Not long ago, I had devised a model for incubator startups, garage type startup businesses all under one roof. It went something like this; you’d have a large warehouse, and you’d have 16 squares inside all 16 x 16′ each. Every one of those squares would contain a garage startup, and there would be a loft above the shop, and business executive services in a front lobby. This concept makes sense, as it is easy to build, and there is plenty of warehouse and industrial space still available since the 2008 economic crisis.
Still, maybe we can improve upon that model by creating a startup incubator inside of a robotic high-rise parking structure. Let me explain. As each startup progressed it could move from one of the spaces underneath up to the next level. At each level would be whatever they most needed in that stage of their development. One floor might have a CADCAM design computer system with two computer designers. As they were building their prototype, the next level would have a paralegal specializing in working with a local patent attorney.
The third level might have an area where venture capitalists and angel investors could come take a look, or large corporations could take a gander in case they wanted to buy the concept, or integrate it into their product line. Since this is in a robotic high-rise parking structure, and any time the prototype needed to be tested, the robotic system could simply take the entire garage startup and move it down to the bottom level where the prototype could be pulled out, and tested at ground level. Are you beginning to see the beauty of this concept?
Eventually each startup would graduate, have its investors, and be ready for the real world, and perhaps to move into a high-tech industrial center. This would be one way we could move projects right along, and it might even work very well with the Department of Energy’s new concept of high-tech manufacturing clusters. Two or three of these high-rise robotic parking structures could be the feeder system into the high-tech clustered office Park. What we are talking about here is a revolutionary new design for the future innovation of America.
Although I do not have all the details worked out in my head, because I haven’t spent more than about 30 minutes thinking about this, I do have all the details worked out for the original concept of the 16 squares in a large warehouse, that could work too, only I think the robotic parking structure concept adds more credibility to the nature of high-tech startups. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.