Every time you turn around, there seems to be a new Starbucks opening…and a new start-up incubator – something highlighted earlier this week by David Crow in StartupNorth.

For entrepreneurs looking for a helping hand – real estate, advice, cash, mentorship, friends – incubators can be a great resource. But you have to wonder if there is such thing as too many incubators and what, if any, downsides there may be.

I ran into a couple real examples of the incubator-palooza. I had coffee with someone today who went from the idea of creating an incubator to launching an incubator in eight weeks, including the raising of capital to get it off the ground. Another person told me about a lawyer who wanted to start an incubator to serve his clients – and saw no problem getting money to do it.

We’re living in fascinating and confusing times. There’s lots of start-up activity, enthusiastic entrepreneurs, a growing amount of capital and an evolving and maturing ecosystem. This is happening in parallel to volatile global economic conditions that suggest we may be teetering on the edge of a recession.

As someone who makes does a big chunk of my business with start-ups, the activity is awesome – not only for business but it’s great to see more Canadian entrepreneurs willing to go for it and build something, rather than just talking about it or the reasons why they can’t or won’t do it.

The growth of the incubator ecosystem is encouraging on one hand but it also raises questions on the other. If, for example, you get promising start-ups emerging from incubators how many of them will be able to get capital to take it to the next level? Unless, there’s financing to support them, many startups could see their potential wither on the vine.

In the scheme of things, these are probably good problems to have because new players will hopefully emerge to take advantage of exciting opportunities.

In the meantime, I suspect the incubation will continue to be a growth business, although, like, startups some of them will come and go before you know it.