Praeger Growing New Ventures, Creating New Jobs: Principles and Practices of Successful Business Incubation (Entrepreneurship, Principles & Practices)

In 1980, only 10 business incubators existed in the United States. By 1995 there were nearly 500, and a new incubator is opening every week. Despite the rapid growth, the success of business incubators has been mixed at best. Growing New Ventures, Creating New Jobs provides sponsors, boards, and the management teams of business incubation programs with proven strategies for enhancing the creation and development of new ventures and ensuring the success of programs that support business growth and development. Business creation experts Jana B. Matthews and Mark P. Rice explain the three key principles of successful business incubation; the 10 best practices for starting, developing, and managing a business incubation program; ways to attract high-quality entrepreneurs; the litmus test to determine an incubator's feasibility; and many hands-on examples from the directors of some of the country's top business incubators. Incubators have helped to create more than 82,000 new jobs in communities throughout the United States, and they foster the entrepreneurial spirit that is the lifeblood of the economy. Growing New Ventures, Creating New Jobs gives business, university, and government leaders a blueprint incubator program for invigorating the regional economy. From the Back Cover Well managed business incubators with programs and services that help their client companies grow are important mechanisms for economic development in America. Although the number of business incubators in the United States has grown from 10 to 500 in the last 15 years, the success of these incubators has been mixed. Many incubator directors are so busy with public relations, fund raising and administrative duties that they spend very little time working with client companies. Mark Rice and Jana Matthews, incubator experts, have identified three key principles and 10 best practices of successful incubators - those that help entrepreneurs grow their companies. This book provides a litmus test for determining an incubator's feasibility, suggests ways to attract high-quality entrepreneurs, and includes many hands-on examples from some of the country's best business incubators. The authors have developed alternative financial models for incubators, clearly delineated board and staff responsibilities, and outlined many different ways to help entrepreneurs grow their companies, depending on their stage of development. About the Author MARK P. RICE is the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship of New Technological Ventures at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He has served on the board of directors of National Business Incubation Association and was its chairman from 1990-1992. JANA B. MATTHEWS is senior research and teaching fellow and director of Entrepreneur Support Systems Programs at the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Inc. at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas. She is the author of three other books including Winning Combinations: The Coming Wave of Entrepreneurial Partnerships Between Large and Small Companies.