Business Incubator Series: Interview With Ebony Johnson, Entrepreneurial Programs Champion, TechTown — Detroit, Michigan (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Ebony: We have this quadrant approach. If you think of a quadrant, on the X axis there is the stage of business development. So, the company can be in its early, early idea phase, or it can be in its growth phase. Then, on the Y axis is really the founders’ entrepreneurial experience. So, they can be novices or they can be serial entrepreneurs. And we break down what services we provide based on where they fall in that quadrant. >>>

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 that requirement. The entrepreneurs have to be in the city.

Two, they’re not close enough to commercialization. They still have to develop their business model and product a bit more before they’re close enough to commercialization for us to consider them. As I said, we’re called an accelerator. The idea is to identify those technology-based companies that are within a year of commercialization. Our goal is to make sure they achieve commercialization within a year or sooner. >>>

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 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many companies have you incubated since inception?

Debera: Up until now, we’ve been involved with 20. We just brought in four new companies. The fourth will be coming in March. Of those, 16 are still in business. >>>

1M/1M: Alternative Financing For Startups Using A Sales Channel Partner

In this post, I want to discuss today’s news: 1M/1M Announces Partnership With Persistent; CrowdEngineering First Beneficiary, and explain the thought process behind it. It is a creative sales channel strategy that acts as alternative financing to mitigate some of the severe limitations of early stage startups.

In my experience, building a marketing channel/sales channel is one of the most expensive pieces of a startup P&L, and a notorious contributor to small companies running out of cash and going out of business. Typically, this happens for a number of reasons: >>>

An Interview With David Monkman, President And CEO, National Business Incubation Association (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How else do you work with your partners?

David: Like any trade association, we depend on partners to help sponsor NBIA and our members. Typically, what we do is we have a level-based sponsorship model. For certain advertising rates, we will promote a partner’s product to our members.

For higher levels of sponsorship, there would be more advertising channels employed and a greater number of impressions sought. So, for example, the cost per impression for a $5,000 sponsorship would be close to 30,000 impressions.

A $50,000 sponsorship, just to give you a sense of how large the range can be, would involve more than 1 million impressions. So, we try to be an advertising partner for vendors that want to provide services to incubator managers or their clients. >>>

An Interview With David Monkman, President And CEO, National Business Incubation Association (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What else is important for a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem?

David: The corporations are an important ingredient. They reflect potential demand for the products and services produced by these entrepreneurs. So, making sure they understand the participation expectations is important. That’s one thing we need. Another is making sure that the kinds of services that incubators offer are robust and provide a strong foundation for entrepreneurs in becoming a sustainable group for participating in an incubation process. >>>