"From Idea to Launch & Beyond: How Incubators Propel Your Startup Success"


Starting a business can be a daunting task, and making it sustainable while scaling it up is even more challenging. Having a guiding hand that not only assists in times of uncertainty but also provides the necessary tools and resources to achieve your goals faster is crucial. This is precisely what incubators can do for you.



In this article, we'll explore the challenges faced by startups and
how incubation centers can help them overcome these obstacles. Let's dive into this with an example featuring our favorite childhood friend,
Winnie the Bear, the helpful character who always solves problems and cares for others.
Imagine Winnie, a resident of a tier-II or tier-III city in India, discovers a significant problem that can be commercialized. As he starts his startup, he faces challenges in monetizing his idea. Friends suggest he consult an incubator. He reaches out and discusses his problems.

     Let's explore Winnie's startup journey and how an incubator helps him overcome his challenges:


WORKFORCE
It is imperative to understand the value of the team for any business to succeed. Be it the members of the founding team, the upper management or the talented individuals who collectively resonate to bring out the best for the company; a good team is invaluable. A strong team is crucial for any business to succeed. Finding the right co-founder, core team, and talented individuals can be a real struggle Incubation centers are well-connected with the startup ecosystem and academic institutions. They help find the right business partners, hire interns and employees, and build the team's capacity to meet business needs. As a first-time startup founder, Winnie benefits by getting the right people on board.






INFRASTRUCTURE
Winnie now has the challenge of finding an affordable workspace for his startup where the team can not only just sit but can have access to different resources to take their idea to next level. Incubation centres generally have co-working spaces, along with highly advanced Fab labs, material labs, sector specific labs and more. The state-of-art infrastructure provide a holistic environment for the growth of the idea while accessing the network, labs and other facilities present. Moreover, the incubator can also provide you with credits and benefits from multiple corporate partners which further reduces initial business cost. Initiatives such as Atal Innovation Mission and establishment of Atal Incubation Centres (AIC) under it has contributed to increase in the number of such well- equipped incubation centers in India and these are not just limited to tier-1 cities!.


NAVIGATION
Winnie's newly onboarded rightly structured core team is now having a co-working space as their place to work. With the required labs having necessary hardware and software right next to them, the team is doing wonder's but they still need to refine their business ideas to help generate revenues and the team needs training and guidance to navigate through the complex business dynamics. In this case, various curated incubation programs offer multiple support services to startups. These programs provide upskilling on crucial topics necessary for building a successful startup, such as business models, financial modeling, product-market fit, and fundraising. This is often achieved through workshops conducted by subject matter experts. Additionally, these programs conduct need-gap analysis to understand the specific pain points of startups and assign one-on-one mentors to help shape and guide them effectively.




NETWORKING
As a wise entrepreneur, Winnie knows that refining the business strategies is what he needs to begin with, but to commercialize, he needs proper execution. Further, connections are apparently the need to go up in the ladder. As the saying goes, "Your Network is Your Networth", thus it becomes important to find the right circles to find potential buyers, and suppliers and to form other such business partnerships. Also, in the fast-moving business world, one would want to keep having opportunities to network with people who believe in the founder's vision and provide for essential capital for the business to grow. Incubation centres can essentially provide you such business networking opportunities regularly through cohorts, pitching events or demo days, startup exhibitions, founder's get togethers and more. They may also leverage the connections from their ecosystem partnerships for you to connect people from various backgrounds like business, legal, compliance, finance etc. to help your business push through the storm of uncertainties.


INVESTMENTS
While it is most important for a business to be profitable and sustainable, fundraising has become quite a necessity in specific sectors where exponential growth can only be fuelled by external funds. As a founder, one must know when and from where to raise the funds. Winnie being a smart leader decides to first take the benefit of the government schemes available with Incubation centres which is a significantly lower risk capital than private equity. The government funding schemes for high-growth tech-driven startups are generally being facilitated through incubation centers. This funding through incubation centers could come in the form of grants, debt-linked instruments, or equity-linked funding. Schemes like Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, NIDHI-Prayas, NIDHI-EIR, NIDHI-Seed Support Program, E-yuva fellowship, and more are fueling the growth of startups across India. Also, if an entrepreneur wants to raise higher funding through HNIs, angel investors, and Venture Capitalists, the incubator can guide them in becoming ready with fundraising knowledge and facilitate the introductions as also mentioned above.




EXPANSION
It often happens that even the best startups go unnoticed on the platforms that matter, mainly because of a lack of information and access to such platforms. This may lead to an opportunity cost that otherwise would have converted into an effective business marketing move. Startups attend global exposure events like International conferences, and expos and be part of foreign business delegations from the country to learn best international practices and boost their expansion nationally and globally. It is one of those elements which was very hard to access for startups till a few years back. But now with incubation centers in place, such platforms are very much within reach of the startups. Multiple startups recently benefitted by becoming a part of Startup Mahakumbh 2024 organized by the honorable Government of India at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. Winnie and his startup can go global with such support from the Incubator. The cost of these trips is generally partially or fully covered by the incubator or the organizing committees to provide global exposure to budding Indian entrepreneurs.




As we saw, the incubation centers are helping the startups through their journey, it is high time the startups need to know what they can leverage out from the Incubators. The current policies and practices are very much aligned to the right habitat for Indian startups to grow exponentially and globally. With support from Incubators, we believe potential startups can fast track their path to profitability and the cover the road to success with fewer breakdowns and bottlenecks. You may also find the solutions to your problems like our friend WINNIE (Workforce, Infrastructure, Navigation, Networking, Investments and Expansion) whose business got benefitted by joining an Incubator.
We, at AIC-RNTU Foundation also try to facilitate the best of resources for the portfolio startups and are happy to help you in any of the challenges you might be facing in your business. You may reach out to us at aic@rntu.ac.in or 0755-2700485 to know more.