My annotations on the concept:
Not only social innovation. Even normal startups in low-infrastructure (“less developed”) regions require patient support, and its absence may well be the reason for the very limited successes of previous startup rearing programmes in these areas. When a startup has to solve or work around infrastructure issues several levels down (absence of a door-to-door postal system, street addresses, e-payment systems etc.), of course it needs more support than a traditional incubator can supply.
How to create such incubators in multiple spaces. For the first prototypical “patient startup incubator” space, it may be that the Edgeryders organization will rent and run the physical space itself. However, I don’t think this is a scalable model since (1) our patient incubator residencies will utilize the space for only 2-4 months per year (with perhaps 3-4 more months of AirBnB rental income and the rest of time sitting idle), (2) it will often be complicated to be a company in Estonia operating a space outside of Europe and (3) creating new spin-off companies in the country where the spaces are solves this in exchange of a problem of increased admin efforts. So instead, I propose that, (1) as part of the initial batches of social entrepreneurs, we support those who want to set up and run communal spaces in their own cities, (2) we connect these communal spaces in a network of OpenVillage houses, and (3) we run our patient incubator programs inside these spaces and pay a fee for the access we get. These spaces would be locally registered, self-sustaining businesses, formally independent of Edgeryders but loosely connected into a network. Reason: entrepreneurs like to found and operate their own project and be their own boss, and we profit from their higher motivation to manage the space well and make it nice and attractive.