Incubator Funds in India: Adult Supervision?

Okay, so we are talking about designing an incubator that will give entrepreneurs access to concept engineering, engineering management, product marketing, sales, biz dev, legal and financial talent and resources that is well beyond what a small startup could ever dream of attracting.

This definitely is starting to sound too good to be true!

Wait, no, this will not come for free. Entrepreneurs will need to trade-off one big thing: Freedom.

By agreeing to work “under” adult supervision means that entrepreneurs will have a level of reporting requirements that are
likely to be quite significant. Budgets will be tightly monitored. Milestones will be discussed, but once agreed upon, they would be expected to be met. If that feels to you like micro-management, you should look elsewhere.

I can tell you from my personal experience, at one point of my career, I did work in an incubator setting, and I had to pretty
much work within a fairly strict budget, report up to the person running the incubator, etc. What it gave me, at that point of my career, is precisely what I needed: Adult Supervision.

Did everything work out well in that experience? No.

Was it useful? Yes.

Thus, I would encourage entrepreneurs to seek out adult supervision, especially those of you who believe you would be going down the path of serial entrepreneurship. Do one venture under adult supervision, bite your lips and deal with the loss of freedom, and you would be much more equipped in the next round.

In any case, freedom is a myth as long as you have taken investors’ money. The only true freedom is when you are entrepreneuring on your own dime, which I assume you are not.

This segment is a part in the series : Incubator Funds in India