#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Shiloh Slomsky, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Arrowhead Incubator
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Cultivating Native American Entrepreneurship in Northern Michigan
Arrowhead Incubator is working to advance social and economic welfare through the empowerment of Native American entrepreneurs, small businesses, and industry. We recently spoke with Shiloh Slomsky, the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Arrowhead Incubator, to learn more about the organization’s work providing business ideation education, growing Native American entrepreneurship, and the policy challenges faced by Native American entrepreneurs.
What in your background led you to create Arrowhead Incubator?
I have a background in education, Native American non-gaming economic development, nonprofits, and grant writing. I spent a number of years serving the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, both as a Board of Director for the non-gaming economic arm of the tribe, and as a government employee working on STEM education and job placement through a mobile Fabrication Laboratory (Fab Lab) classroom. We worked with schools, companies, and colleges to provide Computer Numerical Code (CNC) training across several northern Michigan counties. The resulting increase in wages, job placement, and retention was a huge success, but I eventually wanted a change of pace and felt the call to give more to the community.
One thing I realized when reflecting on what to do next was the general lack of community collaboration between the regional and tribal economic development efforts and the successes—like the Fab Lab—that resulted when collaboration occurred. I also saw the limited availability of individual-level assistance for Native American entrepreneurs, especially when it came to those early steps of ideation and business creation.
One day, with these things in mind, I spoke with Tom Wilbur, a fellow tribal economic colleague, who suggested I speak with Kyle Anderson, who, along with myself, would become the three founders of Arrowhead Incubator. All three of us have rich backgrounds in non-gaming Native American economic development and business leadership experience. When Kyle served on the Board of Directors for the Grand Traverse Economic Development (GTED), and Tom the CEO of GTED, they attended the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, Reservation Economic Summit (RES) in 2019, where it was highlighted the need for Native American business education. Taking ideas gained from RES and blending them with the experience Kyle had as an early member of Traverse City’s tech incubator 20Fathoms, he sought to create that type of organization for Native American entrepreneurs. Shortly after the initial conversation with Kyle, some brief work sessions, and gathering together some ideas and materials, I drove to Traverse City to meet Kyle for the first time in-person. About thirty minutes later, we were pitching the idea to 20Fathoms for their support and asking to be a member. They wholeheartedly agreed, and from there we quickly got to work.
Tell us more about Arrowhead Incubator. What is the work you're doing there?
Early on, we went to work on startup funding and writing grants. With the belief of abundance—and taking something small to create something larger that could support even more—within six months we essentially turned every one dollar of initial startup funding into ten dollars. One of the grants awarded to us was a Social and Economic Development Strategies for Growing Organizations (SEDS-GO) grant through the Administration for Native Americans (ANA). SEDS-GO grants help support organizations that are pursuing economic and social self-sufficiency projects for Native American communities. Through this grant, we are providing startup education, mentorship, and technical support to new Native American entrepreneurs across a twelve-county region, in addition to developing outside partnerships. Likewise, with the awareness that what supports one section of a community supports the entire, and that partnerships help programs and ideas grow, we teamed up with New Mexico Community Capital, who graciously was seeking to bring their Financial and Business Basics (FBB) program to Michigan to provide training to Native American entrepreneurs.
To a certain extent, business education is business education, but what makes us and programs like New Mexico Community Capitals’ FBB training unique is the way there is an infusion of the culture into the training. For example, we held the last of the FBB series in-person. This is essential to help with the technology aspects of business ideation and growth, especially since one of the participants had never owned his own computer before—something that has allowed his business to quickly grow. Moreover, the other facilitators and I were gifted traditional ribbon skirts for the training. In addition to being powerful for my co-facilitators and I, learning from three women in traditional attire was moving for the participants. Similarly, during our training we often are having or sharing meals, which—even if done in a virtual way—is an intricate part of who we are and makes participants feel welcomed.
