Business Incubator Series: Ross Sanders, Bizdom U – Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: Could you describe an ideal company that would benefit from your program?

Ross: Most people that we bring into our program do not have established businesses. They are people who are seeking out ideas.

I can give you an example. There was a woman [Judy Davids] who had a lot of different ideas. She didn’t know which one to settle on, so we brought her into the program. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Jerry Creighton, Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology – Newark (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many inquiries do you receive a month?

Jerry: I get two or three a week.

Irina: Out of those, how many do you usually accept?

Jerry: That’s a very good question. It’s a cyclical thing. Typically, 50% of them are people who will say, “I like the idea. I’ll be back in six months, as soon as I get funding.” Some people say, “We’re ready right now.” I would say that 60% of all companies I talk to come in at some point, either immediately or sometime over the year. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: Would you give us an example of service providers that come to your incubator?

Tim: We have people who made a living for a couple of years doing programming for various of our companies. You come in, you are doing C++ or something like that, you work with one of our companies and they say, Look this guy picked up what I was trying to do, really fast. >>>

AngelList, CapLinked, And Financing Marketplaces

AngelList has been generating  a lot of buzz recently. Today, Business Insider has a piece claiming that they are scaring VCs to death. Really? I have a hard time believing that! In any case, I thought this would be a good time to give readers my perspective on AngelList, as well as other fund raising services that are coming into the market like CapLinked, which has recently raised money from star investors like Peter Thiel. Other related services are SecondMarket, Kickstarter, ProFounder and Invested.In, the latter three specifically focused on crowd funding (not CapLinked’s approach), while the first is more of a brokerage.

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1M/1M: VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What WE Do With Your Rejects

Last week I wrote the post VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What Are You Doing With Your Rejects? following which I had a number of significant private discussions which I curate here for the benefit of others who have the same kinds of questions. Overall, I think it will help the ecosystem better understand how we simply supplement existing resources and add value. Existing resources include incubators, accelerators, financing marketplaces like AngelList, and of course VCs and angels. >>>

An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Are there any other metrics that you measure?

Debera: No, just whether [the companies are] able to shift from needing the support of the incubator to being their own companies. That’s our goal, basically, that they’re launched and they’re successful. >>>

Entrepreneurship Education: Why Do Business Incubators Fail?

While my previous post on entrepreneurship education, Bootstrapping at B-Schools is still generating hot discussion, I would like to pose another important discussion topic: Why do business incubators fail?

Those among my readers who have perspective and analysis to offer on the subject, please feel free to jump right in.

[Please note that since this discussion started here on the blog in 2010, we have launched the One Million by One Million global initiative, and for incubators looking for a viable business model, you are very welcome to reach out to us to become a partner of our program.]