Pre-Seed Incubator

We will hold a kick off in Atlanta, GA and we strongly encourage you to attend in person, however, a virtual option will be provided. Additional weekly sessions will be virtual except for the demo day which is a mandatory in-person pitch in Miami, FL.

No.  Our incubator does not provide any investment or capital and we do not take warrants or equity for your participation.

No.  The program is entirely free to accepted startups.  

No.  The program is free and we do not take equity so we do expect you to pay for your own travel expenses to the in-person events (kickoff and demo day) and any travel you incur related to customer discovery or visiting customers.

Acceptance is very competitive as we typically receive 100+ applications for a cohort and accept at most 10 teams.  To increase your chances, please be sure to answer the application questions thoroughly and thoughtfully.  In addition, we tend to favor startups solving the hardest technical challenges in the industry (e.g. not marketplaces or tech-lite solutions) who have strong technical talent on the founding team.

We hold weekly programming (3-4 hours on Friday afternoons) throughout the 6-week program.  The rest of the time you are expected to "get out of the building" and spend roughly 15 (or more) hours per week talking to customers and refining your business, strategy, and messaging. Our team also holds office hours and you are expected to meet with your mentors 1-2 hours per week. Program participants must fully participate in the program and need not apply if the above requirements (at a minimum) cannot be met.

Weekly classes will cover various topics relevant to building a pre-seed startup, including: customer discovery (how to do it properly), industry strategy, refining your value proposition, pricing, technology, customer pitching, and how to talk to investors. This will be a highly interactive program with customer discovery as the core focus: you must be willing to engage in 50-100 customer conversations over the life of the program.

Mentorship is typically reserved for those companies which Shadow Partners has an existing relationship with, however, feel free to contact us to discuss your interest.