Tanvi Singla is the co-founder and CEO of Supreme Incubator, an incubator that helps early-stage startups build strong and scalable businesses. As a virtual incubator, the program inducts startup founders from across the country in 6-month cohorts of intensive venture building alongside industry experts. She is a graduate of the prestigious Shri Ram College of Commerce. Following graduation, she joined her family-owned financial services business. Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, Tanvi was aware of the power of entrepreneurship from an early age. Tanvi started Supreme Incubator with Disha Singla after co-leading projects over several months.
It’s no secret that the quality and number of early-stage ventures coming up in India have evolved exponentially in recent years. According to a NASSCOM report, India is the third-largest startup ecosystem globally and is rapidly expanding.
This feat can, to an extent, be credited to the institutions fostering and supporting entrepreneurs at an early stage. Even for passionate founders with great ideas, building a strong value proposition and a sound business model is key to launching a successful product.
Incubators can be a one-stop portal to get mentoring, infrastructure and real-world business advice for entrepreneurs to learn from a network of people who “have been there, done that.” They play a key role in nurturing and scaling ideas.
Incubators empower early-stage entrepreneurs
Incubators drive entrepreneurial spirit by fulfilling the early-stage requirements for startup founders – helping them navigate the challenges of building a venture through support, workspace, mentoring and tools. The package of services and the “curriculum” designed by most incubators are built to enhance the success and growth rates of new entrepreneurs, thus maximising their impact on overall economic development.
Support in Fundraising
To raise capital, entrepreneurs need to meet and win over elusive investors – some spend months searching and struggling to make appointments, while others use expensive intermediaries. At such times, being associated with an incubator can be a step in the right direction – as most incubators form strong, deep ties with key players in the startup ecosystem, including investors. Incubators can utilise this network to offer introductions and fundraising to the startups under their wing, thereby increasing successful conversions.
Vast Network
Incubators do more than provide access to investors and mentors; they let entrepreneurs network with several other professionals who have huge expertise at their fingertips and other founders who are on the same journey of building successful organisations. By giving startup founders convenient access to a robust network of potential business partners and founders, incubators allow entrepreneurs to take the most productive and dynamic approach to the network that they can. Incubators also leverage their networks to assist entrepreneurs in a new direction or establish new connections in unexplored markets, thus being with the founder every step of the way.
If entrepreneurs want to create a strong and efficient network among other leaders and entrepreneurs in their realm, incubators often provide them with the best ways to do so.
Conducive Environment and Mentoring support
If you are searching for ways to grow your business or expand into other markets, incubators provide you with the means of doing so while eliminating many of the inherent risks that come with such a venture.
Incubators are built to “incubator” or insulate the incoming founders from market forces and build their product/service amidst advisory support. In this way, such programs help entrepreneurs streamline their business model and bring it to market at the right time. Additionally, an incubation program or curriculum can yield some of the most rewarding benefits for a startup and advance an entrepreneur’s knowledge by leaps and bounds. For example, when startup founders join a sophisticated ecosystem like an incubator, they gain access to mentors who have mature insights. Mentors assist entrepreneurs transform their inventions into commercial and revenue-generating products. With these experienced perceptions of mentors, ideas developed by founders have higher chances to become solutions with paying customers.
Undivided Focus
Often the startups waste most of their time finding access to support elements such as electricity, IT infrastructure, security, and these hiccups divert the entrepreneurs’ energy to non-productive activities.
An essential benefit that incubators bring to startups and entrepreneurs can be outlined in a single word: focus. By giving entrepreneurs access to an infrastructure that is in place and proven to work, it allows them to focus less on the administration and infrastructure side of getting a startup off the ground. It can enable them to devote more of their attention to running that business and developing their product or service.
Incubators have been known to be the backbone of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in any economy. By curating mentors, resources and infrastructure in one program, they offer founders a foundation to get an advantage right from the start.
If you’re an early-stage founder, look for incubators that fit your need to get the advantage!