A lot of entrepreneurs think all it takes to start a successful business is a good idea, or the seed of an idea. Then they put out a sign and turn to social media to promote their new venture.

“That is why failure rates for start-up businesses are so high,” said SCORE Iowa District Director and Certified SCORE Mentor Thomas Trone. “Venture School gives startups the opportunity to find out if they have a business opportunity based on actual customer need. The participants go into the community and interview people to validate the problem they believe they have the solution for exists, and to better understand how a potential customer would go about solving the problem,” he said.

The Eastern Iowa Small Business Development Center and SCORE Quad Cities are accepting applications for the Spring 2022 cohort of the University of Iowa’s Venture School program. The program will be held as a series of in-person classes 5:30-9 p.m. on Wednesdays and kicks off Feb. 2 at the Eastern Iowa Community College’s downtown Davenport campus.

The U of I Venture School is a premier statewide program for entrepreneurs and based on a streamlined curriculum developed by the National Science Foundation I-Corps at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. Venture School emphasizes real-world entrepreneurship and innovation.

Trone said the seven-week accelerator program is designed for businesses that want to test a new idea and for entrepreneurs who want to build a new business around an idea. “They will take it forward quickly and validate it through customer discovery,” he said. “It gives them an idea of the market and how to approach it, and the value proposition from a customer’s point of view. What it is worth to them? From those conversations, the participants gain the strategy and words they will use to market their business and improve their chance of success dramatically."

Each Venture School team will be assigned a local entrepreneur or mentor as their coach. The program concludes with a Venture School Launch Day Competition on March 23. The winners will advance to the state EntreFEST 2022 competition and have the chance to win up to $10,000. Past Quad Cities Venture School graduates have been awarded thousands of dollars in prize money.

Apply for Spring 2022 Venture School and select the Quad Cities cohort in the drop-down menu. The deadline to apply is Jan. 21, 2022. The cost for the program is $299.

EICC Covid protocols will be strictly followed for all in-person sessions. No classes will be held the week of March 7-12. Zoom will be used to facilitate faculty/coach/student interactions outside of class periods.