When I was growing up, I wanted to be in business, just like my dad. He was an entrepreneur even before he started Trek Bicycle in a barn in Waterloo, WI when I was seventeen years old. He passed away six years ago, but one of the things I’ll always remember about him was that he was always interested in and open to new ideas. My admiration for him was one of my biggest motivators when I decided to start my own business in my twenties, after I graduated from college and earned my MBA.
I co-founded Manhattan Intelligence with my friend and business school classmate Allen, a few years after we graduated from business school. The idea behind the company was to act as a call center where people in New York could, for the price of a subscription, find information on anything in the city that they could imagine. It was a human-powered directory -- a Google for New York before Google or even the Internet existed, if you will -- ”that catalogued everything from museums to laundromats, and if we didn'™t have the answer to a caller's query, we had a staff member dig for more and find an answer for them. Moreover, in order to accommodate the wide range of languages spoken by New Yorkers and visitors alike, we spoke several different foreign languages including French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Japanese among our small staff, so our services were available in all of them and, of course, English.
Although Manhattan Intelligence ultimately ran out of capital before we were able to really get the company going, the experience of starting my own business taught me how challenging it is to be an entrepreneur, but also how incredible it is to grow something from nothing. Over twenty years later, I still remember all too well sleeping in our small office in order to save money on rent -- falling asleep at the end of very long days to the sound of mice crawling in the walls, only to be abruptly awakened at odd hours by the sound of every phone ringing off the hook. Always hanging over my head was the worry that I hadn'™t filed the never ending government paperwork. I wore hats ranging from bookkeeper to sales and marketing specialist to operations manager. And, moreover, like many entrepreneurs, I also held a second job at the start to pay the bills and have health insurance.
We know that small businesses and start-ups play a critical role in driving job creation. Since the 1970s, small businesses have provided 55% of all jobs and 66% of all net new jobs. But under Gov. Walker, Wisconsin is languishing at 46th in the country in new business start-ups - which helps explain our dead last in the Midwest ranking in private sector job creation.
I know firsthand the challenges facing entrepreneurs, and I am committed to making Wisconsin one of the best states in the country for innovative entrepreneurship and new business starts.
My jobs plan, "Invest for Success," outlines how I'™ll work to improve access to capital for innovative young companies with potential for growth, create a business environment that promotes new ventures and attracts talents, foster the search for knowledge and innovation, and accelerate the transfer of technology from our world-class research institutions to the market.
Dead last in Midwest job creation over the last three years is unacceptable. On day one as Governor, I will get to work to start-up Wisconsin and turn our state into a thriving, top ten economy.
Mary Burke is a former executive at Trek Bicycle, is a former secretary of the state Department of Commerce, and sits on the Madison School Board. Her jobs plan for Wisconsin can be viewed at www.burkeforwisconsin.com/jobs/