03.10.22
7 Questions With Mike Fritsch, President & CEO, The NIIC
Jeff Crane, Business People
As published in Business People
Previously the senior entrepreneur-in-residence and director of revenue development, Mike Fritsch has been promoted to president and CEO of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center (NIIC). He brings a wealth of knowledge to the position with over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience and is eager to apply his love of innovating, creating and executing visions for the organization. We caught up with Mike to learn about his plans for his new role, his thoughts on small business growth in northeast Indiana, and chatted a little about pickleball, too.
Q1: Congratulations on your promotion! How have your career path and work with The NIIC led you to this position?
Thanks! I helped start and run two companies for almost 40 years. I’ve learned what to do and what NOT to do. Both companies are doing fine without me. I started the second one in the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center (The NIIC) early in its formation. I was a founding board member of The NIIC in 1999 due to a chance meeting with Dr. Mike Mirro. “Be on the board,” he said. “It won’t take much of your time.” Ha! I joined The NIIC nine years ago as entrepreneur-in-residence | director of the Student Venture Program. Later, I also became director of revenue development. My best skill (according to my wife) is acting like I know everything about everything. I was involved in everything from strategic planning, proposal writing, budget development, employee management, program implementation, coaching and so much more. In essence, The NIIC was its own startup. We continuously look for ways to innovate better and help small businesses.
Q2: What are you looking forward to most about being in this new role?
Two things: First, my greatest strength is innovating and creating a vision to achieve it. My predecessor and NIIC founder, Karl LaPan, created an amazing entrepreneurial community in his 20 years here. I have a strong vision of what’s next. It involves our NIIC team and our greater community. It is needed now, and I look forward to providing the leadership to work collaboratively and implement it in our region. Stay tuned for news soon about this.
Secondly, I love working to help our people get what they want in life. The NIIC staff includes talented, passionate individuals. They care about assisting people in reaching their dreams of building businesses. My goal is to match The NIIC’s needs with employee skills and needs for optimal growth. Most people say that managing employees is the hardest part of running a business, but I love it.
Q3: How do you see small business formation and growth in northeast Indiana advancing over the next several years?
“With great change comes great opportunity.” The pandemic’s start was a tough time for businesses and entrepreneurship. Yet, the lingering crisis has caused many businesses and people to evaluate their business models and think about starting new ventures.
Business building and innovation are on the rise. Many funders seek good ideas to support. Throughout northeast Indiana, we have found that organizations and individuals are willing to try new things and work together to make them happen. We trail Indianapolis in this mindset of new business support, but we are getting there. Already I see many more scalable businesses getting funded in NE Indiana and earning national attention. I am very bullish about the future.
Q4: The NIIC serves as the official Entrepreneurial Hub for Northeast Indiana as part of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Community Navigator Pilot Program. Tell us a little about this and what it means for business builders.
This program provides a significant opportunity to advance the entrepreneurial ecosystem for our region. The Community Navigator Pilot Program powers The NIIC to work with a community of stakeholders to create an architecture and protocol for COORDINATED COLLABORATION to help entrepreneurial business builders succeed. Few organizations effectively worked together and the environment was very competitive. Now, we are putting some meat on the bones of the overused word “collaboration” to work together, as equals, to achieve our individual and collective goals. As we move forward, the community is also moving forward to define and implement other needed aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, including the advent of Electric Works. We are building something new.
For business builders, it means they will have access to a pool of resources offering customized assistance, along with a pathway for their success. Less confusion, quicker help, more expert and targeted help. This all means better success rates for entrepreneurial startups and more jobs and prosperity for northeast Indiana.
Q5: What has been your fondest memory while working at the NIIC?
Most entrepreneurial coaches can tell you that their favorite thing to do is help people reach their dreams. An entrepreneur’s life is so intertwined with their business. I often end up being a life coach half the time. You feel their pains and joys with them. Our Student Venture Program has been my favorite because the students are starting companies and putting everything into it. I probably shouldn’t name names, but by far, Lauren Sanderson is the most vision-driven, passionate and dedicated entrepreneur I’ve met.
Q6: Outside of your work with The NIIC, I see you are the Fort Wayne Pickleball Association President. How did you become involved with that? Do you play?
Anyone who knows my family knows that my wife Coleen is the family’s athlete. I’m the coach and administrator. When she started playing softball, I was the coach. Then, she started playing pickleball. So, I became president of Fort Wayne Pickleball. See the trend? I recently passed the baton of FW Pickleball to let others take it from here. I still have fun playing. Two years ago, my wife and I traveled to Germany to play in a pickleball tournament. My wife won a gold medal for the U.S. team. It’s called pickleball tourism.
Q7: What can you be found doing in your free time?
Free time? What’s that? Life and work blur together when you’ve lived your life being an entrepreneur and running companies. Don’t get me wrong. I do like to have fun. Traveling is an awesome get-away for me and my wife (as long as I get to take my laptop with me). I love pickleball and now, golf. Don’t tell anyone, but I like to sing karaoke, too. I also enjoy the mysteries of genealogy and have identified over 25,000 people in our family tree. Oh, and our 11 grandkids take up a minute or two of our time as well. All in all, God has blessed me with a full life and a wonderful family. I have no complaints.
