Critical Factors in the Selection of Start-Up Incubator Residents

Abstract

Incubators have played an increasing role in nurturing early stage start-ups in recent years. Meanwhile, the competition in the selection of start-ups for entering prestigious incubators is also growing. Previous studies have introduced some screening factors in the selection process, largely based on interviews and surveys of the opinions of incubator managers. Despite diverse findings by far, there have been no effort to identify the key selection criteria and factors using real startup company profiles. This research proposes an assessment method based on the Real-Win-Worth framework. This new method is used to evaluate a data set of 280 application profiles of start-ups submitted to JFDI.Asia, a prestigious incubator based in Singapore. Our results suggest “working website”, “recommendation”, “demand validation”, “market demographics”, “concept maturity”, “sales/distribution channel” and “technology expertise” are crucial for the start-ups to pass initial profile screening. After the screening stage, “competitive advantage”, “prior start-up experience”, “feedback mechanism” and “growth potential and strategy” are critical for the final admission into the incubator. The assessment method and these findings could help entrepreneurs self-evaluate and improve their start-ups for successful selection into competitive incubators, and also support incubator managers in making selection decisions systematically.