Incubator and accelerator models are
designed to help you as an entrepreneur to bring your ideas to market which normally
depends on the help you want and the stage of your startup, in this case one
choice makes more sense for you than the other. In Kenya we have limited
resources these leaves a very small room to decide whether to join any of the
two since the number of incubators and accelerators are very few.
We have incubators like Nailab, M-lab, Ihub and 88
mph, accelerators like Growth Hub and Village Capital. Nailab is among one of
the best, it selects 5-15 start-ups every 5-6 months but its major focus is
technology ideas. Growth hub and Village
capital are wonderful places they are focusing more on solving big problems in
Agriculture to improve the food security of this country. We have a very small number of these
institutions to support young entrepreneurs, which means only about 60-100 are
selected to join these programs these leaves all others to figure out and build
their products on their own. There is
need for investor community in Kenya to work on this area to help improve the
startup scene in Kenya.
Another major thing accelerators and incubators in
Kenya are more focused on technology ideas, I know it’s the next big bet but I
still believe there are other areas that are ripe for disruption like agriculture
and healthcare; we are yet to start adopting new technologies at a faster rate.
I strongly believe there is need to focus on these other areas since they cater
for food security, well being of our society and it’s among the major problems
that we are facing in Africa.
As the name sounds, incubators offer
more nurturing environments, where you get valuable advice from industry
experts, a well structured formal introduction to potential investors and
longer-term projections for idea development. In Accelerators, on the other side, they offer
quick solutions to help startups get over final obstacles and help deliver
their products to market.
There is a common thought which might true;
Accelerators are geared
towards bringing startups to market, while on the other hand incubators create
more room for entrepreneurs to fail.
Incubators make investments in entrepreneurs while accelerators make
investments in business plans. Another major difference, incubators offer more
resources to the startups.
As an entrepreneur, you
can invest the money on your own but in an incubator you will be able to use
some of its resources and save your money for other important things. All in
all this come at a cost, my mum once told me that “No one plays for free”. In
exchange for this help, accelerators and incubators usually require
entrepreneur to fork a certain amount of equity or capital raised, in other
cases some ask for a commitment fee before getting your application
accepted. Some argue that these
additional fees are way too high but others say that these small prices pay for
a life time chance to make it big.
Take away: It’s up to
you decide whether your startup needs a nurturing environment that helps you
come up with a better formation of your business idea or a place that will help
you scale to the next level.