So in the spirit of success, Fuel Your Venture has created a list/directory of companies providing this unique type of funding and mentorship for the earliest stage start-ups.

Although populated with some amazing incubators, we see this directory as a work in progress.  If you know of a company we are missing, submit it as a comment or email us directly at editor@fuelyourventure.com, and we will add it to the list.

Ycombinator
Location	Mountain View, CA
Key People	Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris
Founded	2005
Focus	Software and web services
Cash Investment	$5,000 plus an additional $5,000 for each founder
Equity Stake	2-10%
Website	http://ycombinator.com/
Contact	info@ycombinator.com
Notes	Ycombinator is one of the earliest of the seed-stage incubators. Based out of Mountain View, CA, Ycombinator hosts two classes of companies each year. Companies must relocate to Mountain View for the three month duration of the program. Ycombinator provides office space and mentorship to participants of the program. The program culminates in an investor and demo day. Graduates of Ycombinator include Reddit, Loopt, Justin.tv, Scribd and Dropbox.

Techstars
Location	Boulder, Colorado; Boston, Massachusetts; and Seattle, Washington
Key People	David Cohen, Brad Feld, Jared Polis, David Brown, Shawn Broderick
Founded	2006
Focus	Technology oriented companies (web based and software)
Cash Investment	$6,000 per founder up to three founders
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://techstars.org
Contact	info@techstars.org
Notes	TechStars was founded a year after Ycombinator. Companies must relocate to the Techstars location for the entire three month duration of the program. Past graduates include IntenseDebate, Socialthing, Brightkite, DailyBurn and ignighter. The program culminates in an investor and demo day. Over 70% of TechStars companies have had success outside of the program, either by raising outside funding or becoming profitable.

DreamIt Ventures
Location	Philadelphia, PA
Key People	David Bookspan, Michael Levinson, Steven Welch
Founded	2007
Focus	Any idea that can be developed into a product in three months
Cash Investment	$30,000
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://www.dreamitventures.com/
Contact	info@dreamitventures.com
Notes	At the end of the program, companies pitch to potential investors at a demo day. Although younger than Ycombinator and TechStars, DreamIt has funded successful companies, including SCVNGR, NoteHall, and SeatGeek. Read our recent article about DreamIt for more detailed information.

Capital Factory
Location	Austin, TX
Key People	Josh Baer, Sam Decker, Bryan Menell
Founded	2009
Focus	Technology
Cash Investment	$20,000 in cash plus additional products and services valued at more than $20,000
Equity Stake	5%
Website	http://capitalfactory.com
Contact	http://twitter.com/capitalfactory
Notes	The program ends with a demo day in which companies pitch to potential investors. Previous classes included five companies, including PetsMD.com, SpareFoot.com, and Cubit planning.

Shotput Ventures
Location	Atlanta, GA
Key People	David Cummings, Sanjay Parekh, Allen Graber
Founded	2009
Focus	Capital-light web companies
Cash Investment	$6,000 per founder up to three founders
Equity Stake	5-10%
Website	http://www.shotputventures.com/
Contact	info@shotputventures.com
Notes	Shotput also provides mentoring and a demo day at the end of the program but doesn’t provide any office space. Shotput requires companies to relocate to Atlanta for the duration of the three month program.

LaunchBox Digital
Location	Washington, D.C.
Key People	Julius Genachowski, Sean Greene and John McKinley
Founded	2007
Focus	Technology oriented companies
Cash Investment	$15,000-20,000
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://www.launchboxdigital.com/
Contact	theteam@launchboxdigital.com
Notes	LaunchBox provides office space, mentorship and a demo day at the end of the 12 week program. Participating companies are required to relocate to Washington, D.C. for the duration of the program. Previous graduates include JamLegend, TapMetrics and unblab.

BoomStartup
Location	Salt Lake City, UT
Key People	John Richards, Robb Kunz and Josh James
Founded	2010
Focus	Tech startups
Cash Investment	$15,000
Equity Stake	Not stated
Website	http://www.boomstartup.com/
Contact	http://www.boomstartup.com/?q=contact
Notes	BoomStartup is mentorship-driven. It provides office space in Salt Lake City as well as services to help startups. The incubator hosts a demo day in September for member companies to pitch to potential investors.

Springboard
Location	Cambridge, UK
Key People	Neil Davidson, Simon Galbraith and Amir Chaudhry
Founded	2009
Focus	Business-to-business software
Cash Investment	Varies
Equity Stake	None
Website	http://springboard.com/
Contact	amir.chaudhry@red-gate.com
Notes	Springboard is an ‘accidental’ incubator founded by Red Gate. Springboard provides mentorship and office space in Red Gate’s offices. Springboard doesn’t take any equity in the companies they support. Past participating companies include PagerDuty, TidePowered and MetaAlternative.

Excelerate
Location	Chicago, IL
Key People	Sam Yagan, Kapil Chaudhary, Kelli Rhee, Troy Henikoff
Founded	2010
Focus	None stated
Cash Investment	$15,000-20,000
Equity Stake	5%
Website	http://www.exceleratelabs.com/
Contact	http://www.exceleratelabs.com/contact/
Notes	Excelerate is a ‘bootcamp’ for startups and provides mentorship, office space in downtown Chicago and access to potential investors. Companies are required to relocate to Chicago for the duration of the 13 week program.

