Business incubators move to small towns to help local entrepreneurs

With rent prices placing an increasing burden on small start-ups, more companies are turning to business incubators as a way to keep costs down and get valuable business advice.

Lovell Inc., a local community development group, is opening a business incubator in Lovell, Wyoming - population 2,350 - in the hopes of providing business assistance and advice to local entrepreneurs, the Billings Gazette reports. The group wants to help create businesses that will grow and stay in the area.

The incubator will be able to house three tenants and a “flex” area. Already, the group has begun to receive applications. However, executive director Sue Taylor said that those they have received have not been the best fit.

“In a rural area, such as we are, we know our best potential for business growth is through individual entrepreneurs. The chances of getting somebody to move here are not the greatest. But we know we can grow our own,” Taylor told the Gazette.

Currently, New York City’s Varick Street business incubator is celebrating its one year anniversary. Since launching, the incubator’s tenants have created nearly 110 jobs, hired 250 freelancers and interns and raised more than $12 million in venture funding, the New York Business Journal writes.