Accelerator

Below is our first cohort

Miner Liner

Miner Liner lines empty mines with a recycled plastic coating, then fills them with coal ash. This solution tackles the problem of old mines becoming sinkholes while finding a use for coal ash waste.

Skillzboard

The Skillzboard™ platform gives climbers the opportunity to practice new maneuvers and test new setups in a simulated environment where a mistake won’t mean injury or death. 

Bitesize Tackle

Bitesize Tackle, LLC is the home of the Miller Wobbler and has been around since the early 1930s!  This lure is one of the best kept secrets when fishing for freshwater fish. 

Vault

Vault helps sports bettors responsibly enjoy sports games and betting through educating and providing tools to help them save time, bet confidently, and win more!

Prototype Your Life

Prototype Your Life uses engaging activities in 15 minutes or less to help develop the soft skills that entrepreneurs need.

Sunset Glow

Sunset Glow makes the flaptail lure, a special musky lure designed to catch more fish.

Clopas Games

Clopas is a family-friendly game studio

Modern Community Events

Modern Learners Community Builds Strong Communities by helping leaders design and execute meaningful events.

Onstitute

Onstitute helps professors keep computer science and data science updated, available, and accessible for university students.

Foundation Fitness

Foundation Fitness and Nutrition creates the tools for a foundation of lifelong health and wellness.

Customer Fluid Systems

Trinity Alarms

We design fluid mechanical systems for custom applications.

Trinity is a gunshot alarm system that quickly and accurately locates an active shooter in your building.

Summer 2021 Cohort

June 14 - June 18

Intro, Mission, Vision: We kick off the summer accelerator with a session on Mission & Vision, as well as some startup fundamentals. Our guest speaker will be Greg Floyd, CEO and Founder of Shower Stream (pictured at top of page in black t-shirt), who will talk about transitioning from engineer to startup CEO.

June 21 - June 25

Problem & Target Customers: Startups succeed when they can tackle a problem that matters to customers. We'll go deep on understanding the problem and target customer in week 2. We will have a special session on marketing by George Krueger.

June 28 - July 2

Mentorship: Many startup founders attribute much of their success to mentors who shared critical insights from their experience and made important introductions. Our cohort will meet with mentors starting this week and learn the basics of being exceptional mentees.

July 6 - July 9

Assumptions & Competitors: Having a hunch or gut feel is exciting, but an unvalidated assumption can kill a company. We'll dig into assumptions about customers and competitors in week 4.

July 12 - July 16

Revenue, Customer Acquisition Costs, Cash Flow, Burn Rate: The success of a startup often comes down to one simple question: Do customers pay enough for a business keep afloat? We'll cover some basic but powerful financial concepts in week 5.

July 26 - July 30 

Startup Culture & Cofounders: Investors aren't looking for clever ideas and cool features so much as a great team that knows how to execute. In week 6 we'll also look at how to launch a company with a great culture. We'll be joined by guest speaker Michael Fenchel, founder of 100State, Breathe For Change, and The Paradox Collective

Aug 2 -Aug 6 

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): Startups must have a way of knowing whether they are growing or stagnating. Figuring out KPIs and revisiting them on a weekly basis is a great way of doing just that. 

Aug 9 - Aug 13 

Investors & Pitching: If a startup wishes to scale they will need investors. Our final week is where we dive into the basics on angel investors and how to deliver a great pitch. We'll be joined by guest speaker Claire Siegel, founder and CEO of Flourish, to talk about her experience raising money from angel investors.