Opinion | Minnesota may be feeling down, but it’s not out

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In 1973, Gov. Wendell Anderson was featured on the cover of Time magazine with the caption “The Good Life in Minnesota.” The issue’s feature story detailed the area’s unique combination of “the nation’s more agreeable qualities … courtesy and fairness, honesty, a capacity for innovation, hard work, intellectual adventure and responsibility.” A glowing review of a light on the hill.

As a child of the ’80s, I grew up in an era when Prince was Prince, when the Twins were winning the World Series, when my parents could pursue promising careers in health care and film production, when Target and Best Buy were cool, and when Minnesota culture was regularly celebrated in movies the world was watching. It was a time when many Minnesotans were winning so regularly that it became the expectation.

Growing up in the southwest suburbs, I felt the itch to spread my wings and move out of state for college. I landed in the fields of West Lafayette, Ind., at Purdue University, pursuing an interest in business and entrepreneurship. Two years into my undergraduate degree, I found myself at a crossroads — do I stay at Purdue and eventually take my skills to Chicago or the Bay Area and begin my career there, or move back to the Twin Cities and pursue my passions in the place I called home? I chose the latter, left Purdue, and transferred to the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota to complete my education, and I’ve stayed here ever since.

The early 2000s through the mid-teens was an exciting time to build a career in Minnesota. The Great Recession was challenging for many of us who were just starting our careers, but it wasn’t long before my fellow millennials were landing lucrative corporate and agency jobs once again. Though small, the startup scene was emerging and attracting young and hungry talent who believed they could overcome the impossible, and from about 2010 through 2020, they were doing just that. The area produced an incredible run of exits — SPS Commerce, Compellent, SportsEngine, Jamf, Preventice Solutions, Sezzle and others — reinforcing our national reputation for producing outsized innovation.

Not long after Prince died, something changed. It’s hard to point to any single source or cause. Bad luck? Bad policy? Complacency? Lowered expectations? All the above? It’s hard to say. But our local and national perception switched from a long run of winning to a long, hard slump.

If you’ve only been following the headlines, you might conclude that Minnesota is no longer a shining light on the hill.

That’s not my belief.

Like you, I’ve also felt sad, angry, devastated, confused, misled and off in response to the many things that haven’t gone our way recently.

But because of the work that I do, I’ve never felt hopeless.

I am a venture capitalist at Groove Capital who invests primarily in Minnesota-based companies at the earliest stages. My job is to find (and ultimately support the work of) the people who have a capacity for innovation, who work hard and who apply their sense of responsibility and intellectual prowess in the pursuit of new adventures. And I’m happy to report that we’ve been busy.

In the lab, garage, coffee shop, fields and boardrooms, countless local entrepreneurs are building large companies that solve global problems. We’ve had the privilege of partnering with nearly 100 companies in the last five years, mostly Minnesota-based, who are furthering the area’s innovation legacy. Maxwell Labs (St. Paul) is using lasers to reduce energy and water use by data centers. Claros Technologies (Minneapolis) may be the only continuous flow technology in the world to remove PFAS from waste streams. Vocxi Health (St. Paul) has developed a medical device that uses exhaled breath to detect lung cancer. GUDEA (Minneapolis) uses AI to detect and counteract inauthentic social media posts that are pushing false narratives. Carba (Minneapolis) converts biomass waste into pure carbon that can be used to clean landfills. These entrepreneurs (and more) are actively saving lives, generating returns and attracting talent back to Minnesota. They exist, their work has not stopped, and it’s something that we all need to be more aware of.

So, yeah — we are down, but we are not out. The heartbeat of innovation that has provided us with the foundation we all stand upon is still beating.

If you’ve forgotten, disbelieved or never known it, Minnesota is still a place of courtesy, fairness and honesty, with a capacity for innovation, hard work, and intellectual adventure and responsibility. It’s a place where the underdog has a history of winning. I’m not asking you to wax nostalgic with me or to overlook the inequities of our past; I’m asking you to ignore the naysayers today and to place your attention (and any other resources you can provide) toward the people whose innovations and inspiration are our only shot at getting things back on track. Their success is our success. It’s to them I say “thank you” for choosing not to give up in the pursuit of the good life in Minnesota.