# HStarter Incubator & Accelerator # What is an incubator? Incubators help entrepreneurs refine business ideas and build their company from the ground up. They provide early-stage companies with the education, resources and mentorship expertise needed to promote what might otherwise be several slow years of growth into a few short months. The HStarter incubator is DAO-governed. It means that the governance process is in the hands of the community. # What is the accelerator process? It consists of three main stages: - Incubation - Premoney - IDO All of them are tightly connected with HDAO's unique structure which empowers the HederaStarter community to make crucial decisions. # What is a DAO? Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is an entity with no central leadership but controlled by the organization members. Decisions are made by a community organized around a specific set of rules enforced on a distributed ledger. This approach eliminates the need to involve a mutually acceptable trusted third party in any decentralized digital interaction.