Mentoring is regarded as the foundation of all incubation related activities. The growing startup eco-system in India has cleared the path for many business incubators in academia, corporates, investors, and other stakeholders. Technology business incubators (TBI) supported by various government agencies and corporates too have witnessed a steep increase so as to cater to the growing needs of innovators in the lab stage.
Founder-innovators begin to seek handholding and guidance once they intend to commercialise their lab-tested innovations. Such guidance and support, commonly, takes the form of basic funding towards the development of the product/solution, access to technical support such as lab facilities, and mentorship during critical junctures of the startup journey. More often than not, innovators also feel the need to familiarise themselves with various nuances of starting a business, transcending beyond product/technology. They seek technical support from core faculties of the host institutions or from the industry itself.
Understanding, learning and adapting, are all on going processes in the respective journeys of the startup founders. Some of the primary reasons for the observed high mortality rate of startups in the early stages are – lack of product-market fit, absence of right team and the lack of funding,. The challenge, lack of support in the form of funding or the absence thereof, can be prevented by addressing the initial two reasons in a timely manner. Founders must be oriented to adapt a customer centric approach in the product development stage itself. The business model of incubators has evolved considerably to meet this need. The in-house team of an incubator is the first point of reference for the innovators, wherein queries and resolution aare put forth irrespective of the scale and nature of the issue. The team either has an inhouse expertise to handle the same or, may reach out to their established networks/ eco-system partners. One of the key performance metrics for an incubator is the nature of eco-system partners it establishes in due process and over a period of time.
Given the cyclical nature of incubation business, TBIs like SINE has developed a formal mentoring programme to address the learning needs of founders at the every stages of startup life cycle. Early-stage innovators and new SINE supported incubatees, in the idea stage to prototype stage, undergo a boot camp called SINE START. The bootcamp is designed to be curated to suit the profile of respective incubatees and their innovations. The sessions are conducted by experts and SINE incubatees on themes relevant to early stage startups. These sessions facilitate the participants to open their minds to commercial and business aspects . Alongside the product development process, participants start adopting a customer discovery and engagement process. As the innovators are close to the market stage, the incubatees are given one on one mentoring from domain experts and corporates. The eco-system developed by SINE over the years, with stakeholders like corporates, industrial houses, SMEs, family offices and investors, helps the innovators to navigate through challenging decision points in a smooth manner.
Building a strong eco-system in a formal manner is pertinent for the success of TBIs. With the innovation culture booming across segments, corporates and industrial houses are pro- actively executing MOUs to support startups incubated at TBIs, as part of their business strategy. Corporate mentorship programs to support stratups are evolving, most evidently in the healthcare, industry 4.0 sector etc. Government agencies like DST, MeitY, BIRAC area, have also adopted mentoring as one of the key deliverables in their policy matters, wherein new TBIs are mentored by mature TBIs over a period of time. Business incubator community works in a collaborative manner. The strengths of the business incubators are pooled for the benefit of the startups. A report published by ISBA on Distributed Network Incubator Model (DNIM) has addressed the need for building competencies of incubators in a collaborative manner, by ensuring optimal utilisation of resources so as to improve the impact felt by incubators in tier 2 & tier 3 cities. Implementation of this framework is believed to help propel the growth of startups by 5 times.
Both at a macro and micro level, mentoring is a continuous process. An effective mentorship program calls for a collaborative mindset –assuring a win-win situation to all stakeholders including startups.