Colin Ake

Colin Ake is the Director of Incubation and Commercialization at the Office of Research at Kennesaw State University. He is charged with building HatchBridge, a new community-focused business incubator that is a partnership between KSU and the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.  HatchBridge is an open collaboration studio helping local entrepreneurs to experiment, launch, and grow. He also serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the Robin and Doug Shore Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center at KSU, where he helps expand programs and mentor student startups.

Colin’s background includes significant time working with early-stage and scaling deep-tech startups. At Georgia Tech’s VentureLab, Colin worked with faculty members, PhD students, and graduate students to understand their customers better with customer discovery techniques. He also managed many of Georgia Tech’s National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) programs, which focus on customer development. Colin also has experience in and at early-stage startups, beginning with a co-op at a software company in Atlanta in undergrad. Colin developed new business models around rockets as a service for Masten Space Systems from 2009-2013 and rejoined the company from 2020-2022 as the company scaled from 12 to 120 employees.

Colin holds a Bachelor’s in Science in Management and an MBA from Georgia Tech. He lives in Woodstock with his wife Nikki and three children. Colin serves on Woodstock’s City Council representing Ward 3.

Favorite Hobby: Spending time with his family & Serving the City of Woodstock on City Council

Favorite Sports Team: Atlanta Braves

Favorite Music Artist: Muse

Skill Set: Business model development, early-stage technology startups, customer development, deep technology ventures.