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April 30, 2024
The journey of an entrepreneur is often filled with ebbs and flows. Those who dare to jump in the sea of unknown, combat with all the highs and lows, and exhibit a never-say-die attitude are often distinguished as one the best.
Talking about coping with and learning from failures, Kirk Zeller (Founder of Silicon Prairie Center and CEO & Founder of Progressive NEURO Inc.) says, “I have learned an enormous amount from failures and I believe those lessons stick with me far better than the things I learned from textbooks in business school.” Kirk is an example of a leader fighting against odds and channeling his passion to make a difference in the world. A veteran in the medical device industry, Kirk is an entrepreneur, a filmmaker, as well as a U.S.-Japan collaborator.
Kirk embarked upon his entrepreneurial journey as a teenager and always had a passion for creating and innovating. He learned a lot from the numerous businesses that he started over the years and augmented that learning through the study and research for a master’s and doctorate to build additional skills that have been invaluable for him as an entrepreneur.
Various factors propelled Kirk to establish the Silicon Prairie Center. He was working to build companies in Silicon Valley, struggling with the tight labor market, high cost of doing business, and challenging business environment—and believed there must be a better way. Meanwhile, he was invited to speak at an event at the University of Nebraska’s College of Business—where he learned about the growth of the ecosystem for start-ups in Nebraska. This inspired Kirk to consider moving his businesses to Nebraska.
Another driving factor was Kirk’s innate desire to create an incubator environment where entrepreneurs are encouraged to take a creative approach to solve problems rather than the traditional path of improving upon what already exists. In the highly regulated healthcare industry, R&D teams often gravitate towards thinking about how to improve upon existing technology instead of thinking of new technology platforms that could more effectively address the unmet clinical needs.
To inspire creative thinking, the Silicon Prairie Center co-located independent film production with start-ups with a belief that cross-pollination would help healthcare start-up teams to think more creatively. Referring to the film industry’s mindset of “if you can dream it you can do it,” Kirk is hopeful that this would be an inspiration for start-up teams to develop more ambitious ideas and create new technology platforms.
Progressive NEURO, Inc. is a prime example of a new solution-oriented out-of-the-box thinking. The company is dedicated to the development of a portfolio of Progressive Stroke Solutions to provide physicians with next-generation treatment options beyond traditional aspiration and traditional thrombectomy. It has received investment from Invest Nebraska and has completed pre-clinical testing with a grant from Nebraska Economic Development.
In the 1990s, Kirk often heard physicians referring to the development of effective medical devices for ischemic stroke as the ‘holy grail’ of medical device development. He aspired to someday create a company to do the same. As companies started developing devices for ischemic stroke, he had the opportunity in 2007 to join Micrus Endovascular Inc.—one of the companies innovating in the space. In 2018, Kirk, alongside the co-founder of Progressive Neuro, Inc, Brett Follmer, leveraged their experience in ischemic stroke to found the company and work on new approaches to removing the clot from the brain.
According to Kirk, being able to build a company to help these patients is one of the highlights of his career. Accrediting Progressive NEURO, Inc’s success to the Silicon Prairie Center, he asserts, “In the spirit of the Silicon Prairie Center ideology, we have developed new platforms to treat ischemic stroke which are very different from existing technologies.”
The Silicon Prairie Center is an entrepreneur live and work incubator community based in a downtown area. It works to inspire entrepreneurs to do more with less to effectively minimize founders’ dilution. The center’s tag line is “stay lean, stay in control.” It offers residential, office, and innovation space in one location at a fraction of the cost of places like New York or San Francisco.
The Silicon Prairie Center utilized a unique model that includes extensive use of virtual meetings, network growth through introductions by thought leaders, consultants, contractors, entrepreneurs inside and outside companies and universities, local housing for entrepreneurial teams, and a development lab for creation of prototypes and limited production. We began this concept before the pandemic but it really came into its own when the pandemic shut down or delayed other healthcare projects.
“We think that this unique innovation process can be applied to a wide range of businesses, not just medical devices which was our starting point. I should emphasize that innovation is not only creation or invention but includes development all the way to commercialization. A demonstration of this was our success in applying the same concept to creating an award-winning movie during the pandemic,” according to Zeller.
“We believe that with a burn rate the fraction of traditional technology hubs that start-ups can also have the confidence to take on more ambitious ideas and ultimately create new technology platforms,” mentions Kirk. The Silicon Prairie Center is the only incubator to cross-pollinate healthcare startups and a creative industry such as filmmaking. Additionally, it is the only incubator that offers residential, office, and innovation space in the same location—in turn, saving time as well as financial expenses for entrepreneurs.
