Incubation Programs by Incubation India

PS: We are primarily an incubator, not investor. If you are looking only for investment, you are at the wrong place reading the wrong document!

Our Guiding Principle

We work with (first time) entrepreneurs who want to make their ventures self sustainable with their own resources and then scale up, rather than going via the investment route at the very outset.

We are not against investment at a later stage but making funds a pre-condition for starting out is like pulling trigger while someone else holds the gun. While that may work for a lot of startups, we focus on the ones which chose to not go that route.

We believe in hard work of entrepreneur and merit of the idea which must lead to a logical/tangible outcome before others join in. We like first time entrepreneurs who want to grow their venture on their own merit, on their hard work and brilliance, than on investor money (with all due respect to ideas which get funded).

If you share the same spirit, we would love to interact with you.

Coming to ideas, we should be able to see a strong value addition from the idea in the day to day activities of an individual, company or government body: we would like to see a clear, tangible positive impact. At the current stage, we do not look into “premium” value addition by an idea, instead, we focus more on basic needs/pain points. If you are not sure how your scales on this aspect, feel free to contact us after you have read this document.

Listed below are some ways how Incubation India Business Solutions (IIBS) works with first time entrepreneurs

Ongoing Incubation & Support

Incubation India provides ongoing support to startups on an active basis for day to day operations as well as strategic areas:

• Product definition & validation

• Customer Acquisition & Management process

• Launch of product/service pilots

• Operation, sales strategy

• Feedback & Managing expectations for new/disruptive ideas

• Outsourcing vs in-house development

• Staff & IT Systems

• Customer/competition/vendor conflicts

• Compliance & setup, etc.

Initially, we provide 1 month of free incubation support to first time entrepreneurs to gauge their commitment, current situation, product idea, approach, vision, driving factor, etc. During this time, we schedule regular weekly sessions with them to monitor their weekly progress, address their concerns, provide guidance on processes, setup the right systems, introduce team members, etc as we feel appropriate (including above areas). We also constantly assess utility of our sessions to entrepreneurs. We also do ad hoc sessions subject to availability of time slots.

We understand making a startup profitable is a long running activity where in such support is needed over a prolonged period of time.

Once both sides find good value, we get into an incubation agreement where this support is provided to the entrepreneur on an ongoing basis till they desire or till a logical point is reached viz, break even point, profit milestone or getting funded. Till we sign the agreement, there are no charges.

We charge equity (range of 7 - 10%) for our services when we get into the formal agreement. In return, we commit the time/resources we spend with the entrepreneur for a pre-defined duration. Once the agreement is signed, entrepreneurs have the option to “buy out” the equity with mutual consent to terminate the arrangement. Till the agreement ceases, the agreement binds the entrepreneur to make key decisions ONLY with our consent. This safeguard ensures the time we spend on venture actually leads us to something profitable for both parties.

Entrepreneur's Helpline

As an entrepreneur, there are times when important decisions are to be made quickly. Sometimes you can predict such situations, but not always. Sudden proposal requested by client when your product rollout is still midway, getting a big order when you are already working over your capacity, negative feedback on public forum, etc.

If you do not have the capability to handle such situations within your team or cannot think clear at that point of time, just pick up your phone and call us. We will try to show you the way out.

We won't mind brainstorming options, speaking to a few contacts, participate in customer call, etc. We cannot guarantee we will always give a solution, but we will give a honest try. If nothing works, we will give you a pat on shoulder and tell you it will all work out well :)

And we do hope you will return the favor to another entrepreneur.

There are no charges, we are just happy to be of help to a person who creates value for society.

However, your query should be genuine and well qualified. Please remember, we are not obliged to help nor we can guarantee if we will always be available. But worth a try.. Also this will only give you a quick fix to solve a problem while getting you more time to think over and come with better long lasting solution.

If you are giving too many calls to us, its better you sign up for the ongoing incubation support program :) as this helpline is for the daredevils who need a helping hand only once in a long while.

Resourcing

Incubation India has strong capability in the field of training & staffing.

Based on startup's requirement, we can conduct training sessions for freshers/working professionals to train them on new skills. These trainee are given hands-on training by experienced trainers from our team. The trainees are then given sample assignment which is made available to the startup for their further evaluation. There are no charges in the overall process for permanent hires.

In case startup wants to hire trainees only for a short duration, they can be provided on contract via our payrolls in which case there will be some costs to be paid by the startup towards salary and setup. This can again be split into a combination of equity and cash (it cannot be pure equity as salary has to be paid).

The startup does not pay for training, it is borne by trainees or Incubation India. This is a time taking activity and has to be planned in advance. Our mentors will be there to suggest you if needed.

Product Development

Incubation India promotes Open Source products for startups & SME's to lower the overhead costs as well as dependency on niche skills/vendors/developers. Because of the very nature of open source, the products are free, have active support from developer community and are quite mature given the constant releases launched in markets. We have a pool of experts who can build your entire IT infrastructure on open source technologies for:

• Customer facing ecommerce website

• Running campaigns

• Custom applications

We further promote using on cloud application to lower your infrastructure costs as well as to keep them highly scalable and highly available as your venture scales up without worrying about reworking your entire IT infrastructure.

Opening Doors

We are well connected in the corporate sector as well as in the investment community owing to our activities in field of Training, Staffing, Consulting, Product Development & Investment.

For qualified ventures we work with, we help them get connected with potential Partners/Clients/Investors after a logical milestone, typically a successful pilot of product.

Learning Entrepreneurship

Incubation India provides the platform for experienced working professionals who would like to call it a quit and start on their own. We provide them our ideas, mentoring as well as our capabilities. The entrepreneur plans the strategy as well as is responsible for execution. Before execution, we validate & approve the plan, including the operational expenses.

The entrepreneur has to be serious and committed to the idea, an agreement to the same affect is signed between IIBS and the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur works full time on the idea, without pay. The entrepreneur is entitled to equity in the venture only after a first successful pilot if he/she choses to continue after the pilot. The entrepreneur draws a basic salary only when the venture reaches 50% of break even point.

Learning entrepreneurship the hard way. All you lose is your time and effort; which is a lot for a real entrepreneur. Thats our only safeguard on our investment in a idea thrust on you.

Join Us

If you are an experienced entrepreneur and would like to share your expertise with other first timers, we will love to hear from you.

Things to note:

When interacting with us, we prefer if entrepreneurs can pay attention to following:

1. In initial discussion, please only introduce yourself and your idea. We don't want to know the entire history – months of your experience cannot be shared in a few mins of call. When asked about more information, brief details are sufficient. We will get to know you over a period of time and we will not invest our time in you without knowing you fully. Rest assured.

2. Please fix agenda of any call in advance. Even if you were not able to share this over email, have it clear at your end. We are hard pressed for time and productive calls do not go a long way in our relationship.

3. Please allocate only one team member for all of your interaction with us. This will help avoid confusion.

4. We do not invest in any startup unless we have worked with them for sometime. We do not bend this rule. And we do not invest a lot of money either. We are primarily an incubator. Please contact us only if that fits your requirement.

5. We spend time on your issues and give suggestions. If they are not taken up, an acknowledgement/explanation helps us understand whats happening. We don't want to spend a lot of time on a venture where our suggestions are constantly ignored. Communication is important, even if it shows disagreement. We value it. But we do not take lack of communication in positive light.

6. Professional ethics are absolutely important for us. Business done in wrong way will never be supported.

Contact Us:

Email: info@incubationindia.comSkype: incubationindia

Website: www.incubationindia.com