This is a CTP of initiative: Impact Hub Vienna (Austria)
This CTP is about the founding of the IH Vienna Incubation Centre. In the summer of 2012 it became clear to interviewee that the social entrepreneurs in the Impact Hub Vienna (IH Vienna) needed much more structured support in the early stage of their development than “just a community and working space”. That is when the Incubation Centre was started. “The idea of that was to create efficiencies and being able to support many more social entrepreneurs and attract resources, develop the capacity to create incubation and acceleration and eventually being able to sell that as a service and not just all the time fundraise for programs. So turn it from a sponsoring model into a service provider by developing so to say the incubation and acceleration capacity and then selling that to different entities who want to support social entrepreneurs.” To the outside the incubation centre was branded as being an IH thing, but the incubation centre had its own legal entitity, budget and team. The moment itself was considered by the interviewee both an opportunity and a struggle: ”It was an opportunity, it was a need, it was a chance. There was this struggle of the individual project, individual programs where in a sense, in my understanding, I was at leading that initiative or it was in my mind that now I need to make this incubation center and I need to fight for it, it was the fear that if we don’t put it together then they are going to disappear more or less or each of these initiatives are going to have very little power to go on and not go anywhere. So the sustainability of these initiatives was the key element in that.” It was considered an opportunity because it only became real when an incubation program from Germany was looking for possibly implementing their method in Vienna, as described in the co-production. “So yeah I think it was clear that it was critical, turning, I don’t know. Turning, it was turning for who? I think in relationship to whom we can say it was turning. Towards the program, clearly it was a TP. Towards IH Vienna as such, I think because these program were not directly IH Vienna program. In that respect it didn’t feel like it was..”
Observing the struggles of the different social entrepreneurs made the interviewee realise that another program should be offered to them. She did this in relation to the market they contribute to: “I always think in terms of business, what kind of capabilities can we develop that the market may need and eventually monetize that.” There were already a few existing programs aiming at supporting starting social entrepreneurs: The Social Impact Award by the Economic and Business University of Vienna, Higher by Society, the Investment Ready Program. What eventually made a difference was the opportunity of implementing an existing program from Germany: “THE possibility because this triggered it in a way the possibility of actually taking over what is called now the Social Impact Style from an organization in Berlin, an Ashoka fellow, was looking for implementation partners in Vienna.” Before implementing this program and becoming an incubation centre it had to be discussed with the other parties/programs supporting the entrepreneurs: “So the point was to discuss with all these parties and make sure that they are ok with it, to practically give that program and to become an incubation center.” The people involved in becoming an incubation center were: “founders or employees of different programs floating around the IH. But you also have a personal history to all these people”. “It is very important to understand the people around, the ones who created this, who initiated all these programs, who took the risk to create the incubation center. All these are the ones who have been co-producing, the key players to co-create the incubation center. Without them nothing would have happened, it would not have worked. They were not the entrepreneurs.” The members of the IH were not involved because this was more of an organizational change than “the content or process affecting them. We did not see their role important because it did not have anything to do with them. We would do if it had much more impact”.
What triggered the interviewee was the evaluation moment at the end of the year (summer 2012) where all the struggles and limitations of the entrepreneurs became apparent. “How do you survive without support? That was the key element. How can we still go on, because if you look at the budgets of all this, they don’t cover up too much, you need to find a different model.“ The search to an implementation partner by the Social Impact Start from Berlin led to a conversation about where/how to go in the future. For the interviewee this was important: “because at least for me it lead to a very clear idea that in the end of the day the main point is much more support and many more resources for entrepreneurs. And that is what we are here to enable.” What followed from the un/official launch of the Incubation Centre (which is legally part of IH Vienna) was: “the fact that we created a different contract with the university, who signed a contract with Emersense for handing over the rights of managing the social impact award. “ “For me, I still consider it was one of the best things possible. They are really good, their methodology was great. The program they set up was excellent. The entrepreneurs loved the program. Now we are at SIS 6, the sixth iteration.” It seems that the incubation center is being approached by different sectors, by the respondent referred to as ‘the system’, for their competency to incubate ventures and they have several programs pending. “So a lot of different players in the system, saw the opportunity: ok we don’t necessarily need to reinvent the whole wheel and each of us create their own centers of support.” The respondent explains that they are becoming part of an “ecosystem (…) that can serve as many entrepreneurs as possible, in a customized way as possible, at affordable costs.”
