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Incubating Innovations

By Duncan Stewart

High-tech startups often face significant R&D costs and difficult market penetration hurdles. In their early development, these companies are at great risk of under-funding, under-staffing, and lack of focus. During this period of vulnerability, technology business incubators can be a tremendous help to increase a startup's chances of success. The incubator concept has been around since the 1950s, but entered their hay day in the 80s and 90s during the tech boom. According to the National Business Incubator Association (www.nbia.org), there are now over 1100 incubators in the U.S. and more than 5,000 worldwide. Most incubators provide best practice advisory services and access to facilities and equipment at greatly reduced rates. This is made possible through funding provided by governments, corporate sponsors, and philanthropic donations. For example, the Colorado Springs Technology Incubator has received support from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the State of Colorado Office of Economic Development, the City of Colorado Springs, the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corporation, and several local corporations such as Compass Bank, Colorado Lending Source, Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting, eEmployer Solutions, Sparks Willson law firm, Stockman Kast accounting, and Sandia Advertising. We also have close relations with the Chamber of Commerce, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the Small Business Development Center, High Altitude Investors, the Service Corp of Retired Executives (SCORE), and several patent firms. All of these players are dedicated to supporting the economic development of our region and understand that CSTI provides critical resources to support entrepreneurs. However, these resources are limited and as such each potential client must go through a rigorous selection process to enter the program. A typical stay in an incubator is one to three years, after which the company "graduates" and makes room for the next generation. We're all in this together, so feel free to explore the website and contact us if you have any questions.