Business incubator - How can we help you?

A business incubator is an entity that helps novice, often inexperienced entrepreneurs take their first steps in the market. Their way of operating is to provide their own legal personality along with a comprehensive package of services: accounting, human resources, legal, and office services, offering a complete environment for establishing a business idea. In exchange, they usually charge a small, flat monthly fee that is competitive compared to market prices for business services.

Running your own business involves much more than just providing services or actively selling products. There are numerous obligations that must be fulfilled regularly. Invaluable assistance is provided by accounting offices, tax advisors, or a Business Incubator offering full support for your business idea. The team of such an incubator is made up of a group of people with specialized knowledge in the areas of accounting, tax law, and reporting obligations with respect to various institutions.

Assistance provided by a business incubator is usually charged at the cost of a few hundred zlotys per month, during which the entrepreneur receives comprehensive support to function within market realities. In exchange for an optimized small sum, such as 400 PLN net, you can rely on professional accounting services, handling of all settlements and reporting to tax institutions, as well as ongoing help and advice on selecting the most optimal and secure way of operation.

A business incubator is more than just an accounting office. The most common form of operation is a non-governmental organization that provides its legal personality, name for accounting purposes, and enables the establishment of B2B relationships, while simultaneously allowing for building one’s own brand and market recognition. The incubator takes over the accounting duties, allowing the creator of the incubated business to focus on business development.

As part of the broadly-defined service of pre-incubating a business idea, a business incubator provides:

– its own legal personality – no need to register an entity

– comprehensive accounting – invoicing in the incubator’s system and their settlement

– no need to pay social insurance contributions

– access to an individual bank account enabling cashless settlements with clients and suppliers of products and services

– ongoing advice and professional legal support to navigate existing regulations

– additional services such as access to office space for meetings, correspondence handling, training for incubator beneficiaries, and access to special offers from partner entities.

Within the framework of a business incubator, you receive a bank account to manage settlements for your business. You also have continuous and constant access to it, so you can always check the payment status of issued invoices.

This account also serves you for making payments for services, products to sell, or devices needed for your day-to-day operations purchased for business needs. You simply issue a transfer to the supplier’s account, and provide the cost invoice to the incubator’s accounting department as a confirmation of your expenses.

The most enjoyable operation you can perform is drawing a salary from the profits you have generated. With the help of incubator employees, you will prepare all necessary documents for payout under a commission agreement or contract for work and receive a transfer to your private account.

Running a business within a business incubator set up at a higher education institution primarily gives you the opportunity to safely test your business idea. At the same time, it offers specialized formal and advisory support from the incubator’s managers. The most important areas of such support are mainly accounting and legal advice, which can be complicated for people without significant business experience, as well as the absence of the need to pay social security contributions (ZUS).

Academic entrepreneurship incubators are most often units established by higher education institutions. Their aim is to support the economic activities of university employees, students, and doctoral candidates. In practice, such support means that there is no need to register your own company in any form, thanks to the so-called lending of legal personality of the incubator service provider. Further benefits include ongoing assistance with settlements with contractors, as well as support from accounting and legal experts.

Business accelerators are places, entities, or programs that support companies in the early stages of their presence in the market. Their task is to set the direction and the right pace of development for young companies. Unlike incubators, accelerators require an already operating company and provide mainly mentoring support, in the form of business contacts and advisory support to attract funding for further development.

A start-up, or startup, is usually a newly established company, a young organization that is in the process of developing a business model to ensure its profitability. The most common characteristics of start-ups are: a short history of their existence, innovative ideas, scalability, and above-average expected profits, along with higher risks in case of failure.

A start-up is usually a young entity, often with a short market history, searching for the right development path and optimization of its business model. In practice, this means researching and determining the best way to introduce a product or service to the market while constantly improving it. When the developed business model leads to profitability and maintains it at a consistent level, it ceases to be a start-up and becomes a company.

A good business idea is only part of the journey to a start-up’s success. Funding is also necessary, and the most common source is one’s own resources. According to the Polish Startups Report 2022, developed by the Startup Poland Foundation, this accounts for 68% of cases. However, there are many external financing sources, among which the most popular are national venture capital funds, business angels, NCBiR funds, PARP support, national business accelerators, and PFR funds.