Entrepreneurial Center at the new Coatesville Train Station.

Senator Dinniman- 

“One of these ideas is this entrepreneurial center.  You might not really understand what we mean. So we're going to take five minutes, if we can, to share with you what this has done in West Chester and I think you will see its potential here in Coatesville. 

Some of the training will be for people to work with their hands and their muscle. That’s going to take place. Harry’s recruiting the people. The unions are on board. 

Some of the other training is going to bring bright young people together and look at Coatesville as a place where you can meet and start to change things. 

Come on up and explain a little one an entrepreneurial center is.

This is a very nontraditional approach to economic development. The age of the incubators and others is essentially over in many ways, in my judgment. This is where future is going to be.”

Kyle Hudson-

‘Thank you for inviting me my name is Kyle Hudson. I work at Walnut Street Labs. Unfortunately Chris could not make it tonight.

How many here I've heard of Walnut Street Labs? I know Mike in the back.

So what we are, We are start up incubator and a co-working space right in the heart of West Chester. We essentially take people with ideas. People come and approach us with ideas and we work them out and we talk about it with them. If it's something that we think is a possible future product, we work with these inventors to move the ball further down the line. 

That's one component of  it. That’s one of the more important components of it but another thing I think an entrepreneurial center is. It’s a co-working space and bringing all these people…

Now entrepreneurs are just naturally driven people.  They are the kind of people who go out. They'll find the resources.  They'll make the connections.  They’re your running back, if I can use a sports metaphor.

By creating a center where all these people can sit right next to each other.  I have a background in the entertainment industry. I sit next to a guy whose is a coding person. On the other side is someone who's a graphic designer. 

Now I might have a project, I have my own thing. I have my own thing outside of working for them and I might need a graphic designer.  Well there's one person right there. 

It allows you to create a network that well, you can get pretty much anything done, I feel.  

I might be shooting a little bit high but sometimes I really do feel that way. Because when you get the kind of people who would be drawn to an entrepreneurial center like in Walnut Street Labs. People who come in there, those are the people you want on your team. Those are the people who go to the end and they’ll find all the really interesting stuff. Having a whole building full, or a floor at least those kind of people, is amazing. 

Like I said, I have background in the entertainment industry but I also have a software company. I found out about Walnut Street labs in August, so about six months ago. 

I walked in and I was like; Yo, I have this crazy idea, it's actually the Chester County Time Machine, who Senator Dinniman is a big supporter of.  The coolest thing is we have this open door policy. We have these glass front windows and people are always kind of like looking in, “What’s that?”

Our unofficial model is that just stand there, you can come in. I walked in and I said; Yo, I got this crazy idea We have these events, and they still run, it’s at Tuesday morning at 9 o’clock Wednesday evening at 8 o'clock that they're free. We invite speakers. Companies demo their products. Come on down, you know, free coffee. So I did and I just kept on coming back. 

I jokingly said to my wife this is my small business class. I never created a business in my life. I had an idea and a lot of people dug it. It was going places but I didn't have to resources to get it done. 

Instead of doing good for me, they showed me how to do it myself. It's a teach to fish kind of place. 

Now sometimes there's a technical barrier between a really good idea and someone who can get it done. Sometimes it's just the gap of how many years you have to, learning coding for whatever, would be too vast for this. 

But like I said there's a guy right over there and his just as driven and just as passionate as you are. When you're surrounded with a community like that, I really do believe that anything is possible.

When they came over and I spoke to Mr. Collins actually, They came do whatever start up meet ups.”

Andy Dinniman,

“Well we had arrange for people in Coatesville to go down and see your center to see it as an example, so they could bring it back here, right.”

Kyle Hudson-

“They told me this idea and I am originally from Elizabeth, New Jersey and so I kind of know what's going on. 

When they told me that they wanted to bring something like this, I was like, wow… This is just my as citizen of Chester county opinion, I think that's just great…

Walnut Street Labs is technically open 24 / 7. There isn't someone there all the time but I have a key.  I can go in, if I want to go in and work and a lot of times someone else is there too. 

Sometimes you make random connections, you're talking about something and this other guy says, whoa what if we do these two things together?  I just by having the community. It's kind of like what Thomas Edison at Bell laboratories. You grab the smartest people you can put him in the room and you know, create the light bulb, or the movie,  motion picture. 

Walnut Street Labs, we've only got a year under all our belt and we have really awesome responders like…  

We have the Ben Franklin Technology Partners, the Chester County Economic Development Council, the West Chester University Entrepreneurship Group, SCORE, Fox Rothschild and 
Malllie . Those people are amazingly supportive I've actually work with Mike Grigalonis in the back doing lots of cool stuff and they make these kinds of things possible. 

It’s a community effort. One guy can go in there and he could start up the building like my boss Chris.  He worked in the co-working space and it used to be another co-worker space before what is now… 

They were talking away on their computers and he was like, dude the lease is coming up, why don't we try to make this place where other people who are on the on their computers in their apartments coming up with really good ideas, why don't we bring him together?

The Internet is great for bringing people, exchanging ideas and bringing ideas. And I do think that's a very important part of any kind of technological collaboration. 

But having people in the same room together, that is where ideas come from. Having Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the garage that's how Apple Computer was made. It wasn't when they were coming up with ideas at Atari or whatever. It was when they were working together in small confines that they got stuff done. I really think, this is a really cool idea and I'd love to help.”

Andy Dinniman-

Well you know your enthusiasm is what we need. 

This is how the state is assisting. You see, we could have a first floor that’s just simply a waiting room with a coffee place. 

But that's not what's happening here. That is the additional investment that this community is getting, which is worth about $2 billion from the Commonwealth.