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

15 points by kljensen ↗ HN
I've been asked by a [very excellent] university to help them start an incubator that will work with faculty & students to build in-lab technologies into fundable start-ups.

[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.]

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.)

27 comments

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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...]
cperciva
cancer-causing

Asbestos insulation is not cancer-causing. Asbestos dust is 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.
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.

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/

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.
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?
jhancock
world's finest engineers? ;)
andrewhyde
I would 2nd contacting Lance and Stammy, every time I visit I am impressed.
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.

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.]

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/

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?

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.