Posted by: Contributing columnist, CLARION LEDGER FEATURE, BUSINESS, September 16, 2016:
Thursday night was the 2016 Mississippi Innovator’s Hall of Fame, and I’m going to spend the next few weeks talking about some of the honorees and inductees from the event.
One of the great things about the Mississippi Innovator’s Hall of Fame is that while most inductees are companies that are household names, many of the companies honored as “Innovators to Watch” are great Mississippi companies that are mostly under the radar.
Many entrepreneurs work through several businesses before they finally find the one that matches their skills, interest, and a big market opportunity, and Gary Watts, founder of Fuse.Cloud owned several other businesses before he found the right fit. Early in his career he owned a Dairy Queen and he found himself working long hours and dealing with all of the issues a restaurateur has to deal with and he has described the experience as working really long hours for a very low hourly wage.
Gary’s next company — a concert promotion startup — was successful, but his work for startup technology companyUnity Communications based in Jackson led him to the conclusion that the next generation of telephony would be rooted in hosted VoIP solutions. With this vision in mind, he founded Broadband Voice in 2006, which became Fuse.Cloud earlier this year. The company’s cloud-based business solutions, including hosted voice over IP (VoIP), high-bandwidth fiber internet and managed IT have brought them recognition as one of the fastest VoIP companies in the Southeast.
Most offices use voice over IP today, and the technology is really just the conversion of voice telephone calls into digital data that is then sent over the internet to another VoIP phone for translation back to voice. While VoIP systems can easily communicate point-to-point and programs like Skype and hundreds of others us VoIP to allow people to talk over the internet, integration of VoIP systems across multiple locations and systems is difficult and companies like Fuse.Cloud that do it well are poised for much more growth. Fuse.Cloud is headquartered in a beautifully renovated space in the old Dickie’s garment factory in south downtown Jackson.
Another great company that was honored as an Innovator to Watch is Tupelo’s Hawkeye Industries. On the surface, this 20-year-old contract sheet metal fabrication company couldn’t be much different from some of the other Innovator’s to Watch. Of course, last week I talked at some length about how innovation and technology companies are in many different industries and Hawkeye Industries is clearly a technology company since they follow the exact definition of “the application of science” in their metal fabrication work. Anyone who has seen a modern manufacturing plant also certainly recognizes that technology is everywhere, and Hawkeye has been recognized as a cutting edge technology company in sheet metal fabrication.
The thing that really put Hawkeye Industries in the center of the Innovation Ecosystem, though, is their ability to work with early stage technology companies and inventors — a hard group to work with — and help them develop and take their products to market. Many inventors’ first thought is to start their own company around their new product, but most successful inventors find it much easier to work with a strategic partner who already has manufacturing, distribution, and sometimes market connections.
Hawkeye Industries founder Bryan Hawkins has strongly demonstrated his willingness — and patience — to work with these types of early-stage companies and Hawkeye has become the go-to company for inventors who need to prototype and produce their metal fabrication products. Although this type of work always has the potential to become a high-volume producer, companies like Hawkeye that are willing to work with inventors are rare but are an important part of the innovation ecosystem in Mississippi.
I love telling the stories of Mississippi technology and innovation companies, so I’ll continue to cover this year’s Innovator’s Hall of Fame inductees and Innovator to Watch honorees over the next few weeks. I won’t be able to cover more than one or two companies each week, but If you want to read ahead about some of the companies, please feel free to visit www.MSInnovatorsHallofFame.com.