Your Venture Cultivated
CFBI is seeking talented Black Founders to join our Second Cohort!
Application deadline:
October 6, 2023
Program Start:
October 20, 2023
We guide entrepreneurs through pathways to capital
Acquire your Digital Real Estate
We help our ventures create or improve websites that help promote and/or sell their products or services.
Expand your Market Strategy
Ventures who complete this program will walk out with a go to market strategy specific to their audience and a comprehensive digital marketing plan to make sure their audience feels their presence.
Go beyond a Pitch Deck
Pitching is only one part of the equation, we make sure you learn how to build relationships with investors.
Build a Business Foundation
A business plan is no longer enough to set a business up for success. Entrepreneurs must learn how to integrate data and technology to leverage more growth.
Program Schedule
Securing your Business Model
Explore the basics of launching and scaling your startup. We’ll cover the fundamentals of business and explore business models being leveraged by startups across the globe.
Week 1Building a Boss Product/Platform
Being in business is all about building products your users love! We’ll explore the basics of product development, design, customer feedback, and iteration.
Week 2Understanding and Attracting Your Customers
This week is all about refining your brand’s unique value proposition and creating strategies to marketing that idea to the world.Week 3Building a Team and Growing Your Operations
Understand what gap exist in your venture and determine the best approaches to growing out your team as you grow your business.Week 4Crafting a Narrative and Pitching
Win hearts, minds, and dollars with a compelling pitch and narrative for your venture. During this week Founders will learn how to craft their personal and startup narrative.Week 5Creating Partnerships and Generating Sales
Getting value into a customers' hands is vital to start showing traction and generating revenue to bootstrap as you look for capital. Experts will be guiding Founders through creating pathways to their customers to lock in sales.Week 6Generating Financing Options
Accessing funding for your ideas will help lay the foundation for your success. We’ll cover due diligence, meeting investors, and negotiating equity.Week 7Promotion Week
We have put in a lot of work these last few weeks getting up to speed with every aspect of our business now it time to execute on your business and market strategy!Week 8FAQ
Our accelerator program features a self-paced online course; weekly masterminds and mentor sessions. Programming will be up to 15 hours per week.
Participants in the accelerator must have a registered business. The majority shareholders of that venture must be black entrepreneurs.
No! We hope to welcome founders from a wide range of industries to join our program.
Yes!
The Center for Black Innovation does not take equity nor provide funding for startups that participate in our pre-acelerator program.
Yes. All programming will be facilitated virtually.
Applicants are chosen based on the following criteria: quality of team, actual or potential impact, growth potential and alignment to the accelerator.
All decision will be sent by April 5, 2021. If you have questions about your application, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]