If you’ve recently taken inspiration from the success story of an entrepreneur who decided to take the road less traveled by and yet, made it BIG in the start-up world, but are unsure of how to tick mark the many little boxes on your business checklist, then it’s time to meet – The Start-up Incubator.
Gone are the days when businesses began from your own or a friendly neighbor’s garage. Beyond co-sharing workspace, an incubator is your best bet for mentorship, infrastructure and even funding!
Want to be the next big thing? Here are 5 reasons why your start-up needs an incubator:
Get a head start
At the heart of every start-up is ideation. An incubator gives you space/room for thought so be ready to go all out and explore your strengths and weaknesses. The mundane tasks such as accounting, administration, mobilizing infrastructure, sharing work spaces, etc. are looked after by the incubator, while you call the shots for your business!
Access to peer-to-peer networks
With an incubator, start-ups co-exist in an eco-system that nurtures entrepreneurs with disruptive ideas in need of tangible resources for transformation of ideas into commercial ventures. Given an incubator’s knowledge of the start-up landscape, it’s a golden opportunity to learn, network and build relations for the growth of your business.
Invaluable mentorship
Incubators are peopled by experienced mentors who have faced the agony of failure and tasted the highs of success. When it comes to defining your vision, fine tuning your strategy, laying down a roadmap, and challenging yourself, an incubator is one of the best places to be. That doesn’t mean that you will not have to learn a few bitter truths for yourself but it just makes it that much easier when you know that there is a hand holding you in case you stumble.
The learning curve
Of course, yours will hardly be the only start-up in the incubator. Making errors and learning from your mistakes is part and parcel of founding a business. But just imagine the advantages of living in an environment where you could learn from shared experiences. This is your chance to gain insight into what worked and did not work for other start-ups and entrepreneurs, and perhaps tailor your strategy accordingly! A win-win, isn’t it?
Resource raising
Finance is the life-blood of business and once your idea has been validated and you are ready to scale up, you need an investor who believes in your dream and is willing to invest in it. An incubator offers you the opportunity to present your idea and future plan to investors on D-day. Investors generally favor start-ups emerging from incubators with a proven track record of successful vetting of potential winners.
— by Jet Labs, a division of JetSynthesys runs Garage, a San Francisco style accelerator and co-working space in Parel, Mumbai.
