Propel ICT Unveils Its New Virtual Accelerator Program
HALIFAX – Propel ICT, an Atlantic Canada-wide startup accelerator, is going virtual with its brand new program, “Incite.”
The news comes just a few months after the organization announced it was taking a new direction. The organization revealed the details of the new Incite program Wednesday morning in Halifax. It will take the place of Propel’s two previous programs “Launch” and “Build.”
Incite will be 100 per cent virtual and will feature both online and interactive components. The 12-month program will include a combination of one-on-one sessions, live online meetups, validation tools and curated content. This format aims to give startups the support they need while maintaining the flexibility they require to focus on growing their businesses.
CEO Barry Bisson says they decided to make Propel’s new program completely virtual because talented entrepreneurs in more remote areas had a difficult time participating. Atlantic Canada has a lot of things going for it, but density isn’t one of them.
“At Propel we made attempts to provide our programming in places like Charlottetown and Sydney. After one or two cohorts, we ran out of a critical mass of entrepreneurs to be able to run a face-to-face programing in their communities,” says Bisson.
“What we want to do is bring our programming to the founders instead of the founders coming to us. Just dealing with the reality of Atlantic Canada, we have a lot of locations where founders exist, but there are not a lot of founders in that community and we’d never be able to run a face-to-face program for a small number of people.”
Propel engaged a world-class instructional designer to help create the new accelerator. Though there are many benefits to learning face-to-face, Bisson says the new program better fits the region’s needs overall.
“You lost something, but in our case, we gain a lot and we think this solution is well-suited to the realities of our geography and demography in Atlantic Canada,” he says.
Incite will replace Propel’s two previous accelerators, Launch and Build. Though curriculum from both programs is included in the new program, Incite will focus specifically on early-stage startups.
“We’re producing a fair number of startups in Atlantic Canada, but we’re not producing enough robust, quality companies that have the potential to scale and become large successful companies headquartered in the region,” says Bisson.
“You should focus intensely on that early stage because how you get started on the journey of success has a big influence on your probability of success. With more rigour in the early stages and more customer interaction, we really feel we can get these founders to make sure they are solving the right problem that a critical mass of customers have.”
The first three months of the program will focus on helping businesses find the “solution fit to the right problem.” Then the remaining nine months will focus on helping companies get traction in the marketplace and get investment ready. The program will also help companies form partnerships with larger companies and organizations that would be interested in their product.
“Rather than them building something and hoping somebody is going to buy it, we’re going to force them to figure out what is it that somebody will by,” says Bisson. There’s a lot of rigour over a 12-month period.”
Applications for Incite are now open until Aug 31, with the first virtual cohort kicking off Sept 7.