Vermont has built its business reputation on the shoulders of creative ventures like Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Burton Snow Boards, and Gardener’s Supply. They, and others like them, embody what we prize most in our state: our different approach to business and life in general.
Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with some of these innovators, and found the experience enlightening.
Paul Budnitz is a serial entrepreneur, who’s based his two latest businesses, Budnitz Bicycles and the social media platform Ello, in Burlington. Paul has boundless curiosity. He described his process of creating his upscale bike company as one of relentlessly asking what he called “stupid questions.” He asked everyone he knew in the bike business how things worked and why they were built the way they were. Then he tried to do it differently to see if that worked. But he never stopped asking questions even when he knew the answers because his real goal was to see how people responded.
Before Doug Hartwell started BityBean, his ultra-light weight baby carrier based in Charlotte, he kept a folder full of ideas. When he had an idea, or saw something that didn’t work as well as it should, he’d write it down and make a little sketch so he c ould remember it later – which i s exactly the same way Woody Allen develops ideas for his movies. When Doug decided to start his own business he pulled out his folder, did some early calculations, and started making a baby carrier to test. Now, he’s launching his new business but he’s still filling his folder with new ideas.
When Burlington Police Captain Mike Schirling was trying to find a new information system for his department, he asked, “What if we tried to build it ourselves?” Then he brought in a specialist in Ruby on Rails – a popular web application system - to teach his staff about agile development. Ultimately he turned his team of investigators into a rapid software design team. Turns out that police work and agile software are surprisingly similar. With a co-developer, the Burlington Police Department create d Valcour, a system now used by 100 agencies and 31 police departments across the state, developed for less than the yearly fee for the old software.
All three embody the Vermont way of looking at things differently, of asking a lot of questions, and wondering ‘what if we did this in a way other people don’t.’ Luckily, we live in a state where being a little bit different is still considered a good thing.