SproutBox
Location	Bloomington, IL
Key People	Marc Guyer, Mike Trotzke, Brad Wisler
Founded	2008
Focus	Web based applications
Cash Investment	$10,000-15,000
Equity Stake	25-40%
Website	http://sproutbox.com/
Contact	Phone: 888.417.9341
Notes	SproutBox is a development focused incubator. Sproutbox selects four companies a year to be a part of a 10 month program. SproutBox provides office space and services worth between $200,000-250,000 in order to ‘mitigate initial distractions’. Participants must relocate to Bloomington for a minimum of three months during the development phase. SproutBox provides access to potential investors at the end of the program.

NextStart
Location	Greenville, SC
Key People	Michael Mino, Kim Dawson, Kristie B. Byrum, Neil Grayson, Rick Heller, David Setzer, Peter Walschmidt, David Wyman, Robert Fletcher
Founded	2009
Focus	None stated
Cash Investment	$5,000 per team member ($10,000 maximum per company)
Equity Stake	5-10%
Website	http://www.nextstart.org/
Contact	Phone: 864.370.3038
Notes	NextStart is an incubator based in Greenville, South Carolina. The program provides mentorship and office space for the duration of the summer program. NextStart culminates in a demo day at which companies pitch to potential investors. The program takes between 5-10% equity.

GoodCompany Ventures
Location	Philadelphia, PA
Key People	Garrett Melby, Chris Bentley
Founded	2009
Focus	For-profit social enterprises
Cash Investment	$0
Equity Stake	0%
Website	http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/
Contact	http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/about/contact-us/
Notes	GoodCompany is an incubator that’s specifically focused on “socially conscious entrepreneurs who can make a difference.” GoodCompany doesn’t provide any money to participants and doesn’t take any equity, but it provides mentoring, support, and facilities. The incubator also facilitates a first investment round. Participants are required to attend weekly meetings at the GoodCompany offices in downtown Philadelphia. The program culminates in a demo day at which participating companies pitch to potential investors.

Betaspring
Location	Providence, RI
Key People	Allan Tear, Jack Templin, Owen Johnson
Founded	2009
Focus	Technology and design from web services to physical devices
Cash Investment	Average of $20k per team
Equity Stake	6-8%
Website	http://betaspring.com
Contact	info@betaspring.com
Notes	Competitive entrepreneurial teams from around the world come to Providence, RI, for our intensive twelve week program. During these twelve weeks, we help teams transform themselves into functional, fundable companies by providing mentorship, kickoff funding, and immersion in an intense startup community of like-minded entrepreneurs. At the end of the program teams have the opportunity to present their company to investors from the Boston, New York corridor during our Demo Day event.

Did we miss anyone?

We would like to make this a comprehensive resource for startup incubators everywhere.  If you have one to add to the list, please submit it to editor@fuelyourventure.com

We are looking for feedback

Have you worked with any of these incubators?  Have feedback? Share your experience below!

The Ultimate Startup Incubator Directory is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

Communication

Contacting all corners of the globe can be expensive and tiring if you’re a conventional telephone user. However thanks to VoIP (Voice-over IP) you can make international calls at a fraction of the price. What’s more, it’s all done through your computer meaning you can talk & type at the same time!

Make free calls to other Skype accounts along with paid subscriptions to call national and international numbers. A great service used by many millions!

A service designed with entrepreneurs in mind. A fully-functional virtual PBX allows you to use Grasshopper in your company to make and receive calls.

By using the Vonage Adapter, you can convert your phone into a VoIP phone making it easier and cheaper to make international calls - simple!

Project Management

If you’re running various projects at once you’ll understand that keeping on top of them can be difficult. With project management solutions such as the ones below, you can take control of your business and complete any important work on time.

An awesome web-based tool that allows you to manage projects, assign tasks, create milestones and targets.

A great project management tool with a clean interface and many features including time scheduling and calenders.

A web-based task manager designed specifically to go hand-in-hand with the 'Getting Things Done' methodology.

Invoicing

It’s normally a painstaking task requesting money from customers but with the many solutions available you can manage all your invoices online in a professional manner. Most services even offer templating and custom styles to make the invoice suit your business.

Perhaps the most renowned invoicing solution offering simple invoice templates that look both professional and legitimate.

SliQ Invoicing & Quotes offer professional invoices, personal quotation forms and credit notes helping you get paid on time!

Zoho Invoice offers multi-user support to collaborate on invoicing along with the ability to track expenses and accept payments online.

Accounting & Budgeting

Perhaps one of the most important parts of running a business is keeping accurate accounts and budgeting for the future to ensure you don’t run out of money. Keeping a record of everything in one central place is the key to all your accounting nightmares.

Priding themselves on being the 'world's easiest accounting system', Xero allows you to keep track of numerous things including banking, invoicing and reports.

An awesome, free service offering outstanding budgeting features along with automatic bookkeeping which gives you time to focus on other things.

An online bookkeeping tool completely free of charge with various features including taxation estimates. You can also export data to your computer!

With so many important tasks required to keep your business afloat – whether new or established – these tools really can help make things easier and reduce your workload. If you’ve got any suggestions for tools, resources & software that can be used to make an entrepreneurs life easier, please share them in the comments. I’d also appreciate feedback on whether you thought this list was useful and what sort of things you’d like to see in the future!

12 Useful Resources for Entrepreneurs is a post from: Fuel Your Venture