Business incubators assist small and medium-sized businesses during their startup and early-growth stages. Programs provide resident businesses with bundled physical amenities such as office/manufacturing space and office equipment, as well as a number of value-added services.

While the physical facilities are most visible to the community, it's the business assistance services that are the real benefit to small businesses. These services include business and marketing plan assistance; industry, market research and financial counseling; business-related workshops; and sometimes even limited financing.

In addition to startup companies, incubators also work with a number of other small enterprises, including former home-based operations, businesses that are relocating to a new region, ventures looking to expand to the next level and entrepreneurs still in the research phase. Whoever the clients, the goal of these programs remains constant; to add successful and financially viable businesses to the local economy through job creation.

And incubators have been extremely successful in achieving this goal; the success rate for incubator graduates is 87 percent. That means that businesses that have graduated from an incubation program are more than four times more likely to survive than those operations that aren't incubator-affiliated.