Businesses require that there be some support sought for and input, and to make that work there are the options of signing up for programs such as incubators and accelerators, as well as crowdfunding to help with that. Making an elaboration on 'The Power of Incubator and Accelerators in Silicon Valley' on Season 4, Episode 3 of the Gamers Change Lives Podcast is Sara Rauchwerger, who is the founder of TechLAB Innovation Center, USA.
With a background in engineering and international business, Sara’s interests were expanded as she had always had a knack for how products made their way into the market. Having over a decade’s worth of experience in startups, her journey with TechLAB in Silicon Valley has been partnering with investors to mostly source deals for businesses; giving them room to accelerate, finding them a customer base, partners, investments – generally helping them scale up in operations. So they built a center for startups who were looking to build companies, because there are many like that in Silicon Valley, and that been the way until COVID-19 struck, with operations now done online.
What incubators and accelerators do is to help build ideas that may be facing an inadequacy on the business, legal and/or operations sides. What you are doing as entrepreneurs is seeking expertise to help develop a specific product or service as you locate the right environment to help facilitate that. And there are different types of incubators to help with the right resources to have your idea or product make the milestone you expect and beyond. She cites Y-Combinator as an example, where they “plant many seeds” hoping that there will be a good number that will blossom, and also their term sheet which helps businesses get investments easier and accelerates them. Differentiating the terms incubator and accelerator is to note the one is about the basics of building a business and the other is about having a product that you want to market.
For entrepreneurs who have only but an idea, Sara advises that they speak to people who have signed up for incubators to find out more for themselves or they join an incubator to find out on what expertise is being offered, alongside what verticals they may be focusing on. There could be a network they will be given to help find the right location to be in. There is also LinkedIn, which can be very resourceful to helping you as entrepreneurs with people who may be in the area of expertise you seek, or enrolling for entrepreneurship programs in universities. You can also find out from hubs and innovation centers that may have liaised with government and/or corporations to have incubator and accelerator programs run. What is important in all of these examples is to talk to people, because it is only when you talk to someone that you will be able to locate the right place to be in.
To get accepted into incubators and accelerators is to know and identify the requirements as each stage may come with something different. For accelerators they may be looking for your analytical and problem skills as they may present you with case studies. Also to note is to have your company registered and operating for a few years with a reasonably good track record of transactions and access to other financial information. There could also be the requirement of a pitch deck, which is a presentation of your idea and what you intend doing with it. Formats and templates are available online in case you may be having challenges developing one.
This was such an interesting conversation to have with Sara Rauchwerger on the Gamers Change Lives Podcast where she speaks on the Power of Incubators and Accelerators In Silicon Valley. Listen to the full podcast episode with Sara on all major podcast streaming platforms. The episode is also live on our website. Don’t move a muscle – listen here.
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Written By Jeffrey Osei-Agyeman
