BUS 406: Summer Startup Accelerator

Looking for an exceptional and personalized summer entrepreneurship experience? In Business 406: Startup Accelerator you will receive credit for working on your own startup idea! Don't have an idea but want the experience? Join as an individual and bring your skills to an existing project. 

In this highly experiential course, student's entrepreneurial ideas will undergo a transition from being a concept within a classroom toward survival as a viable enterprise, non-profit or charity that can move from vision to impact.  

The primary focus will be on helping students move their vision to the real world through market validation in which students strive to acquire customers and supports for their venture as they move toward incubators, accelerators, or sustainable operations.

Students may be matched with industry experts and/or mentors to provide industry specific knowledge, guidance, and networking opportunities.

""I think BUS 406, was an amazing course to take! It gave me in-depth knowledge about business logistics, making financial projections, raising capital, handling HR, and finding mentors.  Lastly, the course material also covered building partnerships with other companies and structuring the co-founders' agreement, which I think turned out to be the most useful knowledge for me." -Kunal, BUS 406 Alum

What types of ventures are invited? Everyone! From locally impactful non-profits to scaleable tech companies to world-changing social ventures and everyone in between.  Part of this course's unique value is the diversity of projects.

What stage of venture is invited to apply? All, as long as you are committed to moving it forward over the summer. 

Prerequisite: Instructor permission; 60 units; BUS 360W (or successful completion of an upper division Writing (W) course). Students with credit for a Selected Topics in Business Administration, when offered as New Venture Accelerator, may not complete this course for further credit.

How to apply: Send a short statement of interest, along with your name, student number and if you meet the pre-requisites, to your instructor and mentor douglas_fast@sfu.ca.

About your instructor and mentor: Douglas Fast

Doug Fast is dedicated to sharing his experience with young entrepreneurs and helping them build successful companies. He has experience bending metal, writing code, building boards, and optimizing manufacturing.   He also knows first-hand what happens when you let the magic smoke out of a component on the lab bench. Doug is a Mentor-in-Residence at SFU, the Founder and CEO of Dark Water Tek, a consultancy that provides guidance to clients in product commercialization – particularly products that incorporate hardware as a key element, and has held senior leadership roles at a number of companies, including one that scaled to hundreds of employees and $100+ million in revenue.