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“I was brought in once the building was up,” Herd says. “My job was, space to new businesses, not featherbed established ones.
effectively, to start a business whose job it was to help other people “We are normally quite diplomatic about it,” Mike says. “We’ll quietly
develop their own businesses. I was clearly off to a bad start when slide publicity from office rental companies under their door, just to
my entire staff quit within six weeks.”
make them think it’s about time to move on.”
It sounds chaotic, and it was, but one of the great advantages
Spend any time with Mike Herd and the notion begins to form…if
Mike had at the time was that he was making it up as he went
SINC works, maybe there’s a business idea here, maybe I could
along, even though there was a smattering of public money
take this idea into other cities and then encourage bright young
involved. Without a doubt, if SINC was started today it would be part
businesses to take space and…
of the public sector where a web of rules, regulations, reports and
red tape would have obliged Mike to do things very differently, and
“Don’t even think about it,” Herd says. “You do NOT want to become
although he would never say this himself, no doubt would have
a landlord to some of the riskiest commercial prospects around.
killed the whole thing stone dead. As it was, a certain renegade
That is not what this is all about. Our job is to encourage innovation,
spirit began to take hold and, as Mike began to realise, when there
nurture ideas and their owners, and shepherd them into the outside
are no rules, no guidelines, one has tremendous scope for…well,
world, ready and able for business. At least a third of the
innovation.
companies we deal with would have gone bust were it not for us.”
“There is a fantastic Catch-22 at work in this game,” Mike says, “and
The SINC building is never fully let and there is a turnover of some
it says something about the support that’s out there for genuine
20-30 companies every year.
innovation and ideas. Someone comes to us with a really good
idea. By every measure it looks really excellent. A bank, angel or VC
So is it a successful model for incubators? It is by no means the only
is invited to support it, and what happens? They like the idea but
one that offers a bricks and mortar home for new young
won’t get involved because there isn’t a strong management
businesses. Science parks in Kent, Oxford and Southampton
team. Think about it. OF COURSE there isn’t a strong management
broadly follow the SINC model.
team! The whole point is that we need to build a business…if it
already had a strong management team then it probably wouldn’t
In the public sector, incubation is promoted slightly differently,
be looking for angel money. It can get so frustrating!”
SEEDA has created a network of Enterprise Hubs around the region
So he did what he had done from the moment he joined SINC. He
that provide a virtual incubation environment, whereby young
made it up. companies are provided with all the advice and assistance they
might get in a physical incubator but without the office space.
“I thought, why not use the SINC brand in its own right, to give some Greg Ward is SEEDA’s Director of Global Markets and has
of these young companies the credibility they otherwise lacked as responsibility for the Enterprise Hubs. He shares Mike Herd’s caution
start-ups? So, using the SINC umbrella, I went out to big companies that simply offering office space is not the solution.
to introduce these ideas into the marketplace and get big business
support, and it worked. Some of these companies even became
“Unless you are very careful, the risk is that some of the best ideas
investors.
may come from companies who are the worst tenants, so the
temptation will be to replace the bad tenants with better ones, and
“I truly believe that what is on the table with these bright start-ups
so the incubation model can break down,” Ward says, suggesting
should be the ideas, not the corporate structure. Sometimes the
that some who have tried to follow the SINC model have failed
opportunity becomes bigger than the ambition of the owner, and
over this very issue.
investors don’t like that, they tend to shy away, but that doesn’t
worry me – it is the idea that matters.”
Mike Herd and SINC work very happily alongside the SEEDA
Enterprise Hub network, but differences in philosophy remain.
V
A
TION MAN
Eventually Mike and his team would become more than just an
Because SEEDA is a government agency, it has to follow social
overarching brand that could carry new ideas into places where
policies dictated from Whitehall, which says innovation must, where
they would otherwise get short shrift. SINC actually began to weave
itself into the fabric of small companies who needed extra help,
possible, be used as a tool of regeneration. On the face of it, that
with accountancy, management and advice, sometimes for fees,
sounds laudable, but as with so many good intentions dispensed
sometimes even for equity. It got to the stage where SINC actually
from on high, it contains the seeds of its own weakness, and Mike
lent companies staff.
Herd knows it.
“Imagine it,” Mike says. “You’re a very young company, maybe one
“The whole point is to nurture a culture of innovation in this country,
or two of you, you’ve got a great idea and a potential client or
and deliver economic growth” he says. “Where support for
backer is coming for a visit. You just have to look substantial. We let
innovation is focussed on regeneration areas you start to distort the
them have the boardroom for a meeting, of course, but we also
concept. A good idea is a good idea, no matter where it is, and
lend them bodies so they can create the appearance of size and
offering support in one area rather than another, simply because it
substance to bolster their chances!”
fits a social agenda, does not in my opinion maximise opportunity
for all.”
Of course, success has its downsides too. The companies who
make it have to move on, not just because they start to outgrow Sources: Mike Herd SINC www.sinc.co.uk
the SINC building but because the whole point of SINC is to offer Greg Ward SEEDA www.seeda.co.uk
INNO
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