As in the past, today’s challenges can create economic opportunity

This article originally appeared in the Sunday, April 26 Omaha World- Herald.

Last weekend, as I prepared to give a virtual keynote titled “Pioneering in a Pandemic,” I began explaining to our 4-year-old son what a pioneer is and how our family has pioneer roots.

Like many Nebraskans, we have family that homesteaded on the Great Plains facing extreme conditions and uncertainty. My great-grandparents, Glenn and Rose Masters, were pioneers born just before the turn of the 20th century. What I know about these two, both of whom passed when I was young, is that neither was afraid of some hard work, a well-calculated risk nor betting on their upside.

It’s undeniable that they grew up in one of the most innovative times known to humanity. Their early upbringing was marked by innovations including the Model T, plastic and radio broadcasting. And, even way out in Ainsworth, Nebraska, these two were exposed to the country’s rapid technological change. In stark juxtaposition, their career years were marked by the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and two world wars.

Glenn and Rose raised my grandmother in a sod house. The mud-brick home eventually became only one of many structures on their growing farm. It was in this sod house that Glenn perfected his woodworking craft and began selling handmade furniture. Meanwhile, Rose started recruiting boarders to rent rooms within their home. Think Airbnb before its era, way before.

The two created what today is called gig work to increase their cash flow. Eventually, Glenn and Rose rolled the capital from gig work into more businesses that seized market opportunities. Up until a couple of years ago, one of those Ainsworth businesses — Master’s Cafe and Fuel — still carried their name.

My great-grandparents recognized the intrinsic link between crisis and innovation that cannot be overlooked. They took mud and turned it into a sod house. They took distressed businesses and turned them into legacies.

Taking a market opportunity and turning it into a business is a talent unique to entrepreneurs. During the more recent Great Recession, entrepreneurs founded several incredible companies that created entirely new markets and categories. These companies included the likes of Venmo, later acquired by PayPal for $800 million in 2013; and Square, at one point with a stock price of more than $100 a share and forecasted as the next FANG (Facebook Amazon Netflix Google) company.

Fintech companies like Venmo and Square could have just as easily been developed here. But they weren’t. We missed an opportunity to seize the market.

We are in a similar era of natural disasters, economic downturn and extreme uncertainty. Let’s not miss the opportunity this creates.

Innovation is afoot. Markets are shifting. Those who can look around the corner and take a calculated risk will prevail.

New technologies like 5G, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and more offer clever opportunities to approach the post-COVID market. Our state’s talent benches in financial services, health care and agriculture are well poised to catalyze new companies leveraging these innovations.

We can sit back and hope it organically happens. Or we can be intentional and create the thriving economy of our state’s future.