Starting your brand new business is a seriously exciting time, full of ideas, energy and enthusiasm. But it is dangerously easy to get lost and lonely on the journey to success, making avoidable mistakes.  

You may have heard of business incubators, but dismissed the idea.  Before you strike out on your own, read our below reasons for starting your business through an incubator. 

The MVP is just one piece of the puzzle.

Building your MVP is only the start of your new business launch. 

An incubator provides support for the whole journey; from validating your business idea to legal issues, to supporting with business planning, and beyond. 

One of the most challenging areas for any business is (a) finding the right customers and (b) keeping them.  An incubator can equip you with the tools to laser-focus in on the perfect audience for you, keep them captivated and convert them into champions of your app. 

Being in an incubator increases your survival rate. (Fact.)

“Most startups consider the contribution of the incubator or accelerator they attended to have been significant or even vital to their success.”

This government report investigates the impact of incubators and accelerators on business success in the UK.  The results are overwhelmingly positive. 

In fact, startups that begin in a business incubator have an 87% survival rate. 

Funding can be hard to find. 

The world of funding can be seriously confusing.  

Even if you do manage to get the attention of an investor, big money doesn’t necessarily mean good money, and it is very important to choose your investors wisely. 

A great business incubator will have an established, and very powerful network of investors that they will introduce you to as part of the incubation process.  

Startups that join incubators are more likely to find investment and raise larger investment rounds.

Better still, many incubators offer funding to their most promising startups (we invest £10k into the most promising idea in every cohort). 

Failing is part of succeeding, but you don’t need to fail that much.

An incubator provides access to entrepreneurs who have been there, done that and got the t-shirt many, many times.  They have tried, failed and learnt lessons so that you don’t have to. 

Mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs will actively accelerate your learning and reduce the number of (potentially costly, sometimes fatal) mistakes you make.

Grow your network of startup founders.

In our experience, one of the things founders say was most useful about incubation was the ability to meet other startup founders.   

Forming relationships with those in the same boat is not only helpful for potential business partnerships, it is tremendously useful for learning, sharing and questioning your ideas. 

These relationships typically last a lot longer than the 16 weeks of an incubator programme. Just imagine if you were one of those people who graduated from the same Y-Combinator incubator as Dropbox or Airbnb, and you could just pick up the phone and ask those founders for a chat?!

Overall, startups that choose to incubate have: 

• A much stronger value proposition and proof of concept

• A powerful MVP, that has been tested and has paying customers

• Knowledge imparted by experienced, skilled mentors

• Specific skills, training and seminars

• Access to powerful networks of investors 

• An excellent network of fellow startup founders

Starting a business on your own, whilst not impossible, can be a long and lonely journey, filled with mistakes and setbacks.  Why not investigate the idea of a business incubator to help smooth that path and dramatically increase your likelihood of success.