Business incubators like the one at Stony Brook University offer critical support and guidance to entrepreneurs

Small business is big. In an effort to help small businesses get off the ground, incubators like the Stony Brook Business Incubator in Calverton, New York, have popped up across the country. From tech startups to food-related companies like Peconic Escargot, incubators offer guidance and support to get a new venture off to a healthy start.

Peconic Escargot uses the licensed commercial kitchen at Stony Brook to process and package its snails, which is an almost invaluable resource for the young company. Commercial kitchens are extremely expensive to build and having access to the kitchen at Stony Brook makes a hard-to-access resource readily available to Taylor and Kate.

They share the space with other food entrepreneurs, each cooking up something unique from pickles to rice pudding. Beyond the kitchen space, Stony Brook has a business development center and works to support the success of its entrepreneurs by offering workshops on branding, intellectual property rights, financial management and other critical keys to success beyond making a delicious product.