LeapIN Business Accelerator 2022

Fanshawe College Entrepreneurial Services

The LeapIN Business Accelerator program is a real-world, hands-on learning experience designed for early-stage Fanshawe College founders to validate their business ideas, establish a minimum viable product, and build a roadmap for implementation to launch their startup.

The program is 12-weeks in length and exclusively for current and past Fanshawe College students. LeapIN focuses on teaching founders how to create businesses that fulfill customers' emotional needs (e.g., solve problems, achieve desires, etc.) via an iterative process consisting of devising and executing experiments to validate assumptions. Our goal with the program is to help our founders develop an entrepreneurial mindset, build a strong foundation for your company, grow your network, become a better business leader, and leave each day with the tools needed to help your business idea move forward.

During the program, we will utilize the Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup approach to entrepreneurship where we will be combining theory with a ton of hands-on practice. You will be getting your hands dirty talking to real customers, partners, and competitors as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of real start-up life. You’ll practice evidence-based entrepreneurship, learning to use your business model canvas to brainstorm and stress test your assumptions and determine if anyone other than you would want to buy your product/service. Based on the customer and market feedback, you will begin to develop and iterate your product/service or concept and build/design something customers would actually buy and use. Each week will be a new adventure in and outside of LeapIN as you test each part of your business idea and then share your hard-earned knowledge with the rest of the cohort.

All applicants must be fully vaccinated in compliance* with Policy P105 – COVID-19 Vaccinations.
* Due to the nature of our funding, leap IN participants are considered staff for the purpose of Policy P105