What parts of a start-up's business model are influenced by incubators?

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - General grade: 17 Technical University of Munich (TUM School of Management) language: English abstract: Incubators and their influence on start-ups as well as their performance are widely discussed especially in Germany where Berlin and Munich are developing a very supportive environment for start-ups. There is a variety of different types of incubators and offered services. Some work for-profit others work non-profit and receive governmental support. For a start-up the decision which incubator to chose (or apply for a development program) depends on its business model and the parts of it that need further adjustment. Does a start-up for example need capital? Does it require a lab to conduct experiments? Does it need entrepreneurial education? All those questions influence the decision for the right incubator type. There has been some research done compiling the services offered by incubators in general (Aerts Matthyssens & Vandenbempt 2007; Al-Mubaraki & Busler 2010; European Commission Enterprise Directorate-General 2002; Rice 2002; Sang Suk & Osteryoung 2004). In a first step I want to map the different services offered by incubators to the parts of a start-up's business model to generate an overview of what parts of a business model are influenced in general. There has also been some research about the services offered by different types of incubators (Mian 1994 1996) and there has been research comparing different types of incubators (Gassmann & Becker 2006; Grimaldi & Grandi 2005; von Zedtwitz & Grimaldi 2006) but there is almost no literature comparing the influence on a start-up's business model of different types of incubators. In this work I want to reveal differences in influence on a start-up's business model in Germany between university-sponsored incubators and independent incubators as they are the most distinguishable types of incubators. University-sponsored