A key challenge in the Canadian innovation ecosystem is developing new models for innovation intermediaries and knowledge transfer. This presentation shares the founder's experience as an innovation intermediary while operating TheCodeFactory business incubator and shared workspace in Ottawa, Canada, since 2007. As a bootstrapped startup in its own right, TheCodeFactory takes a novel approach to business incubation: the business is funded from the
bottom-up by entrepreneurs and innovators. Through an overview of TheCodeFactory's history and evolution within the burgeoning web and mobile innovation ecosystem in Ottawa, this presentation provides a practioner's perspective of lessons learned in an entrepreneurial
business incubator. This experience also raises key questions for future academic research with practical applications for entrepreneurship support systems. In this way, the purpose of the presentation is to help bridge the gap between theory and practice in the domains of business incubation and knowledge transfer.