Framing lectures with the culture in mind helps participants internalize the lessons, which is largely absent in traditional business education models. I make a point to highlight for participants that our culture is entrepreneurial. Taught not to waste anything from a very young age, we use all of that which we take—a way of life which takes creativity and innovation in every aspect of living. This opens a lot of eyes and motivates participants to use their abilities to look at business in a new way which allows for and incorporates their culture, beliefs, and customs, rather than a typical mainstream cookie-cutter way.
What policy issues have you encountered at Arrowhead Incubator? Are there policies that work well for Native American entrepreneurs? What policy-related barriers exist?
Policy can be a double-edged sword. There are several federal grants and funding set-asides specifically designed for tribes and Native American advancement organizations like ours. However, they are chronically underutilized. This results from a lack of awareness and outreach among intended beneficiaries, something I imagine plagues set-asides for other affinity groups. Besides not being used, funds that are regularly returned to the Treasury Department will eventually stop being appropriated, but not for a lack of need. To increase awareness, these funding set-asides and grants should be accompanied by outreach to eligible parties so that the funds can make an impact in the community as intended.
The lack of banking relationships, and lack of awareness about how to deal with sovereignty among banks and investors, impose barriers for Native American entrepreneurs too. It can be tricky to attract investors when they often don’t understand tribal government, let alone culture. This is compounded by discrepancies in the system and how governments differ from tribe to tribe. A lot of Native American entrepreneurs run into issues with banks—especially local banks—not knowing how to deal with sovereignty. Requiring training and awareness into the specifics of sovereignty could therefore go a long way to help in this area.
What is the Arrowhead Incubator doing to support Native American entrepreneurs during this difficult time, and what steps should policymakers take to better support Native American-led businesses?
From a Native American business perspective, the pandemic has been devastating. It was like going from 100 to zero overnight. The closures of casinos hit the community hard, costing upwards of $200 million in Michigan—money that goes directly into tribal government and trickles down into community services.
Even though we’re not a tech ‘focused’ incubator, we are high-tech for a Native American incubator. All of us were already comfortable working in a tech/virtual world pre-COVID, so that made it easy for us to convert events from in-person to virtual, when needed. We’ve also been able to pave the way in terms of teaching Native American entrepreneurs the importance of technology. There are people we work with who have never owned a computer before, and, because of the pandemic, we’re helping them realize just how game-changing it can be for them and their businesses.
Going forward, I’d like to see the Native American governments move away from having casinos and investments in big businesses serve as the main economic drivers. Since small businesses account for the largest job growth, it makes sense why we need to begin directly investing in community startups—whether that’s through microloans or something else—so we can grow these businesses moving forward. Similarly, there are so many other opportunities for Native American businesses, such as in the government contracting arena. Diversification is available; we just have to begin working more and more towards that goal.
What is your goal for AHIN going forward?
We want to keep the positive snowball rolling. As we create and train more Native American entrepreneurs, they are also sharing that knowledge with others, so that they too can start businesses. Tribal businesses often buy and hire other tribal business’ goods and services, imbuing a community approach to commerce.
Going forward, we also want to help tribal businesses leverage the opportunities that are available to them such as government contracting, low interest or no interest loans, and grants. Last I knew, there were only 87 tribal entities registered in the System for Award Management in Michigan, so I think that represents an opportunity for Native American entrepreneurs to play a role in a big way. To help with this, we are looking at bringing a Native Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) to Michigan. Right now, if you want the benefit of a Native PTAC, you have to call Iowa. Having a more accessible PTAC would help more Michigan entrepreneurs and more Native American entrepreneurs win government contracts.
Currently, we have many programs in the hopper including one with 20Fathoms, where our goal is to provide assistance to 75 Native American-led startups and train 180 individuals in coding. At a nationwide ANA conference a few years ago, I led a session on STEM education and found that 95 percent of the participants had no STEM education. So we are looking to bring more STEM opportunities and programs to the community. We believe that providing this education can help lower barriers for Native American STEM focused entrepreneurs, and continue to build up that positive snowball effect.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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