Get Your Business Funded: Creative Methods for Getting the Money You Need

How It Works

Here are two examples of how two very different business incubators operate:

TechStars is a private (not quasi-public like most) three-month business incubation program run out of four cities: Boston, Boulder, New York, and Seattle. The program accepts only about 10 businesses per city per year, although hundreds apply.

The incubator chooses companies that propose “products that solve real problems or create meaningful innovations.” TechStars especially looks for businesses with a great team and as such rarely accepts companies with only one founder. As they say, “[One of] the best things you can do to strengthen your application [is to] round out your team with people who have business, technical, and other necessary skills.” (www.techstars.org.)

Companies that are accepted into the program receive $6,000 in seed funding per owner (maximum $18,000 total). As TechStars puts it, their purpose is to help participants “get their startup funded and off the ground while learning from the best.”

If you get accepted into this incubator, you would get, aside from the seed money:

• Advice and mentoring. During the intense three months of the program, participants have access to an array of talented mentors. “About two or three times per week, we will organize an informal dinner and invite our mentors to speak on a relevant topic. These will be presented as appropriate by highly successful entrepreneurs, angel investors, legal experts, venture capitalists, investment bankers, ...