Another aspect of the Silicon Prairie Center is leveraging modern technology for effective communication without travel. “In my career, I have traveled and lived in the US, Asia, and Europe extensively and developed a network of talented friends and colleagues all over the world. Maintaining that network and using it effectively has required almost constant travel with all the burdens of time wasted and cost. As I was doing this about five years ago, it struck me that perhaps the time was ripe for a change that would use technology instead of travel and move development to lower cost of living places with a better environment for individuals and families. The technology part was the easiest but required a change in the way we did business and was counter to some strong business cultures where in-person meeting was a requirement, however, the pandemic opened people’s minds to video conferences as an alternative to in person meetings,” said Zeller.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic demanded a transformation. During the crisis, the Silicon Prairie Center effectively became its own quarantine group. As the center had several buildings, it was easy to socially distance and still continue daily operations. The center comprises of healthcare startups and independent film projects and the restrictions on in-person activity increased the cross-pollination across projects amongst the quarantine group. The cross-pollination of technology and filmmaking resulted in #MyCorona—the first feature film to be directed entirely remotely with the director never setting foot on any of the sets.
Another unexpected silver lining of the pandemic was a hyper-focus due to the elimination of in-person activities and simplification of daily schedules. Progressive NEURO, Inc witnessed the biggest breakthroughs in the development of its products during the pandemic when there were fewer distractions. The Silicon Prairie Center was also doing much of the development of prototypes for its other incubated start-up ATS.Solutions at the local Makers’ Space, however, the stay-at-home orders did slow down that progress. The center is working continuously to get that back on track.
The Silicon Prairie Center’s work to persevere and innovate during the pandemic was recognized by Congressman Adrian Smith’s Innovation and Adaptation Recognition awarded to Kirk. Talking about leadership during the crisis, Kirk asserts, “The essence of effective startup leadership has much to do with being agile and adapting as the business evolves and business environment changes and I believe we have done that effectively.” He believes COVID-19 will have a lasting impact on the way businesses are operated in the healthcare industry. “Many doctors that previously expected to always meet face-to-face have become more comfortable with video-conference based meetings and I expect that the number of times we will have to travel for meetings in the future will be less than it was pre-COVID,” he adds.
#MyCorona is a lockdown-themed romantic comedy set in Los Angeles with most of it filmed at the Silicon Prairie Center. Kirk co-wrote and produced the film, as well as directed, wrote, and produced the related documentary—Directing Remotely and Filmmaking during the Pandemic: The Making of #MyCorona.
The film has won numerous awards at film festivals around the world including Best Feature Film, Best Romance, and Best Pandemic Film. It is currently available on DVD and is in the process to be released on other platforms. The unique way that #MyCorona was filmed on a closed set and directed remotely in the midst of the pandemic has led to an award-winning documentary that is planned for a fall 2021 release. One of the main characters in the movie is based on one of the Silicon Prairie Center start-ups, Progressive NEURO, Inc., and another Silicon Prairie Center start-up’s product is also featured in the movie.
Apart from being at the helm of the Silicon Prairie Center, Kirk takes an active role in working to help advance the start-up ecosystem in Nebraska including advocating to the Nebraska legislature and through involvement with BioNebraska and its local medical device cluster advisory group. Moreover, Kirk is also passionate about furthering U.S.-Japan relations. He is on the board of U.S.-Japan MedTech Frontiers (www.USJMF.org) and is Council Leader of the U.S.-Japan Council (www.usjapancouncil.org)
Kirk believes that leadership influence is critical. He mentions that consulting firms or independent contractors providing critical expertise are important contributors for those who are leading lean start-ups. “In these cases, you are competing for mindshare with their other clients and your ability to effectively influence how they prioritize your project relative to other clients can be the difference between hitting your milestones or not,” he adds.
Kirk feels blessed to be influenced by many people in the medical device industry throughout his career. Out of those, he mentions Richard Ferrari, John Kilcoyne, Roger Thomas, Erin McGurk, and Toru Ohashi as the leaders who influenced and helped him in many different ways. He also learned a lot about influence management and leading through influence during his time at Johnson & Johnson.
The pandemic has effectively demonstrated that it is not necessary to be physically located in a high-cost technology cluster to innovate effectively. Kirk believes there are ways that start-ups outside of the traditional high-cost technology clusters can leverage their lower cost of doing business and friendlier business climate as a competitive advantage. The Silicon Prairie Center does whatever it can in the region and for certain specialized skills not available locally, it contracts with firms in the traditional tech clusters—keeping its burn rate low and tapping into talent in the local labor markets which are not as tight as many of the tech clusters.
“Our team will continue to use this model and hopefully show through case studies of our incubated companies that this is not only a viable approach but also one that allows founders to stay lean and stay in control,” concludes Kirk.
