The HQA incubation program employs the LEAN startup methodology in combination with a proprietary digital incubation platform. The latter allows the founder, startup mentors as well as advisors, service providers and collaborators to work on and review the project from anywhere, at any time, in an asynchronous fashion. The incubation platform also offers access to introductory LEAN startup learning materials, collaboration spaces and validation tools.

While some founders opt to become very hands-on in the daily operations the projects from inception onwards, others prefer to to take a more hands-off approach. Such founders allow the business to grow organically under the guidance of the startup incubation team, and receive quarterly updates on the project’s progress.

For the first 12 to 18 months, the incubation process focuses mainly on nurturing the research or development project, along with validating the business model through iterative testing.