In order to determine what services will be offered by the incubator, it is essential that one define the stage of the enterprises at which the incubator will offer support.
The process of creating and developing businesses can be shown to have four distinct stages, as shown in the figure below:
- Conception: the entrepreneur identifies a market niche / need on the part of a specific target public and decides to open a company. The focus of this stage is development of a consistent business plan.
- Emerging Company: based on the already elaborated Business Plan, entrepreneurs begin developing the product and/or service to be offered. The objective at this stage is to have at least one prototype of the product to be offered. The legal formalization of the company may also occur in this stage.
- Consolidation: the next stage in the evolutionary process of the company is consolidation in the market in which it has opted to function, with growth in the number of clients.
- Growth: as of the company?s consolidation, the business will seek out new markets and expand its field of activity.
Stages/Critical Issues
On defining the stage of the enterprises that are apt to submit proposals, the incubator limits the scope and variety of the services to be offered. Based on the figure above, the incubator can support the following processes:
- Pre-incubation: the incubator supports enterprises that are in the stages of conception and emerging company or, in other words, it is not necessary for the company to be defined in legal terms or to possess a product or service that is ready for marketing. Just as in the case of the Projects Hotel put forward by the CDT of the University of Brasília, it is often true that the entrepreneur does not even have to have the business plan fully elaborated, since this will be created during the pre-incubation process.
- Incubation: in this process, companies already begin with a defined legal personality and with products and services available for marketing.
Responsible Parties
- The team that is elaborating the project must do definition of the stage of the enterprises to be supported by the incubator. Thus, it is important that at least one representative of each institution be involved in this stage of the project. The objective is to guaranty that the interests and points of view of all the institutions involved be taken into consideration.
Results
- Definition of the stage of the enterprises to be supported by the incubator facilitates the choice of the services to be offered, since the needs of the enterprises become clearer in this way. Parallel to this, it also becomes clear just who is the target audience, thus facilitating elaboration of the incubator?s marketing plan.
Keywords
Stage of the Enterprises, pre-incubation, incubation.
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