企业孵化器魅力渐失

    2010年，柏妮玛•维嘉亚申克在硅谷创办网站Bizeebee，帮助瑜伽工作室和其他会员制公司实现业务扩张。很快有几家孵化器公司联系到她，希望吸纳Bizeebee加入。维嘉亚申克曾是美国个人金融网站Mint.com 雇佣的第二位工程师。

    维嘉亚申克没有接受这些邀请。她注意到很多孵化器公司高度关注技术发展，并不教授她希望掌握的创业技巧。“我和从这些孵化器毕业的很多人交谈，大部分人仍在问很多根本性的创业问题，”她回忆说，“他们在谈论‘我们如何营销？我们如何找到客户？’”随着调查的深入，她发现在很多领域中，无孵化器背景的创业者们往往“具备更多的知识和经验”。

    如今，她的Bizeebee已从最初的6位雇员发展到服务约500家客户，并吸引了少量天使投资。

    保持独立，使得维嘉亚申克能自由地尝试各种商业模式，这是在传统孵化器环境中难以做到的——加入孵化器的初创公司需要专注于打造一款产品，并迅速找到市场。“我真的非常希望能有半年到一年时间探索和尝试新的点子，”她说。

    伴随着初创公司的蓬勃兴起，企业孵化器也同样兴起，提供的服务从办公空间到专业企业咨询等等。全美企业孵化器协会（The National Business Incubation Association）估计，目前美国有超过1,000家孵化器公司，远高于1980年的12家。有些孵化器公司专注于某个细分市场，离开了科技行业，专门服务其他传统行业的初创公司，比如糕饼行业。

    许多创业者都热衷于申请孵化器项目，我本人作为200kfreelancer.com（一个帮助独立专业人士打造个人企业的网站）的共同创始人，也对孵化器充满了兴趣。有许多创业者积极争取加入Y Combinator等知名孵化器，把它当做敲开风险投资大门的敲门砖，也有些人选择至少目前不加入。

    西雅图创业者布鲁斯特•斯丹尼斯劳表示，他和他的创业伙伴乔伊•考特金斯曾获准加入一个跨城市的孵化器项目Founder Institute，考虑再三决定不参加。虽然认可孵化器可能带来的人脉价值，但这位前华尔街人士认为，这一计划允许参与者每周参加最少15个小时，是针对那些业余创业的企业家。“我辞去了工作，全职投入创业，”斯丹尼斯劳表示。他的初创企业是为内容发布商开发技术。

    有些人迟疑，是因为参与孵化器的活动可能需要占用一些时间。纽约的Money Crashers是一家拥有40名雇员的个人金融网站，成立于2009年，其共同创始人安德鲁•史瑞奇也考虑过孵化器项目，但最终决定不参加。“作为一名小企业主，你必须要挤出每一秒钟来保持竞争力，”他说，“加入企业孵化器项目，完全就是浪费时间。”

    搜索引擎优化专家、创业资深人士西门•施耐德斯是特拉华州刘易斯Explore.to的共同创始人，但他住在英国。他和他同样常驻海外的合伙人考虑过为他们的公司（一家提供小企业名录的本地搜索引擎网站）申请英国的两个孵化器计划，最终也是决定不参加。

    施耐德斯有妻子和一个三岁的女儿，让所有人每天都吃拉面，显然行不通。“当你是一位有经验的创始人，你有家庭，要搬离到几百英里以外租房子住，显然不可行，”他说。

    When Poornima Vijayashanker started Bizeebee, a Silicon Valley site that helps yoga studios and other membership-based businesses expand, in 2010, several incubators approached her about joining. She'd been the second engineer hired at Mint.com.

    But Vijayashanker took a pass. She'd noticed that many incubators focus heavily on technology development but didn't teach the business skills she wanted to master. "I was talking to people who had graduated from these business incubators, and the vast majority were still asking business questions," she recalls. "They were talking about 'How do we market? How do we find customers?'" As she did her research, she found that entrepreneurs in a variety of fields who'd built a company outside of the incubator scene "had the most knowledge and experience," she said.

    Since she launched six-employee Bizeebee, it has grown to serve about 500 customers and has attracted a small amount of angel funding.

    Staying independent has freed her to experiment with her business model in a way that would be difficult in the traditional incubator environment, where resident startups are expected to focus on building a product and finding a market for it rapidly. "I really wanted that six months to a year to explore and try out a few ideas," she says.

    With the startup scene thriving, so are business incubators, offering everything from office space to professional business advice. The National Business Incubation Association estimates that there are more than 1,000 incubators in the U.S., compared to 12 in 1980. Some incubators are highly specialized, catering to startups beyond the tech scene in industries like baking.

    With many entrepreneurs clamoring to apply, I've been curious about incubators myself, as a co-founder of 200kfreelancer.com, a site aimed at helping independent professionals build their businesses. While many entrepreneurs vie for admission to the more competitive ones like Y Combinator as a calling card that can open doors to venture capital funding, some are opting out, at least for now.

    Brewster Stanislaw, a Seattle entrepreneur, says he and his business partner, Joey Kotkins, were accepted to the Founder Institute, a multi-city incubator program, but declined to enroll. Though he saw value in the networking opportunities it offered, the former Wall Streeter concluded that the program, which allows participants to join with a minimum 15-hour-a-week commitment, was geared to people who were working elsewhere while launching a business. "I quit my job to pursue the world of entrepreneurship full time," says Stanislaw, whose startup is developing technology for content publishers.

    Some are deterred by the prospect of devoting the extra time to participate in incubator-based activities. Andrew Schrage, a New York City-based co-founder of Money Crashers, a 40-employee personal finance website founded in 2009, considered incubators but ruled them out. "As a new small business owner, it's imperative that you squeeze every second out of every day to remain competitive," he says. "The idea of integrating a business incubator into my venture just seemed like a non-effective use of my time."

    Simon Schnieders, a search engine optimization expert and veteran of the startup scene, is co-founder of Explore.to, a Lewes, Del. startup, but lives inEngland. He and his business partner, also based overseas, considering applying to two U.K.-based incubator programs for the business -- a local search engine that features small business listings -- but decided against them.

    Schneiders has a wife and three-year-old daughter, and forcing everyone to live on Ramen noodles was not a viable option. "When you're an experienced founder and you've got family, being asked to move hundreds of miles away and live in digs is not viable for you," he says.