Adjacent’s Mission: Change the Economics of Entrepreneurial Opportunity
Hey there, I’m Rachel, the founder of the Adjacent app, (now available free on Android and iOS), a virtual incubator that offers personalized support to every founder and the communities that support them. My goal with Adjacent is to dramatically increase the number of people who have the tools needed to start their business.
An incubator typically refers to a twelve to sixteen week program, often full time and in-person, for founders to learn the basics of how to run a business. Common activities founders do with an incubator might include the development of their first marketing plan, the registration of their LLC, and the development of their first prototype. Incubators often include facilities where founders can work, staff to coach them, workshop and training costs, marketing and outreach, as well as software and hardware (think printers, video equipment, computers, software licenses). For a small incubator, this can cost around 350,000 a year, while larger operations can cost over 1.6 million (Faillory). The expense of incubators for their operators means that they need to recoup substantive costs.
One way incubators recoup costs is through taking equity from the start-ups in exchange for their help. With this model, incubators are incentivized to only accept start-ups that they believe have a high likelihood of success even before stepping foot in the door. This means that the businesses that often need the incubator the least are the most likely to get accepted into them.
Other incubators recoup costs through program fees that typically run around 500 to 2,000 a month (Feedough). Program fees incentivize incubators to take the founders that can afford them.
In both cases, incubators cannot afford to take the founders that need them most, gamble on founders with ideas that might take a long time to profitability, or help for the length of time founders might need their support. It takes on average two to three years for businesses to become profitable, whereas traditional incubators only last two to three months (Freshbooks).
My goal with Adjacent was to rethink what an incubator could be. A perfect incubator in my head could enable me to find collaborators right around me, anytime, anywhere. This incubator would be available throughout the entire journey from idea to scale of my company, and at an accessible price point. It would have information and advice tailored to my specific needs.
The future I see is one where it costs around a quarter of the current amount for organizations to host incubators for their communities. This pricing shift would drastically open up the number of communities that can provide help for founders, with community colleges, alumni associations, small business development groups, and special interest organizations that can suddenly afford to provide incubator services to their community.
This change in the economics of running an incubator in turn I hope widens who can access to these tools. This means people of wider races and genders than the stereotypical founder. But also I mean economic diversity, founders who might be shy and not see themselves as bold enough to be a CEO, those who want to build while looking after their family, or those who want to create art or activism or research and might not see themselves as typical startup founders.
There is immeasurable human potential in this world, and if we can build systems designed to unlock this potential, I think we can together not simply meet the challenges of our time but rise above them to create a world that is purposeful, sustainable, equitable, and beautiful.
If you want to stay up to date on Adjacent to build this vision with me, you can sign up for our newsletter, or download the app either for yourself or your community. It is free to join Adjacent on iOS, Android, or right from your desktop.
