StartUp Northern Rivers Pre-Accelerator Program

JUNE 2023 UPDATE: We are awaiting finalisation of grant funding that will enable us to run the next Pre-Accelerator Program. We hope to be able to announce dates in the next 3-5 weeks – in the meantime, please check back often for updates and register your interest and we will be in touch soon.

We’ve worked with over 100 start-ups in the Sourdough Business Pathways pre-accelerator programs, and our expert facilitators and mentors have the deep experience that’s needed to give expert practical guidance to any entrepreneur.  

StartUp Northern Rivers Pre-Accelerator Program for Purposeful Business
This is a four-week immersive program giving you the tools and skills to grow your business idea. The dates of the next program will be confirmed soon.

Overview
The StartUp Northern Rivers Pre-Accelerator Program is designed to provide start-up founders the knowledge, connections, and guidance they need to build or scale a successful start-up. It’s based on the lean start-up methodologies, principles and tools designed to foster nimble innovation used by start-ups and companies globally.

View the program sessions here and apply now.

Who is it For?
Aspiring founders or existing founders with an early-stage idea or business that’s aiming to be a force for good in the world. Founders will learn the tools to develop their ideas in a supportive environment with other like-minded local entrepreneurs and can learn from, help and inspire each other. And as for doing purposeful business, whether you’re there already or want to learn how business can have a positive impact on our society and planet, this program can help founders discover and embed purpose-driven, impactful, and circular economy principles in all that they do. The program can also support those in the early stages of their business to learn tools to help them develop their emerging business further.

What will Attendees Achieve?
By learning from successful founders, anyone with an idea for a purposeful emerging business can acquire the skills to launch and grow a scalable company. The program is designed to help founders validate their ideas with potential customers and experts throughout the program and develop their business pitch for initial funding too.

Program Facilitator and Mentors
The program will be facilitated by Gary Morgan. Support will provided  by a range of highly experienced industry and investor mentors who will share invaluable feedback to help the founders develop their idea or business further.

Gary Morgan

StartUp Northern Rivers Expert in Residence

Gary Morgan is an experienced company director, chairman and chief executive of companies in a wide range of industry sectors operating in the private, not-for-profit and research sectors. He has over 25 years’ of corporate advisory, strategy, innovation and scale-up experience in the health tech, aged care, information security, agtech and research sectors to drive new business growth through transformation, with a major focus on new and emerging digital technologies.

Time Investment
It’s important to note that this is not a training program. It’s a hands-on, immersive boot camp, reliant on the founder doing the homework and taking the steps each week to develop their idea and build their business alongside the sessions.

Demo and Graduation Evening Pitch Showcase
The StartUp Northern Rivers Pre-Accelerator program culminates in the Demo and Graduation Evening Pitch Showcase. The Demo and Graduation Evening Showcase is an opportunity for founders to showcase their business and pitch in front of friends, family, industry professionals and investors, and gain further feedback and guidance from an expert panel. After graduation, founders connect with mentoring resources that will support them further on their way to building a purposeful, scalable and sustainable business.

Post-program Support
We’ll provide you with post-program Mentoring Support for an additional 3 months, as well as connect you with pathways that can support you further and accelerate your business’ growth.

Sourdough has established links with local co-working hubs, chambers, professional development resources, investment groups, and Accelerator and Incubator Programs focused on profit-for-purpose, impact, and the circular economy. We will work with you post-program to help you connect with the resources that are right for your aspirations.

After completing the Pre-Accelerator Program, you will be included in our Alumni events, where we will bring past participants together to connect and be part of a dynamic community of business leaders.  We will ask some of our innovative alums to share insights of their business life, including the biggest challenges they faced, the best advice they ever received, and what surprised them most about the start-up lifestyle.

Investment
More info about pricing will be coming soon.

Register Your Interest

Proudly supported by our Partners:

About Our Partners

Byron Ventures
Byron Ventures provides passionate, innovative entrepreneurs with funding and expertise to enable rapid global growth.

DNA Pathways
DNA Pathways specialises in digital and R&D for purpose-driven organisations. We help you evolve around emerging customer and community needs, and consciously pivot to realise your vision and purpose. Whether you are an established organisation or just starting out – our unique R&D methodology can be applied to any part of the project and evolutionary step of your journey.

Hello Again
Hello Again is a solution design company. We’re a small interdisciplinary team applying a human-centred methodology to get to the crux of problems. We employ an iterative, agile and quick-to-market approach to designing, building and launching products fast.

AusIndustry
AusIndustry is the Australian Government’s specialist business program delivery division in the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.

Cake Equity
Bringing decades of experience from startup, scale up, legal, entrepreneurship and fortune 500, we’re on a mission to empower founders and their teams, by making global equity simple and fast, so they can go build a better future for all of us.