

Ask HN: Are there any good university-affiliated incubators? - kljensen

I've been asked by a [very excellent] university to help them start an incubator that will work with faculty &#38; students to build in-lab technologies into fundable start-ups.<p>[Most everything will be seed/concept stage nearly always with a technology component, largely in biotech, chemicals, materials, life sciences -- not so much electronics, software, web.  The area lacks a large investment or start-up community.]<p>I'd like to know --- which are the most successful university-associated incubators? Any entrepreneurs here that had positive experiences with an incubator? (I did in first start-up, but not with a university-affiliated incubator.)
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designtofly
Georgia Tech's: Technology Incubator (ATDC): <http://atdc.org/>

Venture Lab: <http://innovate.gatech.edu/venturelab>

More generally, both of these entities fall under the Enterprise Innovation
Institute: <http://innovate.gatech.edu/>

~~~
kljensen
I've heard GT's incubation system was successful. Is there a secret sauce
there?

~~~
prodman
check with Lance Weatherby - twitter @lance <http://blog.weatherby.net> Lance
ran marketing at MindSpring then Earthlink. Stephen Fleming running Venture
Lab has significant experience as a VC - <http://academicvc.com/>

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JoeAltmaier
Spent two years in the basement of an old TB hospital, the local university
"incubator", hitting my head on ancient steam pipes wrapped in "Danger:
Asbestos!" tape. Other than cheap rent and a copier there wasn't anything to
recommend the experience.

~~~
kljensen
There was no mentoring? Just physical resources? [If antiquated and cancer-
causing...]

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Only ever saw the director thru his door at the end of the hall upstairs. He
spent the day reading thru a stack of newspapers, went home early.

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atamyrat
I'm undergraduate student interested in startups. Cheap rent space in campus
is nice to have, but all I want from my school is that they don't get in the
way. I mean, entrepreneur-friendly leave of absence policy, research programs
with more sane entry requirements (No, "Top 5% of highest GPA" isn't), etc.

Course exemption based on related work you've done/doing for startup would be
great too.

Ramen Scholarship to pay for food at bad times and let us worry about cloud
bills ourselves.

Ahh, is there any school like that?

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timanglade
In case you read French and want to see how it's been done on the other side
of the pond, check out Agoranov: <http://www.agoranov.com/>

It's designed to incubate faculty or student projects from the Paris metro
area. They're 100% seeded with public funds (from the Regional, National &
European levels). They incubate software, web but also electronics, green tech
and life sciences projects. They're not run by faculty or students but by a
dedicated team with professional and entrepreneurial experience.

Now, to be honest, I'd probably say they have had mild success so far. I know
it's far from being a true indicator of “success” in this field but for
example, they haven't incubated a company anyone would know about outside of
the local start-up scene. But they've been at it for 9 years and they're still
growing. They offer real workspaces in a handful of offices they operate
around the Paris area.

If you have any questions about them, I can try to answer or put you in touch
with the team.

~~~
kljensen
Thanks!

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dunkhippo33
Although not biotech/chem/life sci, Stanford's incubator might be worth
looking at:

<http://newsse.stanford.edu/>

Note: this is separate from their BASES competition (equiv of the MIT $100k)
They take business ideas/biz plans from students, fund them, and let those
students run them. I had a great experience learning how to start and run a
business through there. However, these companies are VERY MUCH tied to
Stanford, and the goal is to give students hands-on entrepreneurship
experience rather than to necessarily grow these businesses to become the next
Google. Afterall, because these are entirely student-run businesses, turnover
is constant!

Harvard has an equiv incubator: <http://www.harvardstudentagencies.com/>

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joez
I think incubators have fallen out of favor.

What most universities do have are business plan competitions. These usually
offer significant prizes and great feedback.

