By Marie-Xavière Wauquiez, head of the Paris&Co Rolling Lab
2018: the sun shines with all its rays on the startup planet. Every day, fundraising of several millions, even tens of millions of euros, are announced. In France, the third edition of the Vivatech show was a great success and Minister Mounir Mahjoubi took advantage of the event to announce around a hundred measures promoting innovation. In a booming ecosystem, it is legitimate to ask whether startups still need incubators.
Historically, incubators allowed startups to access premises without going through costly and restrictive real estate leases. In addition to this purely operational service, support was more or less developed depending on the structures. At a time when coworking spaces are proliferating in all major regional cities, the real estate offering is no longer the main reason for incubators to exist. Furthermore, where the young entrepreneur was a rare commodity around fifteen years ago, all higher education courses today offer masters in entrepreneurship from which dozens of young men and young women emerge ready to take on historic companies. and other members of the CAC 40.
At Rolling Lab, the incubator dedicated to Paris&Co logistics, we are convinced that incubators retain all their reasons for being. Indeed, they are transforming at the same time as the economic world and adapting to the evolution of their ecosystems. In just a few years, large groups have understood that startups are not always competitors but that they can provide completely new solutions to recurring problems. These young and agile structures can also make them more flexible and help shake up structures slowed down by their size.
An incubator dedicated to everything mobile in a territory, the Rolling Lab selects startups in partnership with major accounts that are the benchmark in their sector of activity.
- Put in direct contact with their potential customers, startups can very quickly compare their value proposition to the needs of their users and adjust their offers and services.
- Gathered in one place, startups can also exchange with peers to save time and move more quickly towards the right development solutions.
- By following several startups at the same time, incubator teams develop expertise in their sector of activity and can draw lessons that they will share with new startups.
The example of logistics is particularly interesting because it is a sector with major specificities: The logistics and transport sector is already very efficient. It is when major climatic events occur (see the snowy episode in Ile-de-France in February 2018) that everyone realizes that logistical activities are essential to the smooth running of a region.
A very operational activity, the margins of economic players are not significant and tampering with this well-regulated system can only be done with a certain amount of caution. In fact, early adopters are far from representing the majority of players! Furthermore, sales cycles are slow, which is no different from other sectors of activity, but – icing on the cake – they are also impacted by the strong seasonality of logistics activities. The example of e-commerce is obvious: while this sector is in full development with growth exceeding double digits each year, those providing innovative solutions have a very short period of time between the summer break and the Christmas holidays. end of the year to implement their innovative solutions.
Based on these various observations, incubators appear to be essential players in putting oil in the cogs of the innovation system. A link, even a translation link, between start-ups – in a hurry by nature to test their products and services – and major accounts – who are required by the rules of business to move forward with caution, the Rolling Lab promotes the necessary dialogue between actors quite culturally distant from each other. Furthermore, as a third-party organization, neither employer nor union, incubators can highlight a sector of activity and shake up the systems in place in an original and benevolent way to imagine new collaborations.
Conclusion: Yes, in 2018, incubators are still necessary. They simply need to continually reinvent themselves to provide businesses, small or large, with sound advice and relevant contacts to support them in their ongoing transformations.
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