Idea, Product, Launch and Beyond; Technology business incubators and graduate evaluations in Silicon Valley and literature

Abstract: This research is concerned with technology business incubators and more specifically on the rather undefined area of graduate evaluations. Many business incubators track their graduated companies and evaluate them as a late-stage process, often later used for proof of impact, performance measurements and collected for general stakeholder or marketing strategies. The aim of this thesis is to explore the use of these client evaluations in academic literature and by examining business incubators practices in Silicon Valley. The result section is a mix of presented and analyzed literature and fifteen interview answers, contrasted by incubation academic literature and the authors’ criticism and thoughts. A majority of the results shows that business incubators indeed evaluate their clients through e.g. current funding, status of the company and its current valuation. Data is solely collected through forms and surveys. The evaluations can most commonly be explained by equity, marketing and strategy incentives. The results also illustrate the complexity in the evaluation and provide directions for further research with ranging themes from the gathering of subjective data to response rates.