Fledgling entrepreneurs find experienced hands across the room at incubator

When fledgling entrepreneurs at business incubator The Icehouse need business advice, they can now pick the brains of those at the top of their field - from just across the office.

Its executives in residence programme makes The Icehouse the first local incubator to give leading business people a desk alongside its start-up companies to help them build their businesses to commercial success.

The first three top business people to roll up their sleeves at the incubator in Parnell are Software of Excellence founder Paul Weatherley, former Gen-i general manager sales and marketing Mark Hardie and former ProCare Health chief executive Mark Wills.

The trio will each work one day a week in the incubator and The Icehouse hopes they will be the first of many to take up the role.

Incubator manager Dave Wrathall said regular access to highly experienced business people was crucial for young companies.

"The Icehouse has a good external pool of mentors built up over the past four years but we recognised our internal business capability was spread a little thinly."

Ideally, the incubator hoped to bring in mentors with experience in building a business, particularly those who had worked at an executive level.

Wrathall expected that the mentors would come from those needing a transition from the corporate world, exiting their businesses or from returning expats, and hoped to have about four in residence at any one time.

The Icehouse (the Ice stands for International Centre for Entrepreneurship) was set up in 2001 by the University of Auckland business school and a group of leading corporates, who put up $2 million in cash between them.

To be accepted, entrepreneurs are typically in their mid-30s and early 40s, and must have a sound business idea, an emerging market opportunity and a strong export focus.

They are given a desk, phone and internet connections, tea, coffee and meeting rooms. They do not have to sign a lease while they work for two years to bring their ideas to fruition.