This toolkit was developed with the World Bank to teach and provide tools for entrepreneurs to collect data. Business analysis for tech hubs is difficult because the hubs simultaneously influence and are influenced by their local ecosystems. Areas in which tech hubs may benefit from business analytics include finding focus, sharing success with customers, and fundraising.
Imagine you are setting up a tech hub using the framework provided in this toolkit. Make a plan of how you would effectively collect the data. How would you decide what to measure? What resources will you need to effectively implement, monitor, and report the services your tech hub offers?
7. What Should You Measure? Developing a Business Analytics Approach and Selecting Indicators
What you should measure should be solely driven by your goals and your specific context. As explained in the previous sections, your own goals, your business model (adjusted to the local context), and your funders all help decide the right approach to business analytics. Tech hubs are not all the same, and so there is no common recipe. That is true even among infoDev's tech hubs, mLabs and mHubs. Each mLab and mHub has different local co-founders and different local ecosystem conditions that they address. At the same time, mLabs and mHubs are initially infoDev grantees, which means that they must be aligned and contribute to infoDev's Digital Entrepreneurship Program impact model. While they may have additional more confined goals with regard to supporting mobile innovation ecosystems and mobile app entrepreneurs, the impact model is a tested one and its indicators are based on previous experience in a variety of countries and unique ecosystems. Grantees also receive guidance and inputs from infoDev throughout the process. In the following section, the toolkit will draw from infoDev's past experience with mLabs and mHubs and use their examples to illustrate potential approaches for tech hubs in general.
While the general logic remains the same, you will need to adapt the guidelines provided here if you are dealing with different funders and different overarching impact models.