Having a business idea? You may have a lot in mind on how you will go about it, so it turns out successful. After all, a successful satrtup is a lot more than just an idea. Therefore, beyond the idea, you also have to work upon the financials, planning, investment and marketing of the plan. In doing so, you may or may not need the help of a startup incubator, which is a tricky decision if you do not know how to identify the need for its help.

Generally, there are four ways in which a startup incubator can help a startup, i.e, in mentoring, seed funding, training or providing co-working spaces. In order to determine whether a startup needs an incubator to help them through any of the above four, there are some signs they can look at.

NEED FOR MENTORING

Whether a startup needs help of a mentor or not is dependent upon some factors that are easily observable for the startups. And these factors can be used to identify the need for mentoring from an incubator.

1. The state of your startup is unknown– In general, there are four states of a startup- conception, proliferation, activation or obligation. If you have no clarity of which of these states you are currently into, it signifies the need for mentoring help from a startup incubator.
2. Ambiguity about the target customers– When you have a business idea, you need to know what customer segments you will target or the customer segments that will buy your idea with the highest probability. However, if there is any possibility that you are not clear about these target segments, you might require to take a thorough look at your business idea to determine these segments. This can be done more easily with the help of a startup incubator.

Also, if you need help in designing your business model or are still in need to analyse the industry you are dealing with, a startup incubator can be a helpful hand to your startup.

• Networking needs– In the conception and proliferation phase, a startup faces a high need of employees who are dedicated to their work and have great knowledge of how the industry works at the same time. The need for a good pool of employees can be fulfilled correctly if you have a great network of employees in the industry and outside. A startup incubator can help you form a great network of industry officials, forming which will help reduce the cost and time required in hiring. Therefore, by right network, you can significantly reduce your hiring costs that are otherwise, increased when you have to do a lot of advertising.

NEED FOR FUNDING

A large number of startups have a great idea, which if blended with the right amount of funding, can be turned into a sure shot success. Getting funding for your startup is a journey that starts with the need identification for funding. Once you identify the need for funding, you prepare the financials for your startup so that when you pitch your idea to the investors, you have an impressive plan to show to them.

In this scenario, an incubator can help you with the financials as well as getting you into a network of well-known and good investors who may be interested in your idea. Also, the incubator may help you find the right investor by matching the category of your startup idea with the category of businesses that an investor generally invests into. This type of networking increases the chances of your startup getting funded.

NEED FOR TRAINING

Need for training of the employees is yet another kind of need that a startup may face. The need for this training can be identified by multiple indicators. If a startup has a team of employees that are dedicated, but do not have the requisite knowledge of the industry, this may be an indicative of the need to train employees. It can also be identified by the incidences of failure of implementation of a well thought change in the organization. When there are such difficulties in implementing any new changes, this is an indicative of the need for training of the employees, which an incubator firm can help them with.

NEED FOR CO-WORKING SPACES

Yet one another kind of need that a startup may face is the need for co-working spaces. This one is a need which is quite apparent to the startup organizations if they face difficulties in operating far away from each other. In such a situation, the need for a co-working space is felt. However, if a startup wants to avoid the problem of lack of co-working spaces first handedly, they can identify the need for it. If the team requires to discuss more often before taking any steps or making new offers in the organization, they may need a co-working space. At the same time, if a startup has their services limited to a region, this means that they are dealing with a physical product. Having a solid physical product requires a company to have a production unit and also requires the entire staff of all departments to work in proximity with each other. Thus, having a solid product is also an indicative of the need for co-working spaces.