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What The Hell Is Business Incubation?!

by goindeep
6 replies
What is business incubation?:

I thought an incubator was something that pre-mature babies and chickens sit in... well apparently they have them for start-ups now too.

Wikipedia says its a program to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies. Business incubator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I just seen this program on TV. The report was about a successful Australian incubator company called "Pollenizer": Growing & Investing in Startup Internet Businesses - Pollenizer - Sydney, Australia

Here is a link to the first video of the episode, you gotta see this: Video - Small Business - Yahoo!7

Damn if only I had of known about incubation when I originally started my last project which ended up failing miserably!

Explaining incubation in simple terms; basically if you have a sweet business idea, you go to these dudes give them a little bit of your start up money and they then work their butts off to make your idea work and pull in money. So instead of trying to attract some rich snob to invest or borrowing money and taking a massive risk with hiring staff and all the rest, these guys have whole teams which "incubate" and grow your idea.

They have accounts people, PR people, designers, coders, sales teams, mentoring programs. Its unbelievable!

If you idea works - great! If it doesnt, thats great too! Cos instead of spending hundreds of thousands, you only spend a fraction of that and if it fails - well guess what? You only lost a tiny amount of money you originally planned on invetsing, you dont have to lay off staff, you dont have to sell the business, sell all the assets and all that stuff. You just say thanks and come up with another idea.

THIS IS BRILLIANT!

They spoke about a lady who came to them with this idea. She was like "I got 200K, lets get this thing rolling". They told her to keep her 200K and to only invest 10K for about 6 weeks and see if they can tweak the idea until something clicks. Well nothing clicked for her and she still had 190K in the bank! Boom!

This is the best business news I have heard all year!

-Andrei
#business #hell #incubation
  • Profile picture of the author Brett Kruger
    Hey Andrei.

    I too saw a show this morning about it with Kochie. They had the guy who started Spreets who apparently sold out for $40m.

    Sounds like a bloody good idea if you ask me.

    Cheers Mate.

    Brett.
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    • Profile picture of the author goindeep
      Yeah mate it is awesome! Cant believe more warriors have not jumped on this thread.
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve B
        Andrei:

        Business incubation has been around for a long time. I am retired now, but during my working career I had quite a bit of contact with a number of business incubators.

        The concept is very business friendly: you take a business idea that holds promise, and you put the entrepreneur in a nurturing environment in order to help him get started professionally, cheaply, and with the availability of experienced mentors to advise and direct his progress.

        What you may not have known however, is that incubators are typically very selective in whom they work with, the types of businesses they accept, the outputs they expect, and often they will require personal guarantees and sometimes a portion of the business.

        It's not like they will help anyone with any kind of idea. Usually they are looking for the kind of ideas that will create lots of jobs and lots of revenue. Typical Warrior Forum kinds of businesses and products would never qualify for inclusion in these incubators.

        Steve
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        • Profile picture of the author stevenalowe
          Originally Posted by Steve B View Post

          Andrei:

          Business incubation has been around for a long time. I am retired now, but during my working career I had quite a bit of contact with a number of business incubators.

          The concept is very business friendly: you take a business idea that holds promise, and you put the entrepreneur in a nurturing environment in order to help him get started professionally, cheaply, and with the availability of experienced mentors to advise and direct his progress.

          What you may not have known however, is that incubators are typically very selective in whom they work with, the types of businesses they accept, the outputs they expect, and often they will require personal guarantees and sometimes a portion of the business.

          It's not like they will help anyone with any kind of idea. Usually they are looking for the kind of ideas that will create lots of jobs and lots of revenue. Typical Warrior Forum kinds of businesses and products would never qualify for inclusion in these incubators.

          Steve
          Many larger cities have business incubators, and they are - as you mentioned - very selective about with whom they work.

          There are (in the USA) national incubators like ycombinator et al, and some companies (like RackSpace) sponsor incubators, but the competition is fierce, the hours are long, they are often only interested in certain kinds of start-up ideas, and you pretty much have to have your butt in a chair in an office 16 hours a day for 8+ weeks.

          Investigate the ones in your area/niche and go for it - if you're young enough and/or in a stable enough financial situation to live off your savings while you run the incubating business up from zero to hero.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tricerra
    Business incubators come in all different sizes based on the area where you reside. In my neighborhood, the city provides a very easy to qualify for loan of up to $60,000 as long as you will produce a minimum of 25 long term jobs that pay at least $1.00 over minimum wage. I know the gentleman who runs the program and it has been in existence for almost 10 years. He told me that the loan has been awarded once and the company lasted less than a year.

    I went to him to get the operating capital to open a restaurant but was turned down because the business plan would not hire enough people in two years even though the idea was and continues to be strong.

    Incubators are often a way for politicians to make points by saying something is being done. I know they work and if you can find a way to get some help and make it work. Go for it.

    David
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    • Profile picture of the author goindeep
      It was news to me, thats for sure.

      Yeah - no way would they work with stock standard IMers.

      I think the 1-3% of people on here that do have those BIG ideas could benefit.
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