One of the things we did at Pardot was try and help the local entrepreneurship community by providing a handful of desks to startups. At any given time we’d have 3-4 startups in the office with 2-3 desks per startup (by my count, we had at least eight startups use our office). This was a good gauge that showed some of the local demand for an entrepreneurship center like the Atlanta Tech Village.
Pardot also acted as a proving ground for ideas that were implemented at the Village, including the following:
- Focus on Values – Values set the tone and define the contract for everyone involved
- Startup Chowdown – Bringing everyone together on a weekly basis to break bread is incredibly valuable to build relationships and rapport
- LED Scoreboard – Results matter and clear accountability with metrics define the standards
- Show & Tell – Products are the heart of the business and doing regular demos keeps everyone updated
Without realizing it at the time, several of the Pardot experiences and lessons learned translated well to the startup community and have been implemented at the Village.
What else? What are your thoughts on ideas translated from company to startup community?
David Cummings on Startups 
What kind of things would you track on the LED scoreboard?
Glad you posted this. The other night at Kevy Connects event the ATV success sounded a little too ‘Field of Dreams-y’, so glad to hear there was some lean startup along the way too (even if you didn’t realize it at the time as you mention).