Mercury Launchpad: Pre-Incubation Firm Scouts Incubator Clients

Pre-Incubation Firm Scouts Incubator Clients

 

Vol. 13, Issue 6
November 2007

NBIA Updates

National Business Incubation Association

 

Incubator managers know that it's not just the number of potential clients walking through the door that's important. Quality matters, too. Most programs have entry criteria for would-be incubator clients to ensure that companies are ready and willing to accept incubation services.

 

But what about the entrepreneurs who have a great idea, but haven't yet started a business?

 

EmergeMemphis, a mixed-use program in Memphis, Tenn., has one way to capture such clients.  It hosts Launchpad, a firm (started by an Emerge graduate) that helps nascent entrepreneurs turn their ideas into companies, in exchange for an equity stake in that company.

 

"We see [Launchpad] as a precursor to EmergeMemphis," says incubator President Gwin Scott. "They will be our pipeline for qualified companies -- all pre-screened."

 

That's important because Scott already has his hands full with his 27 incubator clients. "I spend a lot of time on them with strategy, sales, investments," he says. He also is raising funds to expand the incubator so it can take up to 15 additional clients. That leaves little time for the kind of hand-holding a totally new entrepreneur needs -- and that is Launch Pad's stock in trade.

 

Launchpad currently has three clients, including the winner of a business plan competition sponsored by the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis. As a competition partner, Emerge arranged to have Launch Pad services in the winner's package.

 

"Since we couldn't write a check, this was our way to help the cause," Scott says. And it was a way to help everybody involved: the competition winner, Launch Pad and the incubator itself.

 

"We're just trying to help entrepreneurs by building the right community with qualified companies," Scott says.