Towards a Taxonomy of Services Offered by Start-up Business Incubators

Incubators are becoming increasingly important in today’s business world. Incubators are a place where ideas are developed into businesses with the potential to grow and become viable. Incubators had evolved from earlier days when it was predominantly offered in the form of business support to the current model where various elements of success are included in the incubator services. These incubators differ in their types, business model, as well as areas of expertise. The current study focuses on assessing the services offered by start-up business incubators. The focus is on services offered such that the success of the businesses is made possible, and the viability of the business is also improved. The aim of the study was to proposea service framework that can be used to assess the effectiveness of the incubators. The proposed services framework was to consider the current stiff competition for new businesses to stay afloat. After conducting a literature review, seven services were identified. These services lay within business development, mentorship, expertise, as well as partnerships that could bolster any start-up to success. Three University Business Incubators were then selected within the United States for assessment of the application of the identified seven services into their frameworks. Results indicated that much still needs to be done in areas of expertise, partnerships, and future connections to funding for the University Business Incubators to start realizing the full benefits of being in operation.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].