How to Design a Growth Incubator

Large organizations have the resources to create successful new ventures, yet they often fail due to internal barriers and reliance on outdated methodologies. In contrast, Silicon Valley startups deeply understand customer pain points and focus on creating customer-driven solutions. The solution lies in corporate incubators, where startups can grow inside larger organizations. However, most corporate incubators fail due to a lack of methodology, mothership friction, and executive decision-makers who fail to adopt a venture capitalist mentality. Mach49, a company with a 90% success rate in building corporate incubators, suggests organizations follow three stages: ideation, incubation, and acceleration. During ideation, organizations assess and prioritize ideas, establish a challenge statement and initial stakeholder map, and host a company-wide venture plan competition. During incubation, a timeline process allows teams to find customer pain points, determine the product or service to build, and design business revenue. During acceleration, venture teams establish pilots, product-market fit, and repeatable revenue models. To succeed, venture teams need to be full-time and have a fully engaged new venture board. To seize the mothership advantage, leadership must help identify and manage potential challenges to venture-building across the company.