History
Since 1990 the Louisiana Business Incubation Association has been a resource to incubator managers providing an important tool for continued growth of Louisiana’s economy. Meeting quarterly, the membership comes together to discuss important state and federal legislation, economic incentives and incubation best practices.
The association has helped inform communities about the importance of incubation and remains one of the state’s strongest supporters of small business in Louisiana.
- Provide a central point for information, communications, and the exchange of ideas for incubator managers/staff and associate members.
- Provide the basis for mutually supportive business incubation for its members.
- Provide a vehicle for establishing linkages with other community and economic development organizations.
- Improve the business climate for the incubator industry and client firms and remove the barriers to incubator and business growth.
- Provide the hands-on management that helps accelerate the development and growth of new business, thereby creating new and better jobs for Louisiana and its citizens.
- Work to build a business environment that supports new companies, thus helping to make local economies more robust.
About Us
The Louisiana Business Incubation Association (LBIA) is a state association of business incubators and their supporters. LBIA was established to promote alliances among incubators, governmental agencies, and professional economic developers in order to promote the growth and diversification of our state’s businesses and economy. The National Business Incubation Association estimates that in 2005 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 27,000 start-up companies that provided full-time employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenue of more than $17 billion.
(Source: 2006 State of the Business Incubation Industry)
The business incubators that are members of LBIA provide a comprehensive program of business services and guidance targeted to the needs of start-up and fledgling companies to speed them to market and increase their chances for success. Louisiana’s incubators help diversify the state’s economy by growing and strengthening small businesses.
Our country’s small businesses represent 99.7% of all employer firms and employ half of all private sector employees.
The LBIA is also a member of the NBIA (National Business Incubators Association) which is a national organization that helps support the incubation industry. Learn more about the NBIA here
What is Incubation?
Business incubators are an economic development tool designed to accelerate the growth and success of entrepreneurial companies. Business incubators reduce the risk of small business failures. Historically, NBIA member incubators have reported that 87 percent of all firms that have graduated from their incubators are still in business.
Source: Business Incubation Works
By providing support process that accelerates the successful development of start-up and fledgling companies and providing an array of resources, incubators help community’s economies grow. The services provided by incubators are usually developed or orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the business incubator and through its network of contacts. A business incubator’s main goal is to produce successful firms that will leave the program financially viable and freestanding. These incubator graduates have the potential to create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, commercialize new technologies, and strengthen local and national economies.
Critical to the definition of an incubator is the provision of management guidance, technical assistance and consulting tailored to young growing companies. Incubators usually also provide clients access to appropriate rental space and flexible leases, shared basic business services and equipment, technology support services and assistance in obtaining the financing necessary for company growth.
For 50 years, incubators have been helping entrepreneurs turn their ideas into viable businesses. Around the world, entrepreneurs are playing an increasingly important role in transforming economies. Rather than relying solely on efforts to attract existing businesses from other locations, many communities are recognizing the need to help local residents build new businesses from the ground up through business incubators.
A 2008 study conducted by consulting firm Grant Thornton for the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration found that business incubators produce new jobs at a low cost to the government. The report, Construction Grants Program Impact Assessment Report, found that for every $10,000 in EDA funds invested in business incubation programs, an estimated 47 to 69 local jobs are generated. As a result, business incubators create jobs at far less cost than do other EDA investments, such as roads and bridges, industrial parks, commercial buildings, and sewer and water projects. In fact, the study found that incubators provide up to 20 times more jobs than community infrastructure projects at a federal cost per job of between $126 and $144, compared with between $744 and $6,972 for other infrastructure projects.