgh success story.
Congratulations to ModCloth founders Susan Gregg & Eric Koger, they are number 2 and 3 on this year’s Inc. 30 Under 30 list. While not a company one would expect out of Pittsburgh given the recent fascination with “eds and meds” in the news, ModCloth goes against the grain selling retro-inspired and true vintage clothing.
Started out of a dorm room at Carnegie Mellon (like many other Pittsburgh start-ups), ModCloth has grown to almost 100 employees and 2009 projected revenues of $15 million. They hit an accord with shoppers offering an easy way to avoid the hit-or-miss vintage shops such as Hey, Betty on Ellsworth in Shadyside.
The trend toward vintage clothing is becoming more popular everyday especially as the popularity of Mad Men increases. To meet the needs of their customers, ModCloth hires women in their 20s, their exact target demographic. So far, its paid off.
The duo of Susan and Eric works well – Eric runs the site while Susan manages the merchandise. A match made in heaven. Going forward they plan to offer a new experience to shoppers – that of an online “rack.” While I don’t know specifies, I see this being similar to Pittsburgh’s other big retailer American Eagle. Their Martin+Osa brand uses a flash based site to offer shoppers the opportunity to see a number of different outfits and comb through many possibilities.
Startup Pittsburgh congrats Susan & Eric on their accomplishment – well deserved!
