Tracy Kitts on Incubators

While researching our feature on the value of Incubators and Accelerators for startups, we got in touch with Tracy Kitts, Acting CEO of the National Business Incubators Association (NBIA), which bills itself as the world’s leading organization advancing business incubation and entrepreneurship. We had a few questions for him.

How do you meaningfully compare the outcomes of businesses that have gone through the incubator model and those that haven’t?

Researchers are continuing to try to look at the results of companies that go through a program in a specific community and those that don’t. There are just so many variables at play. The best we can do is to take a look at return on investment… 

A comparison is looking at people who go through universities. For decades, we’ve been trying to put a value on a university degree. If we haven’t fully answered the question for universities, we’re not going to definitively answer them for accelerators.

One measure I’ve seen is that for every public dollar put into business incubators, governments can get $30 to $40 in tax revenue.

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