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As students learned in prior lessons, a new business can be risky because there’s no guarantee that a product will be successful. A person who organizes and manages a startup, and assumes the financial risks is referred to as an entrepreneur . The hope is, of course, that the product will be wildly successful and generate a large profit . Usually, the innovator steps into a dual innovator-entrepreneur role , moving the product forward, managing and organizing the R&D team, and finding money to fund the startup. There are also entrepreneurs who actively seek out, nurture, and invest in talent within a particular industry , assuming the risk of loss in exchange for a share of the potential profit. For example, Jay-Z is an entrepreneur who finds, nurtures, and develops talent in the music industry. Entrepreneur Catherine Fake, the founder of Flickr, sought out and invested in a (then) small startup called Etsy, now a very successful e-commerce site for buying and selling handmade, vintage, or unique items. Incubators and Accelerators Business incubators are exactly what their name indicates: organizations that nurture the success of startups by providing, expertise, advice, mentorship, networking, and often financial assistance . They are also called accelerators . There are incubators for nurturing the growth of entrepreneurship and innovation in all industries: tech, gaming, entertainment, publishing, design, you name it. If you are a budding innovator and want to learn more about business incubation programs, or are looking for resources or contacts in your geographic or product area, check out the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) ( www.nbia.org) . You can also find a lot of information by searching “incubation programs for __________________” (ie. filmmakers, gamers, bioscience, fashion design, green technology, etc.) R & D on the Cheap: Garages and Dorm Rooms Startups often begin on a shoe-string budget. Many budgets are so small, businesses have started in pretty unusual places. Quite a few well-known and very valuable companies were founded in garages or dorm rooms by innovators and entrepreneurs not much older than the students in this class . Can you guess which? That’s right, the companies listed at the start of this lesson: Google, Facebook, Apple, Disney, Amazon, Harley Davidson, Microsoft… just to name a few. Garages and dorms have plenty of benefits for startups. They’re perfect for bringing together creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial people on the cheap . Most garages are fairly spacious, have power, and many even have water. They have space for a team of innovators to gather, discuss, debate design, and build a prototype. While dorms rooms are not spacious, they always have access to high speed internet, and loads of creative and intelligent people who can gather into the wee hours to collaborate on an idea or solve a problem. PRODUCT PREVIEW
Lesson 10 | A Garage is for More Than Parking a Car 174
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