Top Five Business Incubators for MBA Students

Business incubators exist to help bring business ideas to life. Just as a baby requires maximum care just after it is born, startup ideas too need careful nurturing in the stages before and just after the launch. The best schools now provide specific facilities to encourage entrepreneurship on campus. It includes the required physical infrastructure to help launch a business, as well as the resources and intellectual capital required to gain traction.


While researching B-School incubators, there are a few factors that aspiring Entrepreneurs need to consider. The physical infrastructure is obviously important. But more important are the resources and support offered. Interaction with successful entrepreneurs and industry leaders is a must. Dedicated faculty support and student groups are necessary. Funding possibilities are critical. And exposure to a wide student body, as well as markets completes the list.

We have picked our top five Business Incubators or Innovation Lab for you.

1) Harvard Innovation Lab

The Harvard innovation Lab or ‘Hi’ in short is a dedicated space to nurture team and entrepreneurial activities. What makes this business incubator unique is the fact that it fosters the cross pollination of ideas across a wide mix of Harvard colleges. This includes the B-School, Law school, Arts and Sciences College, Design school, Medical College, Engineering and Applied Sciences College, and finally, the school of public health. Supporting this venture, are faculty, entrepreneurs and the community at large. This business incubator gives students access to a host of sites like Harvard College Venture Partners, HBS Social Enterprise Initiative and HBS eClub. It also offers students recommended startup kits like Harvard StartupTribe and Small Business Trends.

iLab conducts events, seminars and workshops. To sample some, you can click onto the Harvard i-lab YouTube Channel. In the recent past, Michael Skok conducted - "Startup Secrets: How to Gain an Unfair Completive Advantage”. ‘Hi’ follows a seven-step process to help launch startups. They are Form your team, Refine your idea, Get real tactical advice, Take a class, Find a mentor, Ask an expert and at last, Make the i-lab your home base. The hundreds of successfully launched startups vindicate iLabs’ unique cross-disciplinary approach.

2) SKOLKOVO Business Incubator

The Moscow School of Management, SKOLKOVO, has a business incubator that supports its core focus on nurturing entrepreneurs. This intelligently designed incubator guides students in the entrepreneurship process right from idea conception to commercial product launch. While the facility is currently open to students and alumni, it will soon be open to a wider range of clients and entrepreneurs.

SKOLKOVO’s business incubator gives additional support during the first phase of startups where most ideas and plans fall apart. It gives students access to opportunities to quicken the pace of development through access to a wide range of information on entrepreneurship, as well as experiential and group learning experiences. The infrastructure provided is state-of-the-art that helps conduct meetings, hold conferences and demonstrations as well as a host of services ranging from IT to legal services.

SKOLKOVO’s business incubator also gives startups access to an entrepreneurial community that consists of faculty, industry leaders and successful entrepreneurs. The most important aspect, finance, is taken care of through the SKOLKOVO-NANOTECH Venture Fund, which ensures commercial implementation of startup ideas.

3) Stanford Venture Studio

Stanford Venture Studio is a part of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, which was founded in 1996. It provides infrastructure and support to help bring business ideas to fruition. Here a cross section of MBAs, engineers, lawyers, and medical school students’ work together to foster innovative business plans. The incubation center works as a business hub that brings together faculty, alumni, entrepreneurs, and investors to help students. They also benefit from workshops, and contact with professionals and investors from a wide range of disciplines.

Stanford Venture Studio conducts an annual, ‘Conferences on Entrepreneurship’, which in 2011 covered topics like Trends in Social Commerce, Gaming for the Greater Good, The Democratization of Entrepreneurship, and Building a Distinct Company Culture. Two interactive workshops were also held on "Rapid Prototyping" and "Design + Entrepreneurship: An Introduction to Design Thinking".

The ‘E-Provocateurs Speaker Series’ brings leading entrepreneurs into the lab. Another program, ‘Nuts & Bolts of Entrepreneurship Series’ helps entrepreneurs get a hold on the practical aspects of a startup. The outstanding feature of this program is the wide range of resources a student can access. They include Videos, Business Plans, Legal Resources, Angel Financing, Venture Capital and International Entrepreneurship Assistance.

4) Columbia Business Lab

Columbia Business Lab aims to provide a stage for students and recent alumni of the MBA program to become successful entrepreneurs. This recent venture is led by a board of alumni entrepreneurs overseen by the Lang Entrepreneurship center. Besides the facilities, this business incubator aims to foster a community devoted to entrepreneurship, with the help of monthly networking events and forums, taking advantage of the vast resources of the Lang Center, alumni network and faculty.

21 new ventures will be launched by April / May 2013. They include Urbavour for urban farms, Untamed Sandwiches, an unconventional restaurant and CircleVibe, a mobile app. A testament to Columbia’s entrepreneurial spirit is the fact that recent alumni rank as successful entrepreneurs. Paul Sethi of Advertising Red Books and Aaron Graf & Derek Lee of the LG Fairmont Group are among them. One drawback if we may say so is that this business incubator is only meant for Columbia MBA students.

5) Wharton

Wharton’s Venture Initiation Program is a Business Incubator that supports an already well-established Entrepreneurship program. It is run by Wharton Entrepreneurship, which empowers University of Pennsylvania students to become entrepreneurs. This business incubator provides monthly mentoring sessions, educational programming, networking opportunities, and contemporary infrastructure to build on innovative ideas.

VIP also offers a series of grants to motivate students to form their own business or social ventures. Ten ''VIP Snider Seed Award'' of $2,500 in seed capital is given to help in the initial implementation of startup ideas. The "Emil K. Woods Award" rewards teams who have shown progress in furthering their startup plan. This usually helps entrepreneurs formally launch their ideas, which many alumni have successfully done. The ''Wharton Venture Award (WVA)'' aids students who have declined to take on a summer internship and focus on their business venture. At present nearly 40 companies are being incubated at Wharton’s Venture Initiation Program. They include hi!, Kickir, Studios, Knowtorious, SocialMoola, accessMD and Allazo Health.