Building an innovation space W&J’s new entrepreneurial studies director ready to incubate start-up culture here
Max Miller is the new director of entrepreneurial studies at Washington & Jefferson College.
This architect’s rendering shows a view of the front of the proposed business incubator on South Main Street, a partnership between W&J and the Observer Publishing Co.
If personalities help to define certain careers, it’s easy to understand the selection of Max Miller to direct Washington & Jefferson College’s entrepreneurial studies program.
“I’m a sucker for having a blank canvas. I do love the start-up culture,” said Miller, 48, during a recent interview in his office in the Burnett Building.
Since graduating from law school, Miller, who resides with his wife, Rosa, and son Lucien, 9, in Wexford, has set up his easel in a variety of business mediums, from corporate law, brand management and a national nonprofit to launching two businesses which remain works in progress.
Along the way, he’s also helped residents participate in start-up cultutres that were growing in their communities.
The range of experience should serve him well as he has he directs a program that has changed, and helps the college to lead in a business incubator project in Washington that will involve students in entrepreneurial studies who could either start a business or have a role in assisting others in the community who want to launch one in the incubator.
When he came out of law school, Miller joined the country’s largest wholesaler of mutual funds in Pittsburgh.
“I’m a reformed lawyer, I practiced law for 11 or 12 years as a securities lawyer at Federated Investors where I cut my teeth on corporate law.”
His next move was to H.J. Heinz, where after a couple of years he moved from corporate law to the business side of the consumer products company, becoming a brand manager for a ketchup product, while earning an MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Then he got the entrepreneurial bug.
“I left to start my business called ‘Raise Your Spirits,'” which he described as a sensory engagement firm. Miller teamed up with two college buddies who, like him, have backgrounds in consumer products.
“The driver of that business is corporate tastings for corporate sales teams, folks who are looking to engage their customers in a new way.”
“I was doing that when Pitt’s law school came and asked me to start a law and entrepreneurial program,” Miller said, adding that he launched “an innovation practice institute” to train lawyers to support the start-up community, which was rapidly growing in Pittsburgh, while helping them understand the business aspect of law.
“It added a new dimension to the school’s education,” he said. “It was something that I wished was there when I was there” as a law student.
The other benefit was that Pitt wanted him to keep his corporate tasting business running, he said, something that he maintains today.
Miller believes that the entrepreneurialism that was borne from the “eds and meds” culture in Pittsburgh has advanced rapidly into other areas.
“It’s certainly evolving past that with the tech community. It’s growing, that’s for sure.”
Then Miller was asked to go to Philadelphia to run Big Brothers/Big Sisters, which needed a chief administrative officer and general counsel.
While the experience gave him a grounding in nonprofits, Miller said he spent much of his time working on a sophisticated tracking system for the organization.
“People are surprised when I tell them that 80 percent of my time was spent on a systems integration project, which is not what people think about when they think about Big Brothers/Big Sisters,” he said. “It’s a robust system that tracks matches and tracks fundraising.”
The downside was that Miller found himself commuting each week between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and after two years wanted to return to Western Pennsylvania, where Rosa works as an attorney for FedEx Ground.
Upon returning, he started a consulting firm which he still runs today.
He also returned to Pittsburgh’s vibrant start-up scene, working as chief operating officer for Urban Innovation 21, a firm located in the Energy Innovation Center in the Hill District.
The organization manages the Keystone Innovation Zone in the Hill District and portions of downtown and South Side. It looks for ways to engage the communities in those areas with the tech ventures and start-ups that emerged there.
“We hosted workshops and business plan competitions for local residents to develop their ideas and launch businesses to become the ‘halo services,’ the sandwich shops, dry cleaners and cleaning companies to support the growth of start-ups and offices.”
In addition to his work at Urban Innovation, Miller was continuing to teach at Pitt as an adjunct professor when he got the call about W&J’s opening in its entrepreneurial studies program.
“The place where W&J is at is certainly a place that I’ve seen in other organizations,” he said. “I’m also really excited that this could be a catalyst for the dialogue that I sense is going on in Washington.”
That dialogue is about a business incubator, a partnership announced last fall between the Observer Publishing Co., which is donating its former circulation building and press room, and
W&J, which will operate the incubator.
While funds continue to be raised for the $2.5 million project, Miller and some of his students will work to help the community understand its mission and the services that will be available to start-ups.
An early survey conducted by W&J indicated strong business community support for the incubator. That led to a $250,000 funding from the 2017 Local Share Account program.
While other funds are being sought, Miller has his sights set on getting the word out about the project to the local community.
“You’ve got to be marketing it and letting people know that it’s there – doing a video.
“The critical part is listening to what the businesses are saying is the exact need, because that will help shape the business components that the business incubator will provide.
“The challenge is to have the incubator evolve with the corporate needs. Clearly, there are lots of small businesses that need a space, need a marketing plan, web development or an overall strategy.”
When Miller joined W&J, he came to a program that evolved from a stand-alone major to one that now is a minor within the business and economics department. About 35 students currently are minoring in the program, while 157 are taking one or more of the courses.
One of the things he’d like to revive from the original course is the Small Business Institute, a practicum where students provided consulting work to area small businesses.
Regardless of how the institute is reinvigorated, there’s no question that people want to be involved in the incubator, he said.
“Momentum is coming from alumni, from the business community,” he said.
“There are a lot of larger manufacturers here who may or may not want to use the space or the students for something that is a part of a project they’re working on. These are all things I think we have to explore. The more information we can get back, the more we can figure out the process. We do have to think about the actual revenue model to sustain the space.”
The one thing that is known is that entrepreneurs can make a major impact wherever they do business.
Miller, who teaches an introductory course called “Entrepreneurship Business and Society” discusses what things like accounting and finance do, as well as explore entrepreneurial thinking and the impact it has locally and globally.
“We’re embedding the entrepreneurial mindset into people who may not have had it,” he said, adding that even if they don’t end up launching their own business, “they certainly bring value to the marketplace. Any exposure they have to how organizations really work will help.”
While many W&J graduates go on to medical or law school, Miller said there is good reason to instill in them the business side of medicine or law.
“You have to understand the revenue component of what you’re doing,” he said.
“If you take entrepreneurial mindset with you into business, you’ll be alright, you’ll be a standout.”
As a man who has experienced work at the corporate, entrepreneurial and nonprofit levels, Miller wants to impart what he’s learned every time he starts with his proverbial blank canvas.
“I’ve been lucky,” he said. “Each time I take away a different bit of knowledge, a different skill set.”