In partnership with Alberta Innovates, Alberta's pre-accelerator is being developed and delivered by Platform Calgary and Innovate Edmonton, with support from partners and organizations in all eight regions across the Alberta Innovation Network. Alberta's pre-accelerator is a merit-based program series supporting founders and their startups anywhere in Alberta. Divided into three phases, the program will launch later this year and represents an unprecedented realignment, harmonization, and expansion of startup support in the province.
Requirements
- Your product/business model is tech-enabled, meaning that through technology it’s highly scalable and can grow beyond your personal expertise, availability, and geographic location.
- You’ve started your customer discovery process, whether through interviews, surveys, or other tools.
- You can demonstrate value and desirability of the solution from customer discovery data.
- You are committed to learning, being coached, and sharing your progress with peers.
- You want to do business in Alberta and scale your startup.
The Approach
Alberta's pre-accelerator will deliver business support and advice to qualified founders, entrepreneurs, and startups in the early stages of development, preparing them to advance to the scale-up and acceleration stages. With a focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion, Alberta’s pre-accelerator will feature coaches and mentors who reflect the diversity of Alberta's population and will ensure advocacy and support for previously underserved tech-founder communities.
You Will Learn How To:
- Develop a solution based on customer input.
- Identify high-potential customer segments.
- Create an initial MVP to test the market.
- Validate your business model assumptions: customer segment, value proposition, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, etc.
- Identify impact metrics to track your progress.
- Hit the ground running or pivot your idea into something greater.
Dates
The first cohort will run from January 10 – February 11, 2022, Wednesdays 6-8 PM (Online sessions). Submit your application by December 1, 2021.
Phases
- PHASE ONE: Solution prototyping, ideal customer profiling, MVP creation, and validating business models.
- PHASE TWO: Pitch development to get to the first sale, and forming teams to execute.
- PHASE THREE: Establishing testing methodology for product-market fit, polishing the pitch, investment readiness basics, developing an intellectual property strategy, and qualifying for scale-up accelerators.
