Propel ICT, the regional tech accelerator, has revamped its programing so its companies will soon receive curriculum online over 12 months, replacing the previous 12-week, in-person program.
The pan-Atlantic-Canada organization unveiled the new system called Incite at a reception at the Halifax Central Library on Wednesday. It is the most radical shift for Propel since it launched its accelerator program in 2011. Since then, it has been hosting successive 12-week cohorts that participants attend in person in various cities across the region.
When he took charge of the accelerator last year, Chief Executive Barry Bisson began a consultation process with a goal of overcoming the challenge of offering a program across four provinces, including in some low-population districts.
“Instead of our founders coming to us for 12 weeks in each cohort, we’re going to walk beside them for 12 months, not taking time away from their business,” said Bisson in an interview on Monday. “They can consume knowledge when convenient to them.”
Bisson, who previously headed the national Shad program for gifted high school students, said Incite will launch in September and feature an intensive three-month segment in which companies determine whether they have a product-market fit.
Once the founders and Propel execs determine that someone will pay for its product, a company will enter a nine-month process with the goal of developing a sales culture. Each company will have a “council”, which will include mentors, Propel staff, potential investors and (hopefully) established companies that could become clients. These people will all work with the founders to move the young company to the point at which it is scaling and could receive investment.
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Bisson said the new program rests on five pillars:
- Positioning companies to scale – Propel used to offer its “Launch” program for new companies and its “Build” program for growth-stage companies with little coordination between the two. The goal now is to spend three months learning about the company and then use that knowledge to customize programing to help the venture grow.
- Supporting companies in a range of locations – Bisson said Propel previously had trouble arranging cohorts in smaller communities, like Charlottetown or Sydney. The new system will offer some in-person mentorship but most of the program will be delivered virtually. Most weeks, Propel will post a 15- to 20-minute video presentation by an expert on a Friday, allowing founders to review the content in their own time then join a webinar with the expert on the following Wednesday or Thursday. This flexibility means companies can join cohorts regardless of whether there are other qualifying companies in their cities.
- Customization – Bisson said Propel wants to get beyond the “same batch” process of accelerators and work with companies on getting their particular product to a specific market.
- A focus on sales – Bisson said Saint John investor Gerry Pond is the driving force behind this priority. “Sales is the Achilles’ heel of most startups,” said Bisson. “The founder is usually an expert in some area of technology and has an infatuation with some aspect of technology and less on the customer.” Propel wants to develop companies that have a strong sales culture throughout the organization. Quoting Pond, he said each organization should be an inverted pyramid with “the CEO at the bottom, the sales team at the top, and everyone in between working for the sales team.”
- Preparing to raise capital – Bisson wants the companies that complete the course to be in a position to raise capital. Therefore, Propel plans to have investors working with its companies. They will assess how founders conduct sales calls and react to mentorship. “In my view, the real measure of the effectiveness will be the percentage of companies that make it through our 12-month program and raise money in the course of the program or very soon thereafter,” said Bisson. “And for me, the goal is for that percentage to be very close to 100 percent.”
Propel ICT plans to conduct recruitment exercises for Incite throughout the region this summer, and begin the first cohort of its new program in September. (Applications, which are open until Aug. 31, can be found here.) Bisson expects between 40 to 50 companies to start the program, and there will be attrition through the 12-month process. Admitting it’s difficult to predict how many ventures will complete the program, he anticipates there will be about 10 to 15 graduates.
“One thing we know is, if you get through all 12 months of our program, you’re a really strong company,” he said. “Maybe our expectation of 10 to 15 is low – we really don’t know. But we will find out through the process.”
Disclosure: Propel ICT is a client of Entrevestor.
