Using Google Apps as Part of Your Incubator Strategy

For entrepreneurs, having a great vision for a useful service, process or product isn’t enough. Surviving your first year is often times much more of a challenge than articulating that great idea.

Acquiring the knowledge about managing a company once it’s launched is a big part of your undergrad classes, but startup emphasis tends to be more of an emphasis in graduate programs. Preparing for all the how-to details of your first phase of business is just as important as the business focus itself. While that’s always been the case for start-ups, recent technology can build upon a strategy you learned in business course, the incubator.

Background on Business Incubators

If you haven’t heard much about business incubators in your undergraduate work or more likely in one of your online MBA classes, the idea is simple and transferable. Given the high initial cost of setting up shop, business incubators provide shared resources that allow businesses to focus on building their company in the first year, significantly reducing initial costs. Often times these incubators share communication equipment, secretarial services, document reproduction equipment and basic supplies. After a set period of time, usually a year, the company is expected to move on and pay for its own location and costs, hence the incubator idea. With this in mind, here’s how technology, in this case, Google Tools, can serve some of the same functions as a physical incubator.

Google Apps: Virtual Incubator

For the small business owner with big ideas, using what amounts to a free or low-cost suite of production, communication and management tools is one way apply the idea of a business incubator to many of a fledgling company’s first technical needs. This strategy allows an entrepreneur to focus more on growing their business without the initial costs of purchasing proprietary software and much of the physical hardware required for such expenditures. The following are examples of real-world uses for some Google Apps.

Google Docs

By sharing access with a document or folder, teams can collaborate on a common document, saving time, space and effort without having to purchase a costly document management program.

Google Calendar

With the ability to coordinate meetings and other events, Google Calendar can act as a potential force multiplier for a start-up company needing to collaborate in more than one location and without having to hire or burden an administrative assistant with juggling schedules.

Google Reader

Often overlooked by companies needing to stay current with rapidly changing industries, Google Reader can be employed for new companies by assigning staff member’s specific content to follow.

Doing a lot with little – at first

Using technology to overcome initial do-with-outs isn’t meant to be a long-term strategy; it’s also not meant to be half-baked, either. Just as a business incubator provides adequate short term solutions until a business moves to a more permanent space, Google Tools can serve the right start-up’s needs where basic, but critical technology assets are needed.