Paul Bass Photo
Dishing at DISTRICT: CEOs Bailey, Swanston, Zamani, Londa.
Fiber.
Family.
Football?
A panel of governor-whisperers offered those hints about how they believe Connecticut can harness its start-up business momentum to bring the economy to the next level, create more jobs, and keep young people here for life.
The panel offered those tips Monday afternoon at DISTRICT, New Haven’s hopping tech innovation center on James Street.
The crowd at DISTRICT.
The occasion was a celebration of the new-ish headquarters of Connecticut Innovations, the quasi-public agency that lends money and guidance to start-ups. CI moved into the spacious digs 20 months ago. But that was during the lowest days of the pandemic. Monday was finally a time to bring people in for a look (and some nosh).
CI has been on a tear. It says it has been earning a 35 percent return on its investments. That means it has plenty of new money to lend start-ups without needing to ask the state for more. Its portfolio has more than doubled, to 250 companies, over the past several years. This past year alone, 11 of its seeded companies hit the jackpot, going public or being acquired by a larger corporation.
Gov. Lamont, foreground, at DISTRICT with aides Max Reiss, Josh Geballe, David Lehman.
The newly rich-for-life CI-seeded founder-CEOs of four of those start-ups comprised the panel that held the discussion at Monday afternoon’s event. Gov. Ned Lamont asked them for strategy advice.
“We’ve got a snowball going down a mountain. Let’s get it as big as we can,” Lamont said. Any suggestions?
Peter Londa.
Pete Londa had a suggestion: Fiber-optic internet.
Londa started Tantalus, which develops tech for public power companies and electric cooperatives to run safer, more reliable, more secure grids.
Londa spoke Monday about how power companies are in a position to add fiber-optic networks to deliver far faster, lower-cost internet service. When the government-owned power company in Chattanooga, Tennessee, did that, it didn’t only create a jobs boom from employers drawn to the service, the part of the story most of us had heard about. It was also able to incorporate that system into how it delivers electricity: It benefits from immediate, finer-grain detail about energy use to plan better and react sooner to, say, weather emergencies or looming outages. It has more information based upon which to decide how to fix inefficiencies in the system.
Londa noted that some Connecticut communities already have publicly-owned power companies: Groton, Wallingford, Jewett City, South and East Norwalk, Bozrah and Norwich. He recommended that Connecticut government help those utilities add fiber-optic networks for internet service.
Besides boosting the economy, fiber optic can help bridge the digital divide, he noted.
After his talk, Londa was asked about the rest of us in Connecticut whose communities are beholden to Eversource and United Illuminating, low-performing, price-gouging for-profit energy companies owned by outside interests. Any thoughts about how the state could help bring the fiber miracle to those communities, as well? New Haven has been trying to do that since 2014, and failing. (This book will get you steamed about the maneuvering of cable and phone companies to prevent cities from obtaining cheaper, far-faster fiber optic internet, in order to keep customers on lousy service.)
Yes, Londa suggested, the state could invest in creating public fiber-optic networks in those communities without municipally-owned power companies, too. It might require forming some public-private partnerships to roll it out. (A Yale-Housing Authority of New Haven joint project, perhaps?)
Josh Geballe, Lamont’s chief operating officer, said the administration has been exploring using federal pandemic relief dollars to help build out business-zone fiber-optic and residential 5G wireless broadband.
Jessica Bailey.
Two of the panelists focused in on why some talented people choose to stay in Connecticut: Because they want to raise families here.
Some of those talented people — namely, women — often drop out of the workforce to start raising kids, noted Jessica Bailey (who apparently didn’t). At some time after their kids enter school, the moms look to return to careers. But they sometimes have trouble finding their way back in, she said.
She suggested the state work on developing that strategy.
“How do we get them back?” asked Bailey, whose recently-sold (to the global firm Nuveen) Greenworks Lending, a private capital firm focused on Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C‑PACE). “These women are bad-asses. They’re smart. They want to go back to work.” Government’s role could involve helping to create a pathway.
Peyman Zamani.
Panelist Peyman Zamani, an Iranian-born Connecticut entrepreneur whose company Logicbroker bills its e‑commerce platform as offering “the latest in cloud and supply chain automation with unrivaled speed and integration flexibility,” also spoke about Connecticut’s draw for family-minded talent.
“Focus on what’s working. We’re never going to be Silicon Valley. We’re never going to be Austin,” he argued.
Therefore, instead of investing in, say, cultural amenities for single 20-somethings, aim for what will draw talented people looking to settle with their families. Namely: The schools. Invest in them, to build the infrastructure to lure people in, say, their 30s or 40s, he suggested.
Andrew Swanston.
Andrew Swanston disagreed: If Connecticut loses 20-something rising talent to other communities, he argued, it loses them forever.
“The average 22, 23-year-old graduate from college doesn’t care about the quality of public education” in Connecticut, argued Swanston, who founded the marketing firm Tru Optik. “They won’t be here to care about it” in 10 years if they start out somewhere else.
The answer? “We’re got to get pro sports,” Swanston argued. MLB, NHL, NBA … Connecticut needs a team again, he said. And he’d love to be the person bringing it here.