CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[sixo1]

Ezza Nails is opening a second Chicago location and recently closed a $1.5M seed round (News from the Polsky Exchange).

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by sixo1

Ezza Nails is opening a second Chicago location and recently closed a $1.5M seed round (News from the Polsky Exchange).

A nail salon is expanding?

[the urban politician]

In equally exciting news:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...chicago-office

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

In equally exciting news:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...chicago-office

Yeah, that's big - 300 jobs. A CE friend of mine from college works for them in KC. Apparently a good company. He worked really hard to make sure he got a job with them upon graduating. 12+ years later, he's still with them. Might have to do with him originally being from the KC area but still. Great news for what he tells me is a good company.

[nergie]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Yeah, that's big - 300 jobs. A CE friend of mine from college works for them in KC. Apparently a good company. He worked really hard to make sure he got a job with them upon graduating. 12+ years later, he's still with them. Might have to do with him originally being from the KC area but still. Great news for what he tells me is a good company.

My father worked from Burns & McDonnell for 30 years, hence why I grew up in KC. It is great news to see them expanding.

[marothisu]

Obviously to be expected, but still good. I'm really curious how many people will be working in this industry in Illinois in 5 years from now. Apparently the US added about 65,000 jobs in this industry in 2018 alone. California has nearly 70,000 workers, while Washington and Colorado each are at between 45K and 50K jobs. Even if Illinois only had 30K, that's still a good increase of jobs. Hopefully they pay OK.

Illinois marijuana growers plan hiring binge

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/gove...n-hiring-binge

Expect a hiring boom from the state’s marijuana producers by the end of the year—and a likely boost in union membership.

The law that legalizes recreational marijuana use, which the General Assembly approved Friday, has two distinct features: a quick timeline and clear language that encourages union jobs. Existing players in the state's medical-cannabis market plan to move into the bigger recreational business, resulting in a hiring surge that will dwarf the industry’s initial wave.

Cresco Labs will double its Illinois headcount from about 300 today, Bachtell said.

[Baronvonellis]

Why are marijuana workers unionized, but not IT workers, fast food workers, or big box workers?

[the urban politician]

A lot of BUDDING opportunities in this industry.

It will JOINTLY create jobs and generate tax revenue

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Why are marijuana workers unionized, but not IT workers, fast food workers, or big box workers?

Likely because those industries have established companies actively fighting the unionization of their workers. Marijuana doesn’t have those type of established players yet.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Why are marijuana workers unionized, but not IT workers, fast food workers, or big box workers?

It's a political play to appease certain politicians I imagine.

[aaron38]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Why Chicago is starting to look like a real tech town

Chicago has always been a tech town. Lots of early industrial innovation. But Chicago was early in electronics development, especially around radio technology. RF transmitters, radios, cell phones, telcomm.
Motorola, AT&T, then Lucent. Tel Labs, 3-Comm, US Robotics, RIM. Lots of others.
Now lots of these companies (sadly) decamped to the suburbs or were never in the city proper to begin with. But the educated tech base population is here. And thanks to the Metra rail network, all of us who live in the burbs are just as happy to jump on a train for 40 minutes (and check our mail) as we are to drive 40 minutes cross burb.

Chicago is a huge population center and tech jobs in the core have 8 million people to recruit from.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by aaron38

Chicago has always been a tech town. Lots of early industrial innovation. But Chicago was early in electronics development, especially around radio technology. RF transmitters, radios, cell phones, telcomm.
Motorola, AT&T, then Lucent. Tel Labs, 3-Comm, US Robotics, RIM. Lots of others.
Now lots of these companies (sadly) decamped to the suburbs or were never in the city proper to begin with. But the educated tech base population is here. And thanks to the Metra rail network, all of us who live in the burbs are just as happy to jump on a train for 40 minutes (and check our mail) as we are to drive 40 minutes cross burb.

Chicago is a huge population center and tech jobs in the core have 8 million people to recruit from.

But Chicago clearly lags behind San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, etc in 21st century tech. It's nice to see hiring on the upswing as those coast cities take note of your final point that Chicago is a huge population center and the urban hub of several states with top universities.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Handro

But Chicago clearly lags behind San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, etc in 21st century tech. It's nice to see hiring on the upswing as those coast cities take note of your final point that Chicago is a huge population center and the urban hub of several states with top universities.

That much is obvious. The thing is that there is a lot of talent in the Chicago area, but the startup community is newer than these other places. Having the talent in the area is a leg up and a big plus. There are many startups founded by people who were working jobs at companies like a Motorola or a Google or Facebook or whatever who wanted to do their own thing once they had a good idea and the bravery to do it.

