When ReadWriteWeb profiled Montreal last month as part of our “Never Mind the Valley” series, it was clear that the city had a thriving entrepreneurial community. And today the Montreal startup scene gets stronger with the announcement of the launch of Year One Labs, a startup accelerator program.
The program is founded by four entrepreneurs – Raymond Luk, Ben Yoskovitz, Ian Rae, and Alistair Croll – who describe themselves as “operators, not armchair quarterbacks. We’ve been in the trenches.” The program will utilize the “lean startup” methodology and be focused on a “rigorous process of customer development and iterative adjustment.”
Year One Labs’ founders say the program will take a hands-on approach, offering $50,000 issued in tranches, a network of mentors, access to investors, and office space at the Year One Labs space. In exchange, the program will take a minority stake – between 10-20% – in the participating startups. Mentors include Flowtown co-founder Dan Martell and Shopify creator Tobias Lutke.
According to a blog post at Flow Ventures, of which Luk is the founder, “The best way to ‘pitch’ Y1L is to sit down with us face to face and talk about the problem you’re going to solve.”
