Erica Wassinger is the Managing Director of the Omaha Startup Collaborative, a startup incubator and coworking space in downtown Omaha. On March 22 OSC and AIM celebrated the public opening of the newly renovated AIM Exchange building. Since then OSC has been heads down with some of the most promising companies in Omaha. SPN caught up with Wassinger this week to talk about the startup ecosystem and community building.
SPN: How many companies are part of the Omaha Startup Collaborative now?
EW: We moved here last June with 20 companies and a U-Haul, and we had our official intro to the public during Omaha Startup Week in March. I’m excited to say that as of July 1 we will have more than 60 startups as members.
I think what is most interesting is that it’s not just within these walls. The idea of density doesn’t have to be exclusively physical, but it’s that connection point. We’re adding new teams from Lincoln and from elsewhere, and we’re seeing more interest in the region to collaborate together.
Thanks to our sponsor
SPN: If someone’s not in the building, but they want to get involved with OSC, how do they do that?
EW: We’ve got a series of incubator-like opportunities, opportunities to sit down and work through your business, defining Key Performance Indicators, setting goals, seeing what help you need. We’re excited to be doing that in tandem with Nathan Preheim at the Greater Omaha Chamber.
We also have things like national press outreach on a quarterly basis. For teams that are really trying to make a splash, we help them figure out what their story is, when they are ready to tell it, and how to work toward that goal.
We’ve been doing investor roadshows. We took five teams to Chicago in April and met with seven venture funds. We had some great success introducing Nebraska as a hub for innovation. It’s also a way to make an unbiased introduction from our ecosystem to those venture funds.
SPN: And that’s something people can be involved in as member, even if they aren’t in the building?
EW: Yeah! Right now members can opt in at the lowest level at $100 a month. If you need space or more support, it goes up from there. But nothing right now is more than $500 a month.
SPN: Where are you at in terms of capacity in the building?
EW: On the two floors that OSC is on, we’ve got openings now, but never a ton. Right now we 2-3 suites that are available. I’m not sure those will last through July, and they weren’t available last month.
It flows in and out, but the exciting thing is that if you have a bigger team and you want to participate in building the ecosystem or connect to the talent that’s flowing in and out of the building, both with OSC’s opportunities and AIM’s opportunities, there’s space on other floors for that.
SPN: What’s been the biggest change you’ve noticed among the members since moving into the space?
EW: The density conversation has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue for years now, literally for a decade. We all knew it mattered, and we knew that we need to foster more of that physical connectedness, but I don’t think I fully understood how magical that can be.
It’s not uncommon for me to walk down the hall and see a programmer from one team supporting another team when a function on their site is down.
It’s not uncommon to see CEOs head out to lunch together to work through term sheets. It’s not odd to hear introductions from everyone in support of someone who’s trying to make a splash. The sense that everyone is in this together and everyone is building their business and simultaneously building each other’s has been pretty magical.
SPN: What’s your sense of the broader startup ecosystem has a whole?
EW: The work’s not done yet. As an ecosystem we’re still somewhat siloed. And I don’t think that’s intentional. We’re all just pretty heads down.
I’m making an effort to be more intentional about participating on other people’s initiatives, and I think it’s really appreciated when others do the same here. If we can continue that effort to see the collective do better, then I think we will be in a good spot.
—
Silicon Prairie News is a service of AIM and a member of the Omaha Startup Collaborative located at The AIM Exchange in downtown Omaha.
