Delaware, America’s second smallest state after Rhode Island, was one of the original 13 colonies and on December 7, 1787, became the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby picking up the nickname, “The First State.” Thanks to its business-friendly corporation and tax laws, over 50 percent of U.S. publicly-traded corporations and 60 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware. Delaware corporation franchise taxes supply roughly one-fifth of the state revenue.
Strangely, although the state ranks second in civilian scientists and engineers as a percentage of the workforce and number of patents issued to companies or individuals per 1,000 workers (thanks partly to the presence of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, one of the world’s largest chemical companies), Delaware has never attained the corporate “startup incubator” status of Silicon Valley, Boston, Texas, or New York.
Well, folks, perhaps that’s about to change.
On the afternoon of January 11, 2012 our own Jeff Pulver had a meeting in Dover, Delaware with Governor Jack Markell (@GovernorMarkell), to discuss how to make Delaware the innovation and startup capital of the U.S. On his way to see Markell, he stopped by the studios of WDEL 1150 AM News Talk Radio and explained on-the-air what was happening to Rick Jensen (@Jensen1150WDEL) and his audience.
Jensen: Jeff is here “in town” today for a very special reason; trying to make something good happen…
Pulver: I’m here because I was invited to meet with Governor Markell, to talk about innovation. I have this idea to make Delaware the Innovation State for America, to create an opportunity for people to want to come here, live here, to have their dreams come true. I really want to help make Delaware the Innovation State for the United States and at some level, bring back The American Dream.
Jensen: Jack Markell is one of the few governors in this country who really is totally committed to social media such as twitter and has at least one assistant who I know of over there—Felicia Pullam (@FPullam)—who works on that, as well as a lot of other communication duties. So I hear you also got to know Markell by chance through a dinner in New York City.
Pulver: Yes, since November 29th I’ve been looking forward to be here to spend an hour with the Governor and to share some ideas, and to see whether or not it makes sense to try to make Delaware the “innovation hub” for the United States. So many people who are doing tech startups go to New York City where I’m from, or they go to Boston, or Silicon Valley. Why not Delaware? You know, many companies in the world, not just in the United States, are Delaware “C” Corporations. And yet, the companies are not actually physically here in Delaware. I want to do something to make it fun, to bring back some excitement, and then to tie together different economic interests, whether you’re into biotech, or energy, or some other kind of high-tech. Why not bring all of these different people from across the United States to Delaware to be mentors, to advise and to encourage people to seek out their dreams?
Jensen: I would think Governor Markell would be open to this. He’s been successful in bringing in a company to run the Delaware City Refinery. He’s been successful on a number of different levels… His 30,000 foot view is indeed to try to bring innovation and jobs to Delaware, and that’s what you’d like to do too. Tell us about the format of what you’re looking at…
Pulver: Well, I want to start small, perhaps do a contest. People who have ideas for businesses would apply to come to Delaware to be here for 12 or 14 weeks at a time in rotation. Perhaps there could be a TV reality show format, I’m not sure. But it would happen at an industrial loft building somewhere in an up-and-coming part of a city in the State of Delaware. It will be a place where the business community embraces it and we’re able to leverage the state to help put a “spotlight” on what’s happening. We’ll bring people together who have the dreams, the ideas, the incentives to make things happen, and match them with mentors who have experience. And at the end of the day what are we really doing? We’re giving people the chance to live a dream, to follow their inspiration and to innovate, to truly take the word “innovation” and bring it to the people. Maybe somebody will or won’t have the next Google in their head, but at least we’ll create an environment where people can try out ideas.
A friend of mine explained to me that most great ideas and discoveries start out as serendipity, as somebody else’s “good mistake.” In our lifetime, unless you’re doing deep research in science, most of the things we discover we stumble upon. What I want to do is to bring back the America where people again have an environment where they have the chance to stumble upon great ideas. And because Delaware is half-way between New York and D.C., I think it could work. I think if we could do something in Delaware, it will be a model for other cities, towns and states to embrace.
Jensen: To formalize Delaware as an incubator for entrepreneurship and innovation—I know that’s something they’d like to do.
Jensen and Pulver then speculated about how to monetize such a project.
Pulver: This is the First State. People do things first here. One interesting idea would be to do a tax incentive for everybody on a state level by perhaps creating a program where you could fill out a form and the first $5,000 you owe in taxes can go toward a startup. That way you get a credit toward your taxes, but you’re also investing in innovation. Everybody wants to invest in a dream, and everybody could be involved in this. Of course, the process would be vetted to keep out the scam artists. But could you imagine what the economy would be like with 10,000 startups and, once the word gets out that this is happening, the very deep-pocketed venture capitalists will start coming to Delaware to check out what’s here and invest too.
Jensen: So you’re not looking for any extra extraction of money from citizens in taxes or anything like that.
Pulver: No I’m actually trying to do the reverse, to create wealth, to create prosperity and to bring jobs to the city and state and every local level. But really, what I’m trying to do is bring people back to the level of inspiration that they once had, and to dream again. Whenever someone has a dream to do something but their life doesn’t allow them to follow it, if it’s in high tech, I want them to pursue those dreams. I’ve had a very fortunate life in that over the last 20 years I’ve done over 20 startups myself, some not successful, some very successful. But I’m always around people, and I’ve discovered that one of the best things you can ever do in your life is to believe in somebody. I do that all the time now; I focus on finding people who have ideas and I try to connect them with other people who can help them make things happen. I’ve learned a lot by traveling the world and seeing how other countries do this, and I think it’s about time we tried this in America. It can’t hurt.
Jensen: And why not Delaware?
Pulver: Yes, why not Delaware? Let’s give it a try right here, the First State of the Union. It could become the First Innovation State for the country, maybe for the world.
At this point I could go on at length, picking up on Jeff’s contagious enthusiasm and conflating various superficially-related ideas into an exuberant sales package for making Delaware the Innovation State. Fortunately, I’m sure Jeff and many other minds greater than mine will be doing just the opposite, “de-conflating” (or perhaps I should say disambiguating, after the philosopher Jeremy Bentham who first used that word extensively) the whole big multi-faceted idea into a series of smaller, realizable, measurable steps, all leading to the great goal that is the Delaware of the Future, the preeminent locus of American innovation.
And if you too, Dear Reader, are interested in helping to make Delaware the Innovation State, please feel free to contact Jeff Pulver (jeffp@pulver.com).
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Richard Grigonis (@EditStateofNow) is Editor-in-Chief of Jeff Pulver’s State of NOW / #140conf community website.
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