Also, any reason for the secrecy as to what university it is?

~~~
kljensen
Indeed -- biz plan competitions are both fun and useful exercises. I did the
50k (now 100k) at MIT years back and it really took us from idea to...well...a
plan.

[Sorry for not naming the university -- just didn't seem appropriate quite yet
as it is still up-in-the-air.]

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jseifer
The UCF/Disney incubator was pretty good when I went through it. They require
you to take a (8 or 12 week, I don't remember) course that goes through every
aspect of starting a business. One thing to note about this is that it's not
specifically tech oriented. Each class is taught by a different (and usually
quite successful) entrepreneur except for the part about raising money (which
was taught by a local banker). At the end you have to pitch the class and make
your presentation.

<http://www.incubator.ucf.edu/>

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mdolon
I took part in a semi-incubator that included several entrepreneurial classes
and coaching sessions, provided by the Kenan-Flagler business school at UNC-
CH. The program is called Launch the Venture and you can find more info about
it here: [http://www.kenan-
flagler.unc.edu/Programs/MBA/concentration/...](http://www.kenan-
flagler.unc.edu/Programs/MBA/concentration/entrepreneurial/launch.cfm)

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thejo
Venture Lab at Berkeley - <http://cet.berkeley.edu/connect/teams>

I'm quite sure the The Lester Center at Berkeley has a program too -
<http://entrepreneurship.berkeley.edu/main/index.html>

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brianlash
AlphaLab in Pittsburgh has strong ties to Pitt and CMU by virtue of its parent
organization, InnovationWorks. That's not to say that the relationship guides
decisions though. Steve Klabnik (username steveklabnik) could sound off on the
incubator's success as he took part in its most recent investing cycle.

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spydertennis
Yale runs a pretty good incubator program during the summer for
undergraduates. It has produced some fairly successful companies.
<http://yalestation.yale.edu/yei/> I would encourage you to contact them.

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andrewhyde
For those of you in the advertising space check out the CU program here:
<http://bdw.colorado.edu/>

I've been over a couple times, impressive stuff.

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momoro
There's also the Polskey center at Booth.
<http://www.chicagobooth.edu/entrepreneurship/>

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sharksandwich
Have a look at the ATI - <http://www.ati.utexas.edu>

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Mz
These seems so obvious, but sometimes what is obvious to me isn't obvious to
others:

I think I would look at the history of Silicon Valley. My recollection is they
started that way. (I think the university was Stanford.)

I think I would also look at the National Laboratory programs, which develop
technology and then do business partnerships....or some such. It's been a
while since I read anything about what the National Labs do.

Good luck with this.

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kapauldo
The answer is no, sadly. There are no good university affiliated incubators.
They are all inevitably run by professors and academic administrators who have
no understanding of startups (financial and time crises, for example). I have
a lot of experience here, and I don't mean to sound cynical but I'm 100%
certain here. There is not 1 single successful university incubator if you
take percentage of going concern businesses (successful launches) over
business initiations as a metric. Every professor wants to "start a business"
but none of them are willing to take the risk of leaving tenured jobs, so they
all end in resentful exploited students walking away. I advise you to steer
clear of this.

~~~
kljensen
Certainly there are countless examples of faculty serving on SABs of start-ups
using technologies coming out of their labs. [I agree faculty rarely leave
jobs for this, but then, they're not typical operational people anyway...]

I agree regarding metrics: if it's absolute returns, there's little hope for
the univ-associated incubator model. This is at least partly because you might
be obligated to spend time with teams on which you would otherwise pass.

But, clearly the university has numerous metrics including faculty/student
retention & opportunities, community development, publicity, etc.

May I ask -- is your negative perception rooted in experiences with
incubators?

~~~
kapauldo
my negative perception is partially rooted in experiences with incubators, but
more so with academics in general. academics would do far better (and so would
everyone) if they just licensed their IP for a small percent (like 1-5%) and
then let ambition entrepreneurs take the innovation to market. the
universities are full of trophy technologies because the academics themselves
confuse their ability to innovate academically with their ability and
willingness (including personal risk) to execute in business. i have observed
first and second hand that there is a trend with academics that they are never
willing to risk their own skin but will gladly risk young people's skin, and
overvalue their contributions, and effectively take advantage of young
people's innocent ambition. and it is innocent ambition that _always_ executes
innovation.

i reiterate my advice to the poster, walk away from this. he will waste 5 or
10 years of his life on this and statistically, there will not be a single
business of lasting value that will come out of it.

