• Winston Bennett, Entrepreneur, North Region
• Chuck Boughton, Truman State University, North Region
• Shad Burner, Missouri Dept. Economic Dev., Southeast Region
• Stacey Button, Regional Economic Development Inc., Central Region
• Dr. Dedric Carter (Chair), Washington University, St. Louis Region
• Jim Eberlin, Entrepreneur, St. Louis Region
• Sam Fiorello, Cortex Innovation Community, St. Louis Region
• Maria Flynn, Techstars, Kansas City Region
• Craig Frazier, Entrepreneur, Southwest Region
• Rep. Derek Grier, Missouri Legislature, St. Louis Region
• Wendy Guillies, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City Region
• Benjamin Johnson, BioSTL, St. Louis Region
• Maria Meyers, UMKC Innovation Center and KCSourceLink, Kansas City Region
• Lisa Nichols, Entrepreneur, St. Louis Region
• Dr. Nadia Shakoor, Entrepreneur, St. Louis Region
• Bryan Shannon, Entrepreneur, Kansas City Region
At the onset of this strategic initiative, MTC gathered a steering committee of 16 thought leaders to guide the effort. Representing a cross section of Missouri entrepreneurial, philanthropic, governmental, academic, and industrial communities, this committee played an indispensable role throughout the process. The members of the steering committee can be found in the textbox.
First, the project team developed a mixed-methods quantitative analysis to explore innovation and en-trepreneurship activity in Missouri. Importantly, this quantitative analysis looked not only at how Missouri fared against a series of peer and competitor states, but also how the different regions in Missouri were performing. Figure 4 describes the states used for the quantitative analysis, as well as the six regions used throughout the study. These six regions are based on the Missouri Department of Economic Development’s Regional Engagement Team.
Figure 4: Benchmark States and Missouri Regions for Quantitative Analysis
Central Kansas City
North
Southeast Southwest
St. Louis
Benchmark States: AR, KS, IA, IL, TN, IN, OH, OK Benchmark Regions: STL, KC, Central, North, SW, SE
Source: TEConomy Partners, LLC.
Areas explored through this quantitative portion of the analysis included:
• Dynamics of Traded-Sector Startup Establishments
• Employment Growth at Traded Sector Firms
• Patent Activity and Intellectual Property
• University Technology Transfer
• Investment Capital (such as angel, pre-seed, seed, and venture capital investment)
• Nondilutive Capital (such as SBIR/STTR awards and private grants)
Opportunities to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship exist in all corners of the state, and the project team was intentional about covering all regions of the state with this outreach plan. TEConomy’s multi-pronged, qualitative approach involved outreach to approximately 500 individuals throughout the state’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.16 This included three distinct components:
16 See Appendix B for a list of stakeholders from across the State of Missouri who informed this effort.
• Ecosystem survey to gather input regarding areas such as entrepreneurial culture, risk capital en-vironment, innovation support and physical infrastructure to support entrepreneurs, the business climate, broadband, etc. More than 280 individuals participated in this survey, with representation from across the state’s innovation economy—45 percent of responses were from outside of the St.
Louis and Kansas City regions. Notably, 48 percent of individuals who participated in this survey were entrepreneurs themselves. This high share, in conjunction with the substantial number of open-ended response questions in the survey, led to a significant number of comments, sugges-tions, and other recommendations to inform this study.
• Targeted interviews with stakeholders to identify regional and market-specific trends, drive equitable outcomes in areas with lower population density, support entrepreneurial activity from underserved entrepreneurs (including women, veterans, immigrants, rural entrepreneurs, and LGBQTIA+ individuals), and identify opportunities to strengthen commercialization assets. These interviews included conversations with serial entrepreneurs, venture capital providers, leaders of economic development and entrepreneurial support organizations, and other relevant members of the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. In total, there were more than 70 interviews, and many of these discussions included multiple individuals.
• Regional and statewide focus groups vetted these findings and helped adjust, refine, modify the situational analysis, and identify ways that businesses, academe, and government can collaborate to advance innovation and entrepreneurial development across all of its regions. Across the six regions, there were more than 120 individuals participating in 90-minute discussions. Beyond these regional conversations, there were two statewide focus groups to gain feedback on both the analysis and the preliminary recommendations. More than 80 stakeholders from across Missouri participated in these discussions.
As noted by MTC Chairman Dr. Dedric Cater, “Our strategic initiative will serve as a lens to bring together many rays of light from across the state. Strategic engagement and subsequent consistent investment are critical to our future growth.” Across surveys, interviews, and focus groups, a wide range of individuals from across the State of Missouri were heard from throughout this process, representing entrepreneurs, risk capital providers, universities and research institutions, entrepreneurial service organizations, corporate innovation leaders, philanthropic foundations, and economic development professionals.
This strategic initiative does not exist in a vacuum. Instead, as part of both the quantitative and qualitative review process, TEConomy frequently referred to the wide range of complementary strategic initiatives developed across Missouri in recent years. The true success of this strategic initiative is to build on these notable examples, such as:
• The Missouri Chamber Foundation’s Technology 2030 Report (2021)17
• MOSourceLink Show Me Capital Report (2019)18, and
17 http://mochamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Technology2030-report.pdf
18 https://www.mosourcelink.com/docs/default-source/sourcelink-documents/show-me-capital-report-2019-final-web-2.pdf
• Governor’s Innovation Task Force Final Report (2017).19
The next section of this report includes a synthesis of both the qualitative and quantitative input. This situational analysis of innovation and entrepreneurship in Missouri suggests that five key challenges limit the state’s ability to develop and sustain a robust, innovational, and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
To address these challenges, recommended strategies and actions can be found in the third section of this report. A vital component of this project was identifying those practices among states that best define the state’s role in promoting entrepreneurship and supporting the advancement of technology and innovation.
These best practices are interspersed throughout the report. Strategies and actions are inspired by these best practices and are not intended to imitate them.
This strategic plan is a culmination of the consensus of views of key thought leaders seeking to position Missouri for future economic growth driven by increased innovation and entrepreneurship. In the pages that follow, the Strategic Plan recommends a series of catalytic strategies and concrete actions that, if undertaken, will foster greater levels of economic prosperity for all Missourians in the years to come.