Obviously the startup community has been getting better, and it should be getting better as companies like Facebook, Google, etc hire more engineering talent from outside of the metro area into the Chicago area. The thing that needs to happen though is that Chicago needs to get a little bit more relaxed as far as funding circles go. The issue is that Chicago is more of a close loop than the Bay Area and even NYC is. While the funding in Chicago is pretty decent, it could be way better and I think one of the issues I've heard especially from my friends in Chicago who have founded their own startups is basically this. Money flows a lot freer in places like the Bay Area than Chicago as far as funding goes and therefore it's easier for people to get funding in these areas for their ideas than in Chicago.

If the people involved with funding in Chicago was able to fix that, then you'd probably see an uptick in this even moreso. If you look at a lot of the funding deals for Chicago companies, there's a lot that were majorly funded by Bay Area VC companies of late. This is great, but you also need the support from within Chicago itself.

[the urban politician]

^ People in Chicago are more fiscally conservative. People don’t want to throw their money behind a bad idea.

Nothing wrong with that, really. People are kind of too obsessed with the venture capital model, especially millennials. It’s like an annoying generational fad, like a right of passage for entitled brats:

“Dude, did you, like, get funding?

“Yeah dude, we got a seed round, now we’re trying for Series A.”

“Sweet! I just signed up for an incubator in this cool new shared office”

“Awesome, make sure you Instagram it so I can check it out later”

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ People in Chicago are more fiscally conservative. People don’t want to throw their money behind a bad idea.

Nothing wrong with that, really. People are kind of too obsessed with the venture capital model, especially millennials. It’s like an annoying generational fad, like a right of passage for entitled brats:

“Dude, did you, like, get funding?

“Yeah dude, we got a seed round, now we’re trying for Series A.”

“Sweet! I just signed up for an incubator in this cool new shared office”

“Awesome, make sure you Instagram it so I can check it out later”

No, that's not what I meant at all by closed system. It means that, for example, you may not get funding unless you have the right connections with the right people who are providing the funding. They are not keen on any outsiders to their circles even if you are having something that makes money. In places like NYC this is not nearly as much the case, and definitely not the Bay Area. Both NYC and Chicago are more pragmatic in handing out money, but that's not what I meant by this. I was talking about more "Oh, you aren't in our circle so we aren't going to fund you." Not everyone is like this, but Chicago is known as one of the most closed systems. This is consistent with what a handful of my friends who started their own startups in Chicago told me and a few others who do their own small scale investing on the side (small scale angel investing).

There was an article about this in Crains a handful of months ago I need to find and there's been multiple studies on this that Chicago is more conservative than almost every other major metro areas when it comes to this, and it's essentially holding some things back in tech in the area. It was written by the CEO of a local and very successful tech company.

[the urban politician]

^ Ahh, got it. I remember that article.

Hopefully that opens up over time

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by marothisu

No, that's not what I meant at all by closed system. It means that, for example, you may not get funding unless you have the right connections with the right people who are providing the funding. They are not keen on any outsiders to their circles even if you are having something that makes money. In places like NYC this is not nearly as much the case, and definitely not the Bay Area. Both NYC and Chicago are more pragmatic in handing out money, but that's not what I meant by this. I was talking about more "Oh, you aren't in our circle so we aren't going to fund you." Not everyone is like this, but Chicago is known as one of the most closed systems. This is consistent with what a handful of my friends who started their own startups in Chicago told me and a few others who do their own small scale investing on the side (small scale angel investing).

There was an article about this in Crains a handful of months ago I need to find and there's been multiple studies on this that Chicago is more conservative than almost every other major metro areas when it comes to this, and it's essentially holding some things back in tech in the area. It was written by the CEO of a local and very successful tech company.

As someone in the "tech" industry, this is spot on. Two places in particular that I found this mindset are at 1871 and in interacting with the UofC community. Nothing against the people at these places, but they just don't feel very inviting to outsiders.

These are probably the two biggest drivers of tech innovation in Chicago, so anything that breaks down these walls would be helpful.

[sixo1]

My Art Cache wins first place at the New Venture Challenge (NVC) receiving the largest-ever NVC prize of $365,000 (News from the Polsky Exchange).

[the urban politician]

^ Thanks for your updates, but I think most of us here are interested in more substantial economic news than some of the updates you've been providing.

For example, a nail salon expanding isn't really the point of this thread.

Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone?

[clark wellington]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Thanks for your updates, but I think most of us here are interested in more substantial economic news than some of the updates you've been providing.

For example, a nail salon expanding isn't really the point of this thread.

Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone?

I'm all for continuing these updates. Maybe a nail salon expansion is less interesting, but I'd be very curious about things coming out of the Polsky Center (particularly things winning their top prize) given the potential to drive growth in Chicago's startup scene. Pretty easy to breeze past an update less critical to you, and lord knows we have enough wasted space talking about other random topics (looking at you, pages-long discussion on how to better market the city...)