Business Incubators?
Incubators. Still a relatively new business term that many people may not understand. In this sense, incubators are not a box full of un-hatched chicken eggs, but are instead a community of predominantly start-up organisations that are all placed within the same vicinity so that they can help each other and be monitored by a usually much more powerful organisation. An incubator is essentially a business program which helps start-up organisations to grow through offering basic business advice that may not have been readily available to them outside.
Both Google and Samsung have recently invested heavily in office space for start-up entrepreneurs, with the hope that these people may find the next big idea, that will ultimately make the bigger company even bigger. So I suppose the entrepreneurs are often still chickens, waiting to be picked up and moved around by a large-handed farmer whilst being hidden away from the dangers of other predators. But what if this big hand doesn’t exist, and the chickens are left to do it all alone, with no real guidance from above?
Well this is the real direction of this post. Today I was contacted by an old friend who is in the process of opening a new radio station in Wolverhampton. But it is not simply a radio station as the same office space also encompasses a recording studio, a marketing agency, graphic designers and the like. So is this an incubator? They are not exercising ground breaking R&D, they are not innovating on a daily basis and they may never have a great big idea that makes them a fortune? They are also not contained within a manufactured and guided environment? So would you call this a nest rather than an incubator? Where it really is life or death for these companies, who have to collaborate and work together so that one day they can all go their separate ways and live the lives they aspire to have. I definitely would.
And it is this reason I want to work with these people and help them achieve all that they want. I will hopefully be spending a lot of time with this “Nest” in the coming months as I want to see it grow and flourish as an example to other businesses and entrepreneurs. By coming together and working together as an independent community, these start-up organisations have more chance of survival than most, and I can’t think of a more interesting and exciting project to get involved with than this!
James
Villains and Vengeance, are one of Tick Marketing’s first clients, and we have already written one blog post about them. We have worked closely with Alex (MD) to develop and evolve, with a specific interest in his USP and ability to differentiate the brand. We began our relationship with Villains through a 1-1 brand analysis meeting whereby we thoroughly explored what the brand is, and what it is trying to achieve. From this, and subsequent meetings we have highlighted that the brand is still in need of a story, or is in need of its story being told to people. A brand story will hopefully give customers an understanding of what is driving the company, whilst giving the brand its own personality.
Tick Marketing 