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The startups selected for Indianapolis-based The Heritage Group Accelerator now have an additional resource at their disposal—longtime local tech executive Mitch Black.
Black joined The Heritage Group’s New Venture Group on June 10 as its entrepreneur-in-residence—a newly-created role at the company. His main role is as an adviser to the New Venture Group’s 35 portfolio companies, helping them navigate the challenges that young companies face.
Right now, Black is focused on the eight companies that are participating in The Heritage Group Accelerator, a 13-week program for hard-tech startups.
The startups selected for this year’s accelerator, which began last week, are focused on everything from recyclable materials to supply-chain data management to solutions for detecting and destroying the harmful substances known as “forever chemicals.”
The cohort includes four U.S.-based startups: South Bend-based Forever Analytical Solutions, Colorado-based Driven Plastics, Pennsylvania-based PFC-X, and California-based Smartville Inc. The others come to the accelerator from overseas: Belgium-based Hentrac, Singapore-based BioMetallica, Israel-based Naki and New Zealand-based TDRI Solutions.
Black took a few minutes away from accelerator activities this week to talk with IBJ about his new role, among other topics.
What’s your career background?
I spent a long time in the technology and telecom space. My first real executive roles were in the late 90s with BrightPoint [an Indianapolis-based company acquired in 2012 by Ingram Micro], and I spent 13 years at BrightPoint, mostly in sales and marketing leadership roles. After a brief stint with a couple of other companies in that telecom distribution space, I moved into the startup world and really spent the last 10 years of my career in venture-backed and private equity-backed companies in a variety of roles as an entrepreneur, as well as a chief operating officer and a CEO. I’ve been lucky enough to be part of two exits along the way, and also been part of some things that didn’t turn out so well. … But in each of those instances, I gained different interests, different understandings, and that became part of my DNA—really going in and helping companies move from one stage to another, whether it was from startup to scale-up, or from a preseed to a seed round company. And that seemed to be what really motivated me professionally.
Are you focused solely on the startups currently participating in The Heritage Group Accelerator, or will you also work with the 35 other early-stage companies that HG Ventures has invested in over the past several years? What about The Heritage Group’s more established operating companies?
Over time, where those companies feel like they could use my services, I would come in and work with them as well. Initially, just because I’ve only been here not quite two months, the Accelerator has really been the first step for me … and it’s helped me learn The Heritage Group and also just kind of get momentum started.
You don’t come from a hard tech background. What do you offer to these startups?
One of the things that I provide is another level of value. Many of these startups may have come from the academic side of the world or received a grant and may not necessarily have run a business before or have gone through fundraising. I become a resource for these entrepreneurs and their management team to leverage.
What’s been the highlight for you so far in your first two weeks working with the accelerator startups?
What’s jumped out to me is we have four companies that are international and four companies that are domestic. And I’m amazed at how like-minded all of these startups are in terms of their desire and their vision to drive a new business and be successful, and they all get along so well.
What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned from this job?
I am very, very surprised how much opportunity there is out there to reuse so much of the materials and minerals that we use every day. That’s what amazes me, and how big of a business opportunity that creates, not only just in this country, but globally. That’s been one of my biggest learnings so far in the first two months.
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