Business Incubator Series: Micah Kotch, NYC ACRE At NYU-Poly, New York (Part 3)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Micah: For the most part, the entrepreneurs who are on our waiting list are looking for physical space. We refer them out to other spaces. We’ll refer to Deb Johnson (Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation), or there’s something here called the Coalition of Office Space Providers. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Micah Kotch, NYC ACRE At NYU-Poly, New York (Part 2)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: At what stage do you usually prefer that businesses apply for incubation?

Micah: We like to see them before they’ve closed their Series A round of funding, so anywhere between friends and family [funding] and revenue.

Companies can come in with some revenue. But if they’ve closed their A round and they’re already more than 15 people, then they’re probably too late. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Micah Kotch, NYC ACRE At NYU-Poly, New York (Part 1)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to Micah Kotch, who serves as director of operations for NYC ACRE at NYU-Poly (the New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy). NYC ACRE is seeded by a four-year, $1.5 million grant from the NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority).

NYC ACRE was created in partnership with the  New York City Economic Development Corporation, the New York City Investment Fund, Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and NYU.

NYC ACRE is a subset of the NYU-Poly Varick Street Incubator, which Micah also helps to run. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Fred Hoch And Terry Howerton, TechNexus, Chicago, Illinois (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Terry: How do we reproduce that collaborative environment online in a way that the companies that come through here – almost 1,000 companies came through in the past three months – how do they collaborate without having to come through the facility every day? How do we extend that in way that there’s still value added but through our online tools? >>>

Business Incubator Series: Fred Hoch And Terry Howerton, TechNexus, Chicago, Illinois (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Terry: If a company is adding value to this ecosystem, we don’t have to charge them cash to be in this space. It’s not formulaic by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a lot more difficult to manage an incubator like this, but it’s a lot more valuable at the end of the day, to do it this way.

It also depends on the time and the availability. If it makes sense for us to bring somebody in and we’ve got some room and we can afford to take a little bit more risk … Again, our revenue model is not just about the real estate. We don’t have to charge for the real estate.

If we’ve got opportunity or upside in corporate development or equity, then we can afford to be a little more risk-taking on the real estate side of it. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Fred Hoch And Terry Howerton, TechNexus, Chicago, Illinois (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Terry: One of the companies that launched here last week is called Photogram. It is similar to Instagram in the mobile app space, which was very popular. Photogram [which targets new parents] also has been performing just about as well, in terms of getting customers, as Instagram was. Instagram was a big national success in terms of how much people paid attention. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Fred Hoch And Terry Howerton, TechNexus, Chicago, Illinois (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Terry: ITA, the Clean Energy Trust and almost 75 other organizations meet at Tech Nexus every month –roundtables for entrepreneurs, legal discussions and also a huge number of user groups, special interest groups, things like the Amazon Web services group, the Lean Startup group or the Adobe Flex User group.

So, it’s really an opportunity for the company that moves in to figure out how to engage and plug in to the learning and collaboration opportunities that surround them here. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Fred Hoch And Terry Howerton, TechNexus, Chicago, Illinois (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Can you think of anything else that makes your incubator unique?

Terry: One is the community collaboration aspect. The other one is the fact that we are not focused just on a certain type or certain size of company or certain type of entrepreneur. It’s important to have a good, balanced ecosystem here.

I’ve not actually seen that in any other incubator anywhere. Most other incubators that we’ve studied tend to have a strong connection to one university or one government entity, or they tend to be narrowly focused on specific industry segments. >>>