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All this year, Michigan Radio has been asking people from across the state what Three Things they think we can all do to improve the state. It’s for our Morning Edtiion series 3 Things. This week, we hear from Chris Peterson, Director of the Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University.

In his Three Things interview, Chris Peterson focuses on the steps necessary for an individual to start a business. “What the state really needs,” says Peterson, “if we’re talking about a renaissance, is a lot of new businesses.”

The central idea behind Mr. Peterson’s first step towards starting a business is innovation. “People need to be thinking about creating an innovative idea to improve something,” Peterson says. While Peterson admits that encouraging innovation may seem like a very basic suggestion, he argues that the economy is very receptive to innovation and new ideas. “Creativity is one of the things that the capitalist economy really is good at,” says Peterson.

As an example of what he’s talking about, Mr. Peterson shares a story about a group of sisters who found a way to sell their grandmother’s cherry ice cream topping. He explains, “When one of the sisters was faced with losing their [sic] job, they took their grandmother’s recipe for cherry ice cream topping and decided that it was so good that they thought, ‘If we could figure out how to produce this commercially, we could develop a business.’” Citing the quick success of the family’s business, Peterson says that a simple idea for a product can go a long way.

Linked to his first idea, Mr. Peterson’s second idea involves the importance of locating customers for a potential business. “Once you come up with that innovative idea,” says Peterson, “then you’ve got to be willing to put in some shoe leather to talk to potential customers and say, ‘Hey, would you really pay something for this idea?’”

For his third and final step towards opening a new business, Mr. Peterson tells innovators to become entrepreneurs. “If you got the idea, you got a potential market, then put a business around that idea and take it to market,” explains Peterson.

In closing, Mr. Peterson stresses the importance of new businesses in Michigan’s turnaround, saying, “In Michigan, if we’re going to have a renaissance, it’s really going to come about because lots of us are willing to get out there and risk putting our ideas into practice.”