Business Incubator Series: Bruce Wright And Molly Gilbert, Arizona Center for Innovation – Tucson (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Does your incubator service the entire local community?

Bruce: Yes. We focus primarily on University of Arizona faculty and students, but about half of our companies come from the community. We’re open to any technology startup.

Irina: Would you describe the ideal company that would benefit from your incubation?

Bruce: I think that any company that is trying to take a technology product, service or idea to the market would benefit from what we do. We’re not a general-purpose incubator. We’re really focused on technology, partly because of our affiliation with the university and the kinds of expertise and facilities we can bring in.

We have laboratory facilities. We have access to laboratory equipment. We have the ability to tap into faculty expertise at the university. We’re all about technology companies. That’s what we focus on.

Irina: How many companies have been incubated to date?

Bruce: Since 2003, more than 45 companies have gone through the program, but we have touched a lot more. Not all the companies end up coming into the incubator. As we go through our first two phases, we’ll deal with, sometimes, 20 and 30 companies but only perhaps a third of those would actually give serious consideration to coming into the incubator. So, the 45 represent the number of companies that have gone through the formal program.

Irina: How many companies have you incubated in the past 12 months?

Molly: We have eight companies currently in our incubator. It’s probably about 15 that have been in the incubator over the past year. Some of them have graduated. Some of them have decided that they don’t have an idea that is ready to move forward at this time. Some are still there.

Bruce: When we say we have eight, those are the companies that are in our third stage or residence program. We are working with a much larger number of companies that are going through the first two phases of our program.

We view our incubator as providing a business development program and not as an organization providing low-cost office or laboratory space. We’re focused on trying to help the company develop and become successful.

At the core of what we do is a series of development programs, activities that are designed to move the company through its various development phases. That’s our core value. We have a comprehensive, integrated program of business development assistance, not only the courses that we offer, but also that we can tap into assistance, programs, workshops, and seminars from other providers here in the region.

Irina: Is there anything specific that makes your incubator different from the rest?

Bruce: I’m not sure that we’re any different from any other high-technology incubator. I think one of the big things we offer is a connection to the university, which is really important. We can draw upon faculty who have expertise in particular technology areas to work with our inventors or founders.

We can bring students into their companies to do internships and work as student workers. We have very high-quality wet and dry labs and equipment.  Again, I think our primary value proposition is built around the kind of business development assistance we give our companies.

Molly: Another thing that we do that a lot of other incubators don’t do is we accept companies that don’t have business plans, yet. We help them to put their business plans together. We accept companies a little bit earlier than a lot of other incubators normally would.

Irina: What are the sources of your applications?

Bruce: They come from a variety of sources. We spend a lot of time working with the colleges and departments at the university to identify faculty who are working in technology areas that might lead to a product that has commercial value.

We have a very strong relationship with the McGuire Entrepreneurship program within our College of Management. We review all of the students who are going through that program. They are required to put together a business plan. We get referrals from the Arizona Commerce Authority, from our local economic development organizations and from our local angel group, which is called the Desert Angels.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Business Incubator Series: Bruce Wright And Molly Gilbert, Arizona Center for Innovation – Tucson
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