Call it startup summer school: Kanata’s L-Spark accelerator is putting its years of practice helping entrepreneurs score customers and investment into a one-day workshop to help other companies perfect their pitches.
Up to six startups will be accepted to the first iteration of the Kanata-based SaaS accelerator’s Pitch School.
The concept will see founders come to the session with a five-minute pitch and present it to the L-Spark team, who will then help improve the presentation. By the end of the day, founders will be back up onstage in front of their fellow entrepreneurs to show how their pitch has evolved thanks to L-Spark’s feedback.
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The idea to bring a Pitch School to the Ottawa tech community arose out of the RC100, Renfrew County’s $100,000 pitch competition held last month. L-Spark director of marketing Erin Blaskie was a judge for that event, and the accelerator ran a similar workshop in May to fine-tune pitches before the final showdown.
Ottawa-based startups that participated in the RC100 told Blaskie they’d love to have a venue like that closer to home where they could hone their pitches. That feedback sparked the idea, she says.
“We have this expertise, and why not share it with other startups?”
“This is stuff we do all the time for our own startups – we’re constantly getting them ready for pitching at our showcases and other events,” Blaskie says.
“We have this expertise, and why not share it with other startups?”
L-Spark’s Pitch School is free for participating startups, though it comes with an application to ensure the company has a bit of traction and will benefit from working with the team.
Applications are open from now until Aug. 9. Pitch School itself will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Aug. 16.
