Technology, Market and Company Journeys: How Can We Help Them Succeed? - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 209

would normally set out an executive summary, a short description of the business
opportunity being pursued, a marketing and sales strategy, the proposed man-
agement team, the operational aspects of the business, and the finances of the
business.
This process is designed to support entrepreneurs as they work across on
developing the foundations to the technology, company, and market journeys for
their ideas. In most instances the process is subsidised, but time limited, and
company development is measured against milestones which are agreed with the
support teams for these social projects.
Once a credible business plan is in place the next and critical stage is to raise
finance for the incubation process. In some countries this investment is made
available through government financing programmes where as others do not have
this benefit and have to look to the private sector to raise finance. In this the
process mainly focuses on creating the right team to develop the company and on
the early stage of convincing the market that the idea is credible Fig. 12 .
If these stages are negotiated successfully the project can then be accelerated by
paying particular attention to the development of the market and then on further
building the team as the company moves to provide warrantable products that
begin to secure market share.
Particular new developments that have been added to the blend of services to
support these journeys include:

• Employing an ''entrepreneur in residence'' in business pre and full incubators.
• Establishing an investment group and trying to increase the capacity and skills
base in this by putting in place international links with this group.

Fig. 12 Full incubation