Indiana Gov. Mike Braun wasted no time after his election last November announcing a revamp of the state’s executive branch that included a new Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Months later, lawmakers made the office official by putting it into state law and funding it in the next state budget.
But with that two-year spending plan set to take effect on July 1, it’s still not clear what the office will do and who will lead it.
In fact, the Braun administration and officials in the state’s commerce division don’t plan to provide specifics about the office and what existing programs it might absorb until later this summer.
But boosting entrepreneurship is clearly on Braun’s mind. He moderated a panel at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress—hosted this month in Indianapolis—and touted his government restructuring, including the creation of the office dedicated to the issue.
Then he asked the audience a question: “What have you folks done in your own businesses to make sure it stays agile, entrepreneurial and promote[s] young entrepreneurs within companies that can sometimes get bureaucratic?”
The question provides a peek into Braun’s goal for the new office but he didn’t reveal any details.
Those who advocated for the office, though, are more vocal about what they’re seeking. They hope it will prioritize business creation in Indiana so that is on par with the state’s more successful efforts at attracting large, existing companies to the state.
Currently, Indiana ranks near the bottom in business starts; a 2025 U.S. News and World Report ranking placed it at 46th, even as other organizations rank Indiana as a top place to do business.
But the scope of the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation might be limited by its budget.
The Indiana Chamber, which included an office dedicated to entrepreneurship in its 2025 Legislative Business Issues publication, proposed giving the intiative an annual budget of $10 million. Braun proposed something closer to $2 million annually. And the state’s final two-year budget, passed by lawmakers in April, allocated just $1 million a year.
That’s in part because the creation of the office comes at a tough financial time for the state. At the same time that the Braun administration has been making plans to create new office, it has laid off some 50 state employees thanks to budget cuts at their agencies.
Additionally, the agency that currently oversees much of Indiana’s entrepreneurial endeavors, the Indiana Economic Development Corp., is in the midst of a forensic audit ordered by Braun.
But Courtney Zaugg, an Indianapolis-based organizer with the Kansas-based grassroots organization Right to Start, said the fact that the office is funded at all means it is a major priority for Braun and that it’s set up for success. Zaugg’s work, in part, put the proposal for the office in front of lawmakers.
Zaugg was working in consulting when she found herself thinking about what she describes as an outsized focus on major economic development deals.
“The data showed that net new job growth comes from firms under 5 years old, and I was frustrated that more community leaders and policymakers weren’t paying attention to it,” she said. Then, in 2017, she and her husband founded their own business, Zinc Contractors.
Now, she wants to see the office support entrepreneurs and small-business owners who come after them.
Behind the legislation
Most of the provisions in the bill that created the entrepreneurship office are actually aimed at reining in some the work of the IEDC.
It requires the IEDC to notify a county or municipality and the State Budget Committee at least 30 days before a deal closes that involves the IEDC’s purchase of more than 100 acres of land. And the bill requires that for each innovation development district in the state, the IEDC and involved local governments produce an annual report detailing the district’s tax-increment financing. Innovation development districts allow the state to capture state and local revenue to fund improvements and incentives at the sites.
Sen. Brian Buchanan, R-Lebanon, who authored some of the entrepreneurship office language, said lawmakers were intentional about leaving the language vague. “We set some very general parameters in the framework,” Buchanan said.
He said the goal is to allow Braun and Indiana Commerce Secretary David Adams “to kind of add in the details when it comes to what exactly is needed.”
The governor will appoint the director of the office and will also have the discretion to fire him or her. The director will report to the state’s secretary of commerce, who also oversees the IEDC, Indiana Destination Development Corp. and other economic growth initiatives.
The office has directives coded into law related to small businesses, entrepreneurship and innovation. It will develop and administer programs and direct and oversee funding sources for their growth. It’s also charged with coordinating with outside organizations to align services and programs, identify strategies to distribute funds to rural and underserved communities, support and enhance learning and skills and provide technical support for entrepreneurs statewide, and develop and administer programs to support and encourage youth entrepreneurship.
Part of a trend
At least four states have similar offices to support entrepreneurism, according to the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. They include Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico and Illinois. Those offices differ drastically in funding and staff levels.
Indiana’s Legislative Services Agency, a nonpartisan fleet of attorneys and analysts, found that the Illinois office spends $28.4 million annually and has 23 full-time employees. LSA experts projected the cost of Indiana’s office at $1.8 million for 10 full-time positions next year, based on Illinois’ office.
That number also took into account six vacant IEDC positions valued at a total of $882,000 in annual salary. The legislation directs the IEDC to bolster the budget of the planned office by using “vacant staff positions or unexpected appropriations.”
That estimate still pales in comparison to the chamber’s ask. Adam Berry, the vice president of economic development and technology for the chamber, said there are examples of minimally staffed and funded versions of this office in other states. For example, in Nevada, the office has only a handful of employees and can’t provide comprehensive assistance to individual entrepreneurs.
So for Indiana, he said $10 million would be necessary “to ensure full staffing levels, potentially even micro-grants or micro-loans … to help entrepreneurs [statewide] develop their minimally viable product and conduct due diligence.”
When it comes to the $1 million allotted, “I would say that we were certainly hoping for more,” he added.
At the other end of the spectrum, New Mexico plans to spend $90 million on a new Technology and Innovation Office. That money will fund research and development, quantum technologies and business incubation, innovation hubs, startup grants, and assistance with talent recruitment and innovation. “It is wildly resourced, which is fabulous,” Zaugg said of New Mexico’s operation.
Using those states as a model, the chamber wrote that Indiana must first “inventory state and local programs and organizations, as well as survey stakeholders to better understand Indiana’s entrepreneurial landscape.”
Berry said much of that will likely involve looking at the IEDC’s offerings, including about $2 million in annual funding it receives for a shuttered office. The Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship was established in 2014 by then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, but the IEDC opted to ax it just a few years later.
The funding line item remains, however, and the IEDC has used the annual allotment primarily to fund federal matching grants.
Berry said he sees the new office as “providing a tangible front door for entrepreneurs, [for the state] to answer questions” in a way the current set-up can’t.
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