How do you help entrepreneurs?
CBBI Center provides strategic guidance, access to investors, mentors, and a ready-made network of contacts, help in building the management team, specialized training, affordable space, and professional services at reduced rates.
How many client companies at the CBBIC?
Currently, there are 47 client companies at the CBBIC.
Do I have to move into the incubator?
No. The CBBI Center has both resident and non-resident clients. Non-residents, or affiliates, are companies who need strategic guidance and business assistance but do not need space. However, past clients have told us that there is great benefit to being a resident in the incubator, where you can share experiences and problems with fellow entrepreneurs. Sharing approaches and solutions to problems can be a great help and this sort of information gets shared around the coffee pot and break area every day. In fact, entrepreneurs have told us that being inside the incubator "lessened their fear and anxiety." They realized they were not alone. Most clients will start as affiliate's transition to residents and then retain some sort of affiliate designation once they have officially graduated out.
Application Process
Coastal Bend Business Innovation Center is accepting applications for admission to the Incubator from companies with:
- An innovative, technology-based product idea or business concept
Applicants should be able to provide a business plan or executive summary describing their product or business concept, identifying the business opportunity or the problem their research and development processes is designed to solve, and a preliminary market analysis identifying the commercial potential of their business.
- The beginnings of a sound management and/or product development team
Applicants should be able to identify primary research personnel and those associated with the research who can demonstrate strong entrepreneurial interests.
- Financial resources
Applicants should be able to demonstrate the financial capacity to cover operational expenses and fees for CBBI Center services and use of facilities. A reasonable and realistic projection of cash needs and the time required for reaching revenue targets sufficient to sustain the company should be essential elements of the financial plan.
- An interest and willingness to be associated with Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
Applicants should express support, commitment and cooperation with the stated mission and goals of the CBBI Center and an interest in working with appropriate members of the Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi faculty and staff in a combined research and entrepreneurial business environment.
- The potential of creating technology jobs over the long term
CBBI Center is interested in supporting start-up companies that have the capacity and potential of serving large markets thereby creating high quality jobs locally.
- A desire to leverage the CBBI Center opportunity
The CBBI Center is a group of professionals participating in a network of industry and academic experts dedicated to the success of technology ventures. CBBI Center clients will be expected to be a part of that effort, involve themselves with other companies in the incubator, and participate in workshops, seminars, meetings and other activities related to their own.
For an application package please call Bill Cone at (361) 653-2575 or apply online here.
Incubator FAQs
What are business incubators?
Business incubators nurture the development of entrepreneurial companies, helping them survive and grow during the start-up period, when they are most vulnerable. These programs provide their client companies with business support services and resources tailored to young firms. The most common goals of incubation programs are creating jobs in a community, enhancing a community's entrepreneurial climate, retaining businesses in a community, building or accelerating growth in a local industry, and diversifying local economies.
Business incubation is a business support process that accelerates the successful development of start-up and fledgling companies by providing entrepreneurs with an array of targeted resources and services. These services are usually developed or orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the business incubator and through its network of contacts. A business incubator's main goal is to produce successful firms that will leave the program financially viable and freestanding. These incubator graduates have the potential to create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, commercialize new technologies, and strengthen local and national economies.
Critical to the definition of an incubator is the provision of management guidance, technical assistance and consulting tailored to young growing companies. Incubators usually also provide clients access to appropriate rental space and flexible leases, shared basic business services and equipment, technology support services and assistance in obtaining the financing necessary for company growth.
Incubators vary in the way they deliver their services, in their organizational structure and in the types of clients they serve. Highly adaptable, incubators have differing goals, including diversifying rural economies, providing employment for and increasing wealth of depressed inner cities, and transferring technology from universities and major corporations. Incubator clients are at the forefront of developing new and innovative technologies - creating products and services that improve the quality of our lives in communities around the world.
The earliest incubation programs focused on a variety of technology companies or on a combination of light industrial, technology and service firms - today referred to as mixed-use incubators. However, in more recent years, new incubators have emerged targeting industries such as food processing, medical technologies, space and ceramics technologies, arts and crafts, and software development. Incubator sponsors have also targeted programs to support microenterprise creation, the needs of women and minorities, environmental endeavors and telecommunications.
Is business incubation a new industry?
No. The term "business incubator" gained popularity in the media with the explosion and subsequent demise of so-called Internet incubators between 1999 and 2001, but the business incubation model traces its beginnings to the late 1950s. Visit the National Business Incubator Association at www.nbia.org for more information about the history of business incubation.
How many business incubators are there?
As of October 2006, there were over 1,400 incubators in North America, up from only 12 in 1980. Of those, 1,115 were in the United States, 191 were in Mexico and 120 were in Canada. NBIA estimates that there are about 7,000 business incubators worldwide. The incubation model has been adapted to meet a variety of needs, from fostering commercialization of university technologies to increasing employment in economically distressed communities to serving as an investment vehicle.
What are the different types of business incubators?
Incubation programs come in many shapes and sizes and serve a variety of communities and markets:
Most North American business incubators (about 94 percent) are nonprofit organizations focused on economic development. About 6 percent of North American incubators are for-profit entities; usually set up to obtain returns on shareholders investments.
54 percent are "mixed-use," assisting a range of early-stage companies.
39 percent focus on technology businesses.
About 4 percent focus on service businesses, serve niche markets or assist other types of businesses.
3 percent serve manufacturing firms.
About 53 percent of business incubators operate in urban areas, 28 percent operate in rural areas and about 19 percent operate in suburban areas.
Source: 2006 State of the Business Incubation Industry
How do incubators help start-ups get funding?
Incubators help client companies secure capital in a number of ways:
Managing in-house and revolving loan and microloan funds
Connecting companies with angel investors (high-net-worth individual investors)
Working with companies to perfect venture capital presentations and connecting them to venture capitalists
Assisting companies in applying for loans
How do incubators contribute to local and regional economies?
Incubator graduates create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods and commercialize new technologies, thus strengthening local, regional and even national economies.
NBIA estimates that in 2005 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 27,000 start-up companies that provided full-time employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenue of more than $17 billion.
Source: 2006 State of the Business Incubation Industry
Business incubators reduce the risk of small business failures. Historically, NBIA member incubators have reported that 87 percent of all firms that have graduated from their incubators are still in business.
Source: Business Incubation Works
How do business incubators differ from SBDCs?
The U.S. Small Business Administration administers the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) program to provide general business assistance to current and prospective small business owners. SBDCs (and similar programs) differ from business incubators in that they do not specifically target early-stage companies; they often serve small businesses at any stage of development. Some business incubators partner and share management with SBDCs to avoid duplicating business assistance services in a region.
Sources of Data
Knopp, Linda. 2006 State of the Business Incubation Industry. Athens, Ohio: NBIA Publications, 2007.
University of Michigan, National Business Incubation Association, Ohio University, and Southern Technology Council. Business Incubation Works: The Results of the Impact of Incubator Investments Study. Athens, Ohio: NBIA Publications, 1997.
