Nebraska has often featured in reports of brain drain, with an estimated 20000 people leaving the state in the past decade. But there are stories of people who not only made the Prairie state their home but created opportunities for others to stay invested.

Monica Messer, Co-founder of DatabaseUSA and President of ResearchUSA, exemplifies this reality.

"I don't think I ever decided to "settle down" in the Midwest. I "ramped up" in the Midwest!"

It was the early 1980s when a 19-year old computer nerd named Monica moved to Omaha from her home in Hawaii. She was still in her junior year of college when she was hired by a small Omaha-based start-up to develop software to compile and update listings for all of the businesses in the United States. She remembers the entrepreneurial energy was contagious and she could barely peel herself away from the startup team that was creating something so cool. Soon she was asked to lead a new team and hire people. Although she resisted initially, the faith that the startups' founder, Vin Gupta, had in her abilities convinced her to give it a go.

"I was a shy 20-year-old girl, happy in my technical role and learning environment. I didn't want to give that up after only a year and I couldn't imagine myself in management. I am so happy I accepted the challenge and endured a few difficult years of learning how to manage people and processes."

This would turn out to be the pivotal point in her professional journey. Women in techno-management leadership roles were rare in the 1980s. Monica felt she was in the company of a visionary who was blind to age and gender and wanted to mold people into the leaders he needed to pursue his vision. Her talent put her on the radar and for the next 25 years, she was able to experience a professional journey in the company that grew from $3 million to over $700 million in yearly revenue. In 1992, when the company, InfoGroup, went public, Monica became one of the first female CIOs in the country, only 8 years after she joined the little startup in Omaha. She was soon to become COO, leading over 2,000 employees.

Monica attributes her achievements to a number of factors. She recalls her transformation from a young professional to a business leader through goal-focused, gender-neutral mentorship that guided her on a path to executive education programs at Stanford and Harvard, sponsored by her company. She credits the programs for her skill development in strategic thinking and networking, providing her with super-smart people to bounce ideas off of and with special emphasis on financial training for non-financial executives.

"In retrospect, I was at the right place and at the right time. I joined a young company with a big idea that had unlimited growth potential. When we were a young company, I made sure I hired people that could grow into bigger roles. Building a strong leadership team that stayed with us for 20+ years allowed me to continue to assume higher levels of responsibility."

As InfoGroup was sold to a private equity firm in 2009, Monica started mentoring startups in Omaha and other cities. She invested in a handful and helped connect them to funding sources including Nebraska Innovation Fund, prototyping grants, and Federal Small Business Innovation Research Grants. But she had her next destination set - an entrepreneurial career.

"I loved the format of StartUp Weekends, where people would pitch their ideas and judges would assess the potential of their business ideas and investors could find new ideas to fund. I suppose I would have kept doing that, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to help create another Nebraska-based business that could create hundreds of jobs."

In 2010, Monica co-founded DatabaseUSA which provides detailed information on over 15 million businesses and over 260 million consumers. She became the President of another venture ResearchUSA in 2020, dealing in business surveys, data analytics, enhancement, and email services. What drove Monica's entrepreneurial zeal in Nebraska? According to Monica, the state has many great resources available to help mentor startups and amazing grant programs to help founders in their early stages.

"The Omaha Chamber has programs like The StartUp Collaborative, and I also like Scott Technology Center's Incubator Program for Startups and their Lean Launchpad methodology to help founders validate their solution prior to allocating significant resources. It's important to fail fast and move on to another idea if the original idea isn't going to work"

Monica believes Incubator and Accelerator Programs bring the discipline of tried and tested methodologies that will help any entrepreneur, especially those in the IT and Technology sector, create a minimally viable product, test it in its addressable market, and see if it can generate any traction. For many technology founders who don't have any experience in finance, marketing, or sales, Monica recommends these programs that could facilitate building teams as well as access to funding.

"My personal opinion is that access to capital is the most critical factor for women entrepreneurs. If they don't get funded, they rarely survive. It takes most startups many years to break even."

This is a component that Monica finds challenging, especially for firms in the Midwest. According to a 2021 Heartland Forward report, The Heartland / Midwest produced 33 % of the U.S. GDP but has only received 10% of the venture capital awarded since 2016. For women-founded Heartland firms, the picture looks bleaker, receiving less than 1 % of the total venture capital funding in the past 5 years.

"It's important for women in Nebraska to network and seek access to capital. They can explore Burlington Capital, which has the Proven Ventures Fund that focuses on women and people of color and promotes keeping businesses in Nebraska in addition to supporting entrepreneurs in western Nebraska, who are often left without funding. Amber Grant for Business Women from Nebraska is another opportunity."

She recalls the story of two women entrepreneurs from Nebraska who received venture funding from Burlington Capital and were subsequently selected for another seed funding program for startups, Y-Combinator.

Monica references the findings of a DatabaseUSA report, which states Nebraska's 37% rate of women-owned businesses is in line with the national average. With the inclusion of the micro-businesses of self-employed individuals, business ownership by sex in Nebraska is much closer to 50/50.
Talking about the brain drain, Monica agrees, having faced the challenges of attracting talent. She wonders if the universities could adopt career development approaches more focused on local companies and startups.

"The career fairs are set up with top national employers with booths and recruiters to lure talent into their large enterprises. Meanwhile, small local businesses and startups are sidelined and hardly able to compete for talent, even though there are many great opportunities for kids as they finish college."

Monica ends by reminding us about the work-life balance in Nebraska and the overall quality of life in the Midwest.

"We are so lucky to not have long commutes that cost us hours of family time each day. I appreciate that I was always able to be a professional woman without sacrificing time with my family. And maybe the best benefit of the Midwest is the low cost of living that allows us to have a better quality of life."