We just wrapped up an amazing summit in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley with Summit hosts Debbie Irwin and Anika Horn (shout out also to member Ryan Hall, who joined the Summit team as the Interim Executive Director for Shenandoah Community Capital Fund). We sat down to catch up with Debbie Irwin, one of our Shenandoah Valley Summit hosts and also a newly appointed Board Member!
A lot has happened since we spotlighted her in 2021. She is now the Managing Director of Lighthouse Labs, a statewide accelerator in Virginia, and the founder of a new business. If the name Lighthouse Labs rings a bell, it’s because it was cofounded by SCN Founding Member and former Interim Executive Director Larkin Garbee. Yes, this is a full-circle moment for SCN and a great example of the power of our network!
Lighthouse Labs runs two cohorts a year and works with innovation-based founders across the Commonwealth and outside of Virginia. The accelerator is unique in that it offers founders a $20,000 non-dilutive grant to help them grow and scale.
“It's a really fun transition for me for multiple reasons. One, I just really love that type of deep work with a founder, and so I'm getting to do some of that as well as build in a statewide ecosystem capacity. Two, it just so happens that my mentor and SCN extraordinaire, Larkin Garbee is one of the co-founders of Lighthouse Labs. And so it's very fun to take over the thing that my mentor helped start,” says Debbie.
Looking back
Debbie was instrumental in getting the Shenandoah Valley on the map through grants, funding, and visibility. As Shenandoah Valley Summit attendees saw, there’s so much more going on in “The Valley” and the collaborative effort to support entrepreneurship is growing.
“We're [the Shenandoah Valley ecosystem] starting to get into rooms and be advocates for the language we use around entrepreneurship. We were able to really start getting the region to work together and we're seeing more and more startups formed. The grants we received allowed us to launch a new type of incubator for our region where we were paying for human capital on behalf of the founders and so it brought in additional funding as well. It also started opening us up to opportunities for additional access to capital, where we got a 30 month finance navigator through IEDC. That also allowed us to pursue the IRP program, which they're working on now, which is the intermediary re-lending program with the USDA. That could allow us to draw down up to $15 million over the next 10 years to lend out to entrepreneurs who normally wouldn't have access.”
Expanding collaboration statewide
Now that she manages a statewide accelerator, she hopes to bring the spirit of collaboration her team cultivated in the Shenandoah Valley to her new role.
“A very immediate thing we’ve found is that horizontal integration of Virginia accelerators is a beautiful path forward. What does it look like for the accelerators to not only look at how we're supporting founders but also what we as organizations are good at? For example, 757 is doing incredible things around investor readiness while the RAMP team in Roanoke is gaining traction in medical devices. And then you have Lighthouse Labs, which is really good at the programmatic side and sees the founder as a holistic person. You have all of these organizations that have identified a really good skill set; what does it look like if we're actively passing entrepreneurs through those programs?” says Debbie.
In addition to horizontal integration between organizations, she’s also focused on building out the Lighthouse Labs community to ensure that every founder who comes through stays engaged and gives back to the cohorts who come after theirs.
“Founders can't just sit with us for 11 weeks and then be fine. There's so much more that they need. What does it look like to invest in that founder for the 11 weeks and then either prep them for the next program? And when they succeed, what does it look like to bring them back in and reinvest in the founders behind them? I want to see long term engagement with founders and give them more opportunities to participate in the community as an alumni,” says Debbie.
Founding the Manufactory Collective
In addition to taking on a new role, Debbie and her partner Nate have also been focused on a new business: The Manufactory Collective. Summit attendees got to take a tour of the facility and meet some of the founders of the 20,000+ sq. ft collaborative workspace and community for light manufacturing and hear the grueling hurdles they had to go through to launch it.
“Manufactory Collective has been a long time coming. The dream started with a DIY garage in a shared space and then lo and behold, SCN pops up again. I head up to Des Moines for the Summit where I meet Maple Ventures and immediately call my husband with the idea of expanding to a manufacturing incubator. We found a 22,000 square foot space in Harrisonburg where we have everything from a clay and art center to a 3D printing training center to a Lego League, to a solar company building net zero homes, an electrolyzer manufacturer turning water into hydrogen energy production, and an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer, creating rakes for carrying equipment. It's just this really eclectic, amazing mix of creativity and innovation.
It is not at all what Nate and I originally envisioned, but it's what the region needs: the convening of creativity and innovation to really launch into additional product development. The path forward seems tough right now, but at least we know a space has been started to drive connection for the makers of the Shenandoah Valley.”
Why SCN?
“SCN made me the ecosystem builder that I am. I was a floundering, brand new executive director at the end of 2018 after everyone had left the organization [SCCF]. I was on my own. Chris Cain connected me to Larkin Garbee, who I met at an event in DC with our senators. From there, Larkin told me about SCN and invited me to the Tom Tom Festival to meet other members. Then she encouraged me to go to the Summit where I started to learn that my propensity for collaboration and connecting people was an actual thing. As I was getting involved with SCN, I also realized that SCCF could take that convener role and grow to support entrepreneurs. Everything from the Ecosystem Health Challenge with Tom Chapman where I learned how to convert my data into a story to summits like Des Moines where Geoff Wood helped changed the business I run now to the support from some of the folks within SCN who connected me to the Center on Rural Innovation to help me write grants and win big money. I am a member of SCN and want to give back to SCN because of all that SCN has been helped me achieve.”
Joining the board: a full circle moment
We are very excited to welcome Debbie to the Startup Champions Network Board of Directors! She brings a fresh perspective, coming from a Rural ecosystem and now managing a national accelerator.
“This is a very full circle moment for me. I became the type of ecosystem builder I am because of SCN. I took advantage of literally anything SCN put out there. That constant import of knowledge helped me get SCCF from the staff of me and a $100K budget to a staff of 10 and a $1.2M budget,” says Debbie.
As a board member, her focus is on adding more definition and language to the profession of ecosystem building. She already started implementing this during the Shenandoah Valley Summit, where we worked together to define different types of ecosystem builder roles and traits.
“I really want to see additional definitions within the world of ecosystem building. The term is so broad. People often feel lost in it or like they don't belong. What does it look like to create additional definitions under ecosystem building? The technician, the funder, the navigator, the super connector, etc. When people come into the world of SCN - when they come into the world of ecosystem building - they can identify who else is like them and know that they belong,” says Debbie.
We are so happy to be a part of Debbie’s journey from SCCF to Lighthouse Labs to founding Manufactory Collection and now have her on our team.