Pullman: Walk Main Street and you can feel it: the sting of “for lease” signs, the hush where foot traffic should be, the talent drift as students head back to Seattle after graduation. It’s not for lack of brainpower, we sit between Washington State University and the University of Idaho. It’s not for lack of heart, this community shows up. The bottleneck is a model built for short-term rent extraction in a market that now rewards long-game value creation.
If Pullman wants full storefronts, career-grade jobs, and a magnetic downtown, we need to think and act like a startup.
The Why (in plain view)
- Empty storefronts signal that our cost structure and our offer don’t pencil out for modern operators.
- Graduates leave because there’s no compelling path to build a career here, no density of teams, mentors, or investors.
- Two universities, limited spillover: enormous intellectual capital, but too little commercialization and too few ventures absorbing it.
- Overpriced leases and property relative to early-stage earning power scare off founders and independent retailers before they can even test.
This is not a moral failing. It’s a product-market fit problem. Let’s fix it with the same playbook successful startups use: Lean Startup and Design Thinking, applied to a city.
Lean Startup for a City: Build–Measure–Learn at the Block Level
Startups don’t spend years perfecting a plan before launching. They ship a minimum viable product (MVP), measure what happens, and iterate. Cities can do this too.
1) Build: Launch small, fast, reversible pilots
- Pop-Up First, Lease Later. Convert vacant Main Street shells into turnkey pop-up space with shared fixtures, month-to-month terms, and utilities included. Make entry frictionless.
- MVP Incentives. Swap blunt, long-term abatements for quick, evidence-based boosts: 3–6 months of step-down rent, microgrants ($5–10k) tied to hours open and local hiring, and a single online application.
- Founder Housing & Workspace. Offer 6–12 months of discounted micro-lofts or house-share stipends and desks in a downtown cowork/garage lab. Founders burn cash on rent; reduce that burn and you increase survival.
- City as Customer. Launch a Startup-in-Residence program with City Hall, WSU, and major employers (SEL, hospitals). Give founders paid pilot contracts to solve real problems (fleet routing, permitting UX, event analytics). Revenue beats grants.
2) Measure: Instrument everything
- Vacancy Dashboard. Track street-level vacancy by block, time-to-lease, and tenant survival at 3/6/12 months.
- Foot Traffic & Sales Proxies. Install low-cost pedestrian counters; collect voluntary, anonymized sales snapshots from participants.
- Talent Retention. Count graduates who take local jobs or launch ventures here; survey their reasons for staying or leaving.
- Cost of Customer Acquisition (for the City). What did each new job or active storefront cost after incentives? Keep it transparent.
3) Learn: Kill what underperforms, double down on what sticks
- If pop-ups convert to leases at ≥30% within six months, expand the model. If not, adjust location, rent steps, or merchandising mix.
- If certain categories (e.g., bars, specialty retail, entertainment) outperform, cluster them, create a destination, not scattered bets.
- Report results publicly every quarter. Momentum loves scoreboards.
Design Thinking: Empathize First, Then Design the System
Design Thinking starts with people, not policies.
Empathize (with founders, retailers, students, landlords)
- Founders: “I can’t risk a 3–5 year lease or spend $80k on buildout just to find out the market isn’t there.”
- Retailers: “Margins are thin. Summer is brutal. I need flexible terms and predictable foot traffic.”
- Students/Graduates: “I want a serious team, mentorship, and a cool place to spend Friday night, and I don’t want to take a pay cut to get it.”
- Landlords: “My debt service expects premium rent and certainty.”
Define (the real problem)
Pullman has a liquidity gap between idea and investable enterprise, worsened by rigid real estate and seasonal demand.
Ideate (co-create solutions that respect all sides)
- Revenue-Share Leases. Replace high base rents with lower base and percentage of sales for the first 12–18 months. Align risk.
- Pre-Approved Buildout Kits. Standardized, reusable fixtures and city-preapproved Tenant Improvement kits that cut a 90-day buildout to 15 days.
- Academic–Founder Bridge. A community accelerator (2-4 teams/semester) with small stipends, prototyping resources, and guaranteed downtown demo space.
- Corporate Challenge Series. Quarterly problem statements from local tech, the hospital system, ag processors, and the cities, winners get paid pilots and optional seed checks.
- Night & Weekend Economy. Curate reliable, recurring experiences (music, markets, maker nights) to stabilize the off-season and give students reasons to stay downtown.
Prototype (make it real at one intersection)
Pick a two-block “innovation spine” downtown. In 90 days:
- Consolidate 4–6 vacancies into a Pop-Up Row with shared bathrooms, back-of-house, and POS.
- Launch a Thursday Night Pullman series (food, demos, student showcases) for eight consecutive weeks.
- Offer 10 Founder Passes (housing and workspace) tied to demo nights and community service hours.
- Sign two Startup-in-Residence contracts solving city problems.
Test (publish the results)
- Did we cut time-to-open from months to weeks?
- Did average daily foot traffic rise by 20% on activation nights?
- Did two pop-ups convert to year leases?
- Did at least three graduates accept local offers or found here?
If yes: expand to the next block. If no: pivot.
The Money Question: Rents, Risk, and the Long Game
Right now, the system optimizes for short-term certainty (high face rents, rigid terms) in a market that can’t support it. The result is long-term vacancy, which is the most expensive outcome of all.
Reframe the deal:
- Risk-Sharing Leases. Lower base rent, revenue share and a renewal option at market if milestones are met.
- Tenant Improvement Revolvers. A privately-backed pool that fronts small buildouts, repaid as a slice of sales.
- Community Land Trust for Commercial. Acquire one strategic building; set mission-driven rents permanently. Anchor a founder ecosystem.
- Outcome-Based Incentives. Phase incentives against verified foot traffic, job creation, and storefront activation, not promises.
These instruments trade a bit of short-term profit for compounded long-term value: occupied blocks, rising sales, and a tech-and-maker brand that attracts the next wave of doers.
A Playbook Unique to the Palouse
This isn’t Portland. Our edge is the university R&D + precision manufacturing + agtech triad, and the ability to test fast.
- Palouse Venture Corridor. A Pullman–Moscow lane with shared permits, cross-honored pop-up passes, and a joint accelerator. Let founders plug into two states without red tape.
- AgTech & Power Systems Labs. Pair WSU/UI labs with local manufacturers for rapid prototyping; give them downtown windows where the public can see the work.
- “Stay Here” Fellowships. 25 graduating seniors per year get a $10k stipend to build or join a local startup, contingent on downtown engagement.
Accountability: What We’ll Measure in 12 Months
- Street-Level Vacancy: down 30% on the innovation spine.
- Founder Retention: 20+ graduates working at or founding local ventures.
- Time-to-Open: median from application to first sale under 30 days for pop-ups.
- Lease Conversions: ≥30% of pop-ups becoming 1–3 year leases.
- Night Economy: weekly event attendance averaging 1,000+, with spend captured by participating merchants.
Post the scoreboard. Celebrate the wins. Kill what doesn’t work. That’s how founders operate, and how founder cities are built.
The Mindset Shift
Pullman doesn’t need a silver bullet. We need velocity, lots of small bets, shipped fast, measured honestly, and improved relentlessly. Empty storefronts and talent flight are symptoms of a system optimized for yesterday’s retail. Adopt a startup philosophy and we’ll replace “for lease” signs with labs, shops, studios, and teams that keep our graduates and their companies here.
Let’s stop asking, “Who will pay premium rent tomorrow?” and start asking, “What can we launch this month that compounds for years?”
Also: read Pullman – A Note on Building Together