First Step Innovation Centre

A startup incubator is a collaborative program designed to help new startups succeed. Incubators help entrepreneurs solve some of the problems commonly associated with running a startup by providing workspace, seed funding, mentoring, and training.

The sole purpose of a startup incubator is to help entrepreneurs grow their business.

Here is a list of the most common services provided by business incubators:

• Help with business basics
• Networking opportunities
• Marketing assistance
• High-speed Internet access
• Accounting/financial management assistance
• Access to bank loans, loan funds and guarantee programs
• Help with presentation skills
• Connections to higher education resources
• Connections to strategic partners
• Access to angel investors or venture capital
• Comprehensive business training programs
• Advisory boards and mentors
• Management team identification
• Help with business etiquette
• Technology commercialization assistance
• Help with regulatory compliance
• Intellectual property management and legal counsel 

1. YOU CAN FIND FREEDOM

Freedom is the golden promise of entrepreneurship. Over and over again, entrepreneurs that we interview for Foundr Magazine point to autonomy, to independence, as a key driver of their decision to start a business.

This isn’t just a little anecdote I’ve noticed. It’s a huge reason that people become entrepreneurs.

In 2008, the academic International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal released stats from a global survey of early-stage business owners. Independence was the most common reason these people gave for starting their business:

• Within the 25 countries, the study looked at, an average of 38% of beginning business owners cited independence as a motivation.
• Independence served as a reason for 35% of entrepreneurs in the US and 39% in the UK.
• In Australia and Japan, 57% of beginning owners pointed to independence as their motivator.

Why does this fervor for freedom move people to hurl themselves into the crazy world of business? Freedom is having more control over the course of your life, having the power to direct it in the ways that you want, rather than working for the whims of others.

Owning your own business means being your own boss, deciding when you work, how you work, and what you work on.

Of course, business owners still do need to cater to market demand. But when you become the business owner, you choose how to do that. It gives you greater autonomy.

Accomplishing tough things gives us a sense of achievement.

Pride isn’t just a deadly sin. In healthy doses, it bolsters your self-worth and lets you take credit when you achieve something worthwhile (like creating a successful company).

Starting a small business is no small venture. You’ll pay for it in sweat, working hard to move onward. But that’s okay because entrepreneurs don’t shrink from effort or retreat from a challenge. We aim to do big things.

There are no participation trophies in entrepreneurship. When you succeed, you’ll know it’s worth celebrating.

The Journal of Business Venturing conducted a survey of 405 entrepreneurs and saw that almost 65% went into business at least in part because they wanted to achieve something and be recognized for it.

While some humility is still important, that pride and recognition can boost your self-esteem. Why care? A review of research literature published by Psychological Science in the Public Interest found that self-esteem works some pretty great magic. It gives you:

• More confidence in group settings
• More persistence
• Greater happiness

No existing company does everything right. Waste and inefficiency do saddle the private sector, and beyond the balance sheet sits the simple fact that we haven’t yet invented everything that could improve the world. One reason to start a business, then, is to go after these problems.

Think about your everyday life. Is everything perfect? No. At least now and again, you encounter things that annoy, pester, and drain you. You wish there was some way to beat these issues, but there isn’t, so you sigh, complain, and move on, hoping that someday it gets better. But if that’s you today, it doesn’t have to be, because each little annoyance you stumble into could be a business opportunity. There’s another approach:

1. When you have a problem in life, ask yourself: Does a good solution already exist?
2. If not, do other people have this problem?
3. If they do, consider starting a business based around a new solution to your problem.

For example, traditional Q-tips posed a safety problem to people’s ears, so one California team created the Oto-Tip, which aims to solve that problem (and netted them $77,000 in crowdfunding money to bring their company to life).

A few young men in the 1970s saw a problem with the difficulty and complexity of personal computing, so they tried to solve it by creating a new operating system. Today, we call that company Microsoft.

If you can relieve a pain point for people, then you have a reason to go into business.

A successful business could earn you lots of money. Arianna Huffington, the founder of Huffington Post, has an estimated net worth of $100 million. Richard Branson, the entrepreneur behind Virgin, had a net worth of $4.3 billion. Then there’s Bill Gates, who started Microsoft. He’s sitting at a nice $115 billion.

