The Pros And Cons Of Joining A Startup Incubator
by Jacques Mattheij
For many would-be entrepreneurs there are two basic routes open to achieve their goals. The first is to bootstrap, to figuratively pull yourself up by your own shoelaces and slug it out in a decade (or longer) march to achievement. Possibly, along the way, funding can be obtained through business Angels or other forms of participation.
The second is to hook up with one of several start-up incubators.
The differences between these two ways of running your business are significant and it would help to be aware of those differences before making a decision. It seems as though many people view the ‘bootstrap’ route as an alternative or last resort but in my opinion both alternatives have significant pros and significant cons.
In this article I’ll try to list those pros and cons as objectively as possible. To quote a dutch soccer legend: “Every downside has an upside”, and this holds true for most of the incubator vs bootstrapping debate. Almost every ‘pro’ for an incubator translates in to a ‘con’ as well, and the same holds for the ‘pros’ of bootstrapping. Which factors weigh heavily for you is highly dependent on your situation, your personality and your comfort zone, so you will have to assign your own weights to these items in order to be able to help you in reaching a decision which route is the right one for you.
