What Works in Business Incubation? Part II
Jonathan Morgan is a School of Government faculty member. This is a continuation of the blog post from December 6, 2011, which examined some of the elements of successful business incubation strategies. As discussed in the previous post, there are some common practices and characteristics that tend to be associated with effective business incubation programs. However, there is significant variation in how small business incubators around the U.S. focus their efforts and target different types of entrepreneurs and small enterprises.
A recent CNN Money article demonstrates this variation by highlighting seven successful incubators that range in focus from serving women and minority entrepreneurs, to food-related businesses, to technology start-ups, to bio-pharma, health care, and environmental (clean tech) businesses:
- WESST Enterprise Center in Albuquerque, NM
- Mi Kitchen es su Kitchen in New York, NY
- Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, CA
- San Jose BioCenter in San Jose, CA
- Environmental Business Cluster in San Jose, CA
- Metro Tech Business Development Center in Oklahoma City, OK
- Innovation Depot in Birmingham, AL
These examples show how business incubators can be used to support key growth sectors within a local economy and help a community or region achieve important goals for both economic development and community development.