Money is a big reason that many people start businesses. The International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal study I mentioned earlier points out that, across the 29 countries examined, an average of 23% of entrepreneurs are in it (at least in part) to increase their wealth. While it’s a common motive, the percentage of entrepreneurs who embrace it varies between countries. Here’s a sampling:

• Australia: 11%
• United Kingdom: 15%
• New Zealand: 26%
• Mexico: 30%
• United States: 35%
• Chile and Greece: 42%

While the variations between countries are intriguing, the main takeaway for our purposes is that lots of people start businesses because they want to make money.

Of course, money isn’t everything, so wealth isn’t the only motivation that these entrepreneurs have. It’s just one reason among many. Even if you do care a lot about money, it’s true that most people, even most successful entrepreneurs, will not reach the stratospheric wealth of Huffington, Branson, and Gates. But respectable amounts of money do matter, and might even make you happier.

It’s said that money doesn’t buy happiness, but that old adage doesn’t quite jibe with modern research. Some scholars say that after a certain amount of income, more money doesn’t make you happier. But even they conceded that up until that point, more money does help.

Some sources suggest a cutoff point as $75,000 (earning more money after about $ per year doesn’t boost emotional well-being).

Don’t think that you need an MBA. This isn’t the corporate world–starting your own business is a different critter, and in many cases, you can pick up the entrepreneurial skills you need as you go.

In fact, many people start businesses because they want to learn new skills. It’s a dynamic way to grow your know-how.

When learning new skills, the sky is the limit. And if writing is a skill you improve, you might begin avoiding stale cliches like the one I just used.

Just a bit ago, I mentioned the Journal of Business Venturing survey. It also found that education is a big reason that entrepreneurs go at it: 65% of the people interviewed said that they started their business, at least in part, to keep learning.

Why does learning fill so much of the plate here? Starting a business takes more than your idea. You need the skills to make it a reality and bring in customers. Entrepreneurship lets you learn those skills as you go and apply them along the way.

Since you probably can’t be an expert in everything, you can also pay others to do some of these things (hey, us freelancers have to stay in business somehow). But the more you learn, the more you can do yourself.

Okay, so starting a business can help you learn new skills. Why should you care?

First, I’d say that learning is fun. Being able to do new things is just plain cool. But second, it carries psychological benefits, since learning new skills boosts your memory, even as you age.

Besides, in a world that seems ever-quickening, keeping up has it’s perks. 

“All around the world, people are going back to school, taking online courses, mastering additional languages, etc. — all in the spirit of growth and continual learning. With today’s more complex business environment, learning is not just a nice thing to do — it is essential for staying on top of things

(startup incubator in ahmedabad)

Understanding the role that SMEs play in the national economy and providing them with adequate office space doesn’t explain the value proposition of this initiative, or what makes it so unique. Young companies are particularly vulnerable in their early/start-up years, and particularly in Africa where there is a higher percentage of inexperienced workers starting businesses. A lack of exposure to the formal sector’s mature corporate governance (due to a widespread lack of employment opportunities) means that there are a significantly higher percentage of students or inexperienced entrepreneurs trying their luck at starting companies. ICT start-ups tend to attract technology professionals with little business experience. Further, the start-up environment can be significantly more hostile in a developing economy, where services remain inadequate, inaccessible or expensive. In a report quoted by the US Small Business Administration, the data shows that, across sectors, 66 percent of new establishments in the US were still in existence 2 years after their birth, and 44 percent were still in existence 4 years after 1 . Other analysts claim failure rates as high as 60 percent in the first five years and some anecdotal evidence in South Africa would even suggest it may reach up to 80%. Although these rates remain controversial, it’s broadly accepted that incubation programs can increase survival rates dramatically when programs are well-run and start-ups pay for services: "Our experience has shown a success rate of 75-81 percent for companies participating in our incubation programs" says Jill Sawyers, of The Innovation Hub in South Africa. Similar results are found at the Bandwidth Barn in Cape Town (started in 2000) with a tenant success rate of 65%: “In the past five years, of the 142 businesses that have passed through our doors, 111 of them are still in operation. This overall success rate is astonishing considering that most companies come to the Barn with little more than a laptop and a dream." In addition to the provision of physical space, clearly there are critical interventions that can be made by incubator programs that significantly help these individuals, such as management coaching, mentors, help in preparing effective business plans, administrative services, technical support, business networking, advice on intellectual property, and help in finding sources of financing.  

(startup incubator in ahmedabad)