Startup Incubators and Accelerators: What You Need to Know – George Deeb

Atlanta is the country’s best-kept secret for tech startups, due largely in part to its abundance of co-working spaces like incubators and accelerators. Organizations like Atlanta Tech Village, TechSquare Labs, and ATDC Georgia Tech focus all of their energy on supporting entrepreneurs who want to achieve success, in a community that promotes faster connections between talent, ideas, and capital.

Today, we’re excited to welcome back George Deeb, managing partner of Red Rocket Ventures and author of 101 Startup Lessons: An Entrepreneur’s Handbook to talk to us more in-depth about why you might consider pursuing your startup with the help of an incubator or accelerator.

Incubators and accelerators are designed to help an entrepreneur who has never gone through a startup experience before, to get the mentorship and access to capital that they otherwise wouldn’t get on their own. Working with organizations like these increase the odds of success for that particular business. Increasing startup success rates also means economic growth for the community with more jobs created.

However, incubators and accelerators are not the same things. Incubators are places where startups can rent small spaces at a low-cost and be in close proximity to their peers and other business owners who share a common goal. There’s no formal curriculum, but a nice shared office space.

An accelerator program is actually running you through a 90-day boot camp. They’re teaching you everything you need to know from summarizing your business pitch to making your business attractive to investors, to providing a place to present your idea to a group of potential investors. George explains:

“In terms of what to look for when you’re getting into these incubators or accelerators – the first thing is just make sure that it’s right for you. I don’t think the process works well for everybody, you have to have to right DNA and attitude to be part of a communal environment like that.”

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