Incubator launching Catalyst Program

One of northern Nevada’s business incubators is about to start up a new, fast-track program for its clients.

The CUBE at Midtown is launching the Catalyst Program, a program packaging the incubator’s services and delivering them in a group setting and on a defined schedule.

The program will include CUBE client offerings such as office space and mentoring and adds a new component, what the CUBE’s new interim executive director, Estella Hunt, calls cohort participation.

That means much of the education and work will be done in group sessions and at a faster pace.

The program is set to start in March or April and run through the end of the year, when participants will graduate.

“It’s like a mastermind group or executive roundtable,” said Hunt, referring to a business term for groups that provide brainstorming, education and support among peers working on the same individual goals such as launching a business.

The Catalyst Program joins a list of recent accomplishments at the CUBE, or Center for Unique Business Enterprises.

In 2015, the CUBE launched the Playbook, a series of presentations and workshops attended by more than 200 participants on topics for start-ups ranging from fundraising to big data for small businesses.

The incubator also entered into reciprocity agreements locally with the Adam’s Hub in Carson City and the Tahoe Mountain Lab in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and outside the area with the Mountain Coworking Alliance, which has incubators in California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

The deals allow CUBE clients and the members of the other incubators to work out of the space of any partner.

The 16,800 square-foot Midtown incubator houses about 20 clients, according to Ky Good, a former telecom executive who with Norman Smith founded the CUBE in 2009.

Its clients, who are in various stages of starting up their businesses, include AboveNV, a drone instructor; BodyFly Fitness, a physical fitness company; and VizKinect, a business using biometrics to analyze computer user’s attention.

About a dozen of those clients pay an average of $250 a month for office space in the CUBE and its services, such as receptionist, office equipment and meeting space, as well as mentoring, including help with legal advice provided pro bono by attorneys from Fennemore Craig, and other topics pertinent to launching a business.

The remainder are called virtual clients, who drop by the space for mentoring and education.

The local entrepreneurial scene, say many involved in it, is thriving but suffers from a lack of early-stage investors.

The CUBE doesn’t invest in its start-ups, said Good, to avoid any conflict of interest.

But it is working closely with venture capital funds to try to match up new businesses with money.

“Investors are not as abundant as we’d like to see,” said Good. “We recently started working with five venture capital funds from California who asked us to help them find viable deals. These guys want to fund deals that haven’t been shopped around. Anything that can scale. Scaling is the key word.”

A bigger problem, said Good, is a shortage of outside, experienced talent that can help these start-ups get off the ground by temporarily acting as chief financial officer or CEO.

“There are not enough people who can push these businesses across the finish line,” said Good. “Most investors invest in people not products. We’re trying to find those people.”