But if I had to, I'd work on things that formed communities -- incubators, free wi-fi, regular talks from industry leaders, open-air forums, free beer night, setting up near a college, etc -- and ditch any kind of reporting whatsoever. I'd definitely ditch business plan competitions and other wonkish old and tired ideas that seem to be everywhere but never amount to much. My only metric would be startup attempts and the size of the community actually interested in entrepreneurialism. From there I would get the hell out of the way. Then wait about ten or fifteen years.

I like your idea's a lot. To add to them, it would be really good for entrepreneurs wanting to form scaling-businesses to have their cost of living covered by the government for a time period of 6-12 months to get started. That way they could potentially build a business and launch it without having to worry about working a full-time job. For example:

    - Free housing
    - Free food
    - Free medical
    - Free office space (w/internet and electric)

If you have a good screening process, accepting those willing, wanting, and smart enough to do a startup, you could allow many to quit their job and work at it full-time. You'd pay just for the bare-minimum living expenses for single individuals in the program (no funding mortgages on homes, supporting families, etc...).

Giving people a time-period of 6 or 12 months of this could result in a lot of businesses being spawned. Kick those out who do nothing, and have experienced overseers (previously successful entrepreneurs) decide who to keep/cut.

You could sell the idea based on this requirement; any individual who takes up the offer must incorporate their company in your municipality for X number of years. That way your state gains future tax revenue from successes (corporate and earned income) to pay for the program, and hopefully make a profit.