Joining an Incubator. Concerned About 2 Items in The Contract. Advice?
jacquesm: My first guess on how to proceed would be to find some other parties that have already signed on to this program and to ask them what these tersm mean in practice.regarding the first term:That one seems to be the most serious, why they would want a seat at the table in negotiations is hard for me to understand. What I don't see is the teeth this contract has in case you do not live by its terms in the long run. What recourse do they have if you decide to negotiate a deal on your own ?as to the second part:It sounds like the reporting requirements are quite heavy for something that is basically government supported cheap business space.Figure out how much it will cost you to comply with these requirements and how much you will save because of being in the program (and there might be fringe benefits).Another avenue would be to take on some angel funding and use that to rent your office space but that will cost you equity and may not come with the same networking possibilities.It reads like they want more statistics on what is going on inside the businesses they have a contract with, which is typical for government services, it is one of the coins with which you are expected to pay them back.It is very well possible that you will be making these reports anyhow (for yourself or your co-founders or for some other funding entity), in that case the overhead would be minimal.good luck!