Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 4)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi Irina: Do you have any special initiatives at the moment? Tom: We try to team up with different organizations to do stuff. We’ve got a contract with the Department of Energy to put together this “MegaWatt Ventures” program.

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 3)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi Irina: What are the tools and methodologies you use in your entrepreneurship class? Tom: One of our staff members runs the program, and we bring in external consultants, subject matter experts, for each one. One of my staff members sits in on the class every time and

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Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: How many investments has your pre-seed fund made in the past 12 months? Skip: In the past 12 months, we’ve made 12 investments. In the life of the fund, we’ve made 52 investments.

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 2)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi Tom: It is our job to figure out how to help entrepreneurs. We have about forty people in the area who donate their time and effort to help these companies. There is a lot of peer help going on among the entrepreneurs. We also provide free accounting

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Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Can you name some success stories? Skip: Compendia Bioscience is one company that literally took full advantage every program that SPARK offers. It’s a cancer diagnostic. It’s a software product that helps drug manufacturers and developers identify the best course of action in trying to cure

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Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 1)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi I am talking to Tom O’Neal, executive director of the University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program which is a University-driven community partnership that provides training, infrastructure, and professional services for entrepreneurs in central Florida.

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: What are the main reasons that out of the 30 entrepreneurs who apply for your services every month, 25 get rejected? Skip: The main reasons are one, they’re not in the city of Ann Arbor. Our primary stakeholder, which provides a lot of the services, has

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Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Skip: [The entrepreneurs that come to us], everyone’s a little different in their company growth. So, all of our programs are customized. We differ from many incubators in that regard. I think the kind of consulting services that we provide are custom, too; they are specific to

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