Matthew Stenback and Adam Puddicombe returned to St. John’s this month from three months of intense mentorship at the FounderFuel accelerator with a new target market for their company Brownie Points.

The two former business students from Memorial University in Newfoundland were among the first Atlantic Canadians to attend the Montreal-based accelerator. During the intense course, they learned the best market for their customer-loyalty platform would be neighbourhood business associations. They’re now preparing to launch a new product for these groups in January and already have signed up two customers.

“All the VC guys we spoke to [in Montreal] saw a good market for us in these retail associations,” said Stenback in an interview last week. “The fact that we already had traction in places like Halifax and St. John’s was good, but they wanted us to double down on the retail associations.”

The two founders established a company last year that created loyalty programs for small retailers. They started out with coffee shops and spread to other outlets, finding customers in a few East Coast cities and even Alberta.

In the summer, they were one of eight companies from Canada, New York and San Francisco accepted into FounderFuel, one of the country’s leading accelerators. They completed the course earlier this month when Stenback delivered their pitch before a packed house at the Rialto Theatre in Montreal.

“I didn’t know what to expect going into it,” said Stenback of the accelerator. “Day to day, you feel the pressure. We now know how to go faster than we ever have gone before.”

He and Puddicombe had to adapt to doing their day-to-day work and fitting in the programing arranged by FounderFuel, but they got used to it. Stenback said they got excellent advice from a range of advisers, and gained credibility because they can say they now work with advisers who are recognized as international experts in retailing.

Though the company has changed direction slightly, the Brownie Points platform is largely unchanged. It’s a digital loyalty program that rewards customers, helps retailers track client traffic, and incentivizes customers to return to an establishment if they’ve been away for a while.

What they learned in Montreal is the product is a powerful tool for neighbourhood business associations, such as the Spring Garden Area Business Association in Halifax. It can reward shoppers not only at individual stores or cafes, but also those who shop at a number of shops in a single district. Stenback said there are about 2000 associations in North America dedicated to improving local areas, and about 5,000 to 10,000 local retail associations.

The duo plans to launch the neighbourhood product in February, and already has two customers lined up – Downtown Charlottetown Inc., and Brunswick Square in Saint John. Brownie Points is in discussions with about eight other possible clients for the product.

The company received an investment of $55,000 on entering FounderFuel and is now raising an equity round of about $600,000, which it hopes to close by the end of March.  It has spoken with a few potential investors, including GrowthWorks Atlantic, which is administering Venture Newfoundland and Labrador, a new private-public fund that will provide seed financing for young startups in the province.

Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support start-up companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies are featured in this column nor do they have the right to review columns before they are published.