ELMIRA, N.Y. (WENY) -- IncubatorWorks held their grand opening at Elmira's Corning Community College to welcome ambitious people with small business ideas. The organization helps people find the support and resources they need to become successful entrepreneurs. This is not an incubator where chickens lay their eggs, but instead a hub for ideas to become reality. 

"We are IncubatorWork, so we don't incubate chickens or babies," said Ashleigh Madison, Executive Director at IncubatorWorks. "We incubate businesses. So we help entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses through a variety of resources, services, and mentorship."

From technology to research and development, the Elmira facility turns a ground-level idea into a small business. The organization offers a 12-week co-starter accelerator program that helps an entrepreneur with their idea, writing a business plan, and creating a cohort model. 

"Incubators help entrepreneurs start businesses in a lot of different ways. One of the ways that we do it is through, an array of programs, one of which is utilizing the business model canvas to help someone figure out if they have a customer base, and what their cash flow model looks like. All of these things help entrepreneurs validate their ideas," says Madison. 

At Wednesday, February 7th's ribbon cutting and open house, Chemung County Legislature Mark Margeson chimed in on how valuable and important small businesses are in the Southern Tier. 

"The unique thing about Chemung County is 56% of the businesses in Chemung County are one to five-person businesses," says Chemung County Legislature Mark Margeson.

Margeson adds the ribbon cutting and open house has been an event he has waited five years for. This project he has a lot of hope and faith in.

"I think the IncubatorWorks. It'll do a couple of things. Number one, it'll help people develop a business if they want. Typically they start small. Number two, it'll also help individuals learn about different types of business and they may be able to be trained and go to work for other companies, locally, which will be good," explains Margeson. 

Incubator Works is located at 318 Madison Avenue, Elmira New York on the third floor of the Corning Community Colleges building.