Steve Boerner is co-founder of the HeliumIQ website.
There is no playbook for creating the right environment in a region that encourages entrepreneurship.
But, a grass-roots effort with support from Delaware’s business and education community is working on an online tool that may provide some answers.
HeliumIQ is a centralized online database of resources, opportunities and connections designed to coordinate Delaware’s entrepreneurial network. The concept, created by its two founders, Steve Boerner, and David Gritz, allows community organizers to shift from man-aging communities to scaling ecosystems.
Think of HeliumIQ as an online destination with the resources of a social network like LinkedIn powered by a powerful algorithm used in a dating or job-search app to offer real-time access to resources that meet the person’s current business needs.
The Delaware Business Roundtable and the University of Delaware Horn Program in Entrepreneurship are active supporters of the project.
“We put together a growth agenda for the state and one of the first goals is to help create and nurture an entrepreneurship ecosystem,” said Bob Perkins, president of Delaware Business Roundtable. “And HeliumIQ is a manifestation of that goal.”
Boerner explained that the ecosystem the Business Roundtable sought needs to be built around a call to action, a centralized hub for that ecosystem to reside. The hub he envisions uses cloud storage technology and allows for constant updates to deliver a more valuable user experience.