Page 63 - Innovation Delaware 2021

INNOVATION IN THE COVID AGE
BY LARRY NAGENGAST
CO-WORKING IN THE TIME OF COVID
Delaware’s incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces adjust to a shifting business landscape
Delaware’sentrepreneurialspaces people of color and the LGBTQ
have worked hard to accom-
modate their tenants’ changing needs through the pandemic, helping those tenants stay afloat while fighting for their own survival.
At the Emerging Enterprise Center, an affiliate of the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce located on the Wilmington Riverfront, clients who rent private offices have been able to keep using them, even as the open co-working areas were shut down, says BOB BEICHNER, the county chamber’s director of economic development and business incubation. The center’s educational programming has moved to a virtual environment and all clients have been given access to the county chamber’s many networking events.
At The Mill, a co-working space with locations in Wilmington and in Brandywine Hundred, CEO ROB HERRERA has turned to Facebook Live to replace the interactions clients used to get over a cup of coffee, or over a beer in the site’s party area.
REBECCA PARSONS, The Mill’s operations manager, hosts regular conversations with members, inter- viewing them on what they’ve been doing with their businesses so others can keep up with them.
Another program, the First Founders accelerator, had only been operating a few months when the work environment shifted. The accelerator’s creator, GARRY JOHNSON III, started it in late 2019 to serve entrepreneurs in demographics underrepresented in business — women,
community. His program launched with a hybrid in-person and virtual model operating out of the Route 9 Library south of Wilmington. When the pandemic hit, it had to quickly transition to an all-virtual operation.
THE MILL
Johnson says the results of that quick pivot have been better than expected, with the accelerator’s reach expanding geographically and numerically. Budding entrepreneurs from as far away as California and even Kenya have registered for First Founders’ offerings. A condensed program on the fundamentals of entrepreneurship drew 120 participants last fall. A pitch competition Johnson organized over the winter required each entrant to create a podcast about their venture; over two weeks in February, those recordings attracted more than 21,000 listeners.
“Using the power of the internet forces us to be creative,” Johnson says.
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REBECCA ASHTON PARSONS