Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Mobile Incubation: When Growing Up Doesn't Mean Moving Out
For someone who tends to keep their eyes on the world's creative class hotspots for signals of the future, especially in innovation systems, it came as a surprise recently to see that one of the most interesting recent ideas in incubators has popped up in Oklahoma City. According to NewsOK, "the Oklahoma City Redevelopment Authority and the Presbyterian Health Foundation are negotiating a plan that would create a 'mobile incubator' to attract and then retain startup biotech companies." (
>link to article
The mobile incubator is a twist on traditional business incubators in that it "allows a start-up to stay in place and grow once it reaches profitability and no longer needs assistance." As one of the attorneys working on the incubator's lease said, "Rather than moving all that apparatus to expand, we’ll let them stay and expand and be a real company. And we move that space to another part of the complex and use it for another company. You incubate science, not space. The science itself determines what is in the space.”
I really like this approach for a couple of reasons.
First, it focuses the incubation process on the companies, not the incubator facility. As companies grow in place, they create all kinds of linkages with the city around them - vendors, customers, research institutions, and transportation and communications infrastructure. Uprooting all of that to grow can be a tremendously disruptive experience and transform the culture of the company in negative ways.
Second, it allows your incubatees to fail without the incubator looking like a failure. I often joke that incubators are a great place to find failed ideas - any venture with a whiff of future potential has long since been whisked off to its own space by investors or professional managers. Or, you find a lot of good ideas and good companies that lack key pieces of talent needed to get them off the ground.
Finally, in the current commercial real estate market, with lots of leasable and sub-leasable space coming back onto the market, you could scatter a set of mobile incubators across a neighborhood or a city and let them run. If they succeed, they create solid tenants. If not, you fold them up and walk away and call in the brokers.