The implementation of a new program by a new player in the field led to contestation: “At that moment, there were lot of conversations: ‘O my god, there is a new program coming in on the market. Should we do this, is this not going to cannibalize the other programs that we have, is it not going to steal entrepreneurs?” Both internally and externally it led to contestation. Internally the discussion was about the different program running to incubate and accelerate start-ups. The fear was that some programs would get more attention than others: “if you have centre with several programs you can run the risk of how much attention you give to each of them and in which way. So this was one initial contestation.” It could either lead to collaboration or fight between the programs, but also between the SIS as organization and the Impact Hub: “How does that work, his position with all the other programs we are doing. Is it our program, or their program, or whose program is it?” However, according to the interviewee this contestation should not be a subject of attention because in the end the benefit of the entrepreneurs should be the priority: “I don’t see this point of competition. And anyway if there is, we prefer that we run it rather than someone else run it. This kind of, opportunity coming in it clarified a lot.” A second point of contestation was regarding the branding of the programs and how to position them towards the entrepreneurs. The question was whether to develop an own branding of Incubation Centre or becoming part of the IH brand. The consideration here was the fact that the license of the Impact Hub is related to the city you are in, so it is geographically limited. The programs however, were regional/international. The brand of the Impact Hub thus had a regional limitation. In the end they chose to make the incubation center part of the IH Vienna brand since it was the only brand they had available
The respondent shows a very reflective attitude towards everything she describes. She explains that is can be called critical afterwards but that in the moment itself it was not designed to be a critical moment. It felt however if they were at a crossroad: “I really felt like we either go for it, I really had these moments it is ‘no or never’. Everything later would have been too late, everything before would not make sense. Get into these challenges. So that it makes sense to put it together.” At that point in time it was a clear critical moment, but turning: “it was turning for who? I think in relationship to whom we can say it was turning. Towards the program, clearly it was a TP. Towards IH Vienna as such, I think because these program were not directly IH Vienna program. In that respect it didn’t feel like it was..”
The main point of interest for the interviewee and the CTP described here was the benefit for the start-ups/social entrepreneurs. The whole initiative to launch an incubation center derived from the observation that the entrepreneurs needed more support: “when you see a need and an opportunity and a struggle, you need somebody who sees it and mobilizes the system around it”. Together with other people involved in incubating and accelerating entrepreneurs in the IH, she took that role: “You need somehow to hold the energy that is there. The system is ready to move on but it needs someone to take action and put everyone on the same table”. “so for me this kind of learning of always being alert to understand what is the environments’ need and opportunity in every point in time as well as having the courage to explore it.” At the same time it also depend on the environment you are in: “But I think you can still explore it if the energy is there in the system and if the energy is in the system it will tip for you and the others or for someone else. It is like a dance.” At the same time she sees that how things are currently organized it has become of self selecting system and therefore not accessible to everyone applying: “And that we democratize it. Because this programmatic approach always selects. And selects based on whoever wrote the call. If I am about immobility, I only support immobility. With poverty I only select poverty and there are lots of other ventures in between. That’s just because they don’t get any free support or they don’t get support at all. Either because they are not at the right stage or they are not on the right topic the system supports. That is where my vision is to democratize that and make it available for everybody that you can, if it doesn’t get supported, at least you can buy it for yourself. And how can you buy it at an affordable price. That’s how we created an accelerate program as a service as well, not just this program. And within that vision in how you could do that in the most efficient and in the most effective way I can see the limitations being still in this model. I can imagine a possible next turning point.”
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