SPARK LAB
A youth pre-accelerator
Colorado is developing one of the most dynamic entrepreneurship ecosystems in the country.
This includes sectors from energy and agriculture to advanced manufacturing and deep tech. However, Colorado youth, especially those in rural and underinvested urban communities, have limited pathways into this ecosystem.
Our goal is to change that.
What is Spark Lab?
Spark Lab is a free, pre-accelerator program designed for young, rural innovators.
Spark Lab is a free pre-accelerator program designed for young entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs ages 14–19. Whether participants are running an active business, developing an early-stage business or nonprofit concept, or bringing innovative ideas to a family business or employer, Spark Lab helps them take their next step.
Over the course of seven interactive 90-minute meetups, participants explore community challenges, refine their business concepts, identify their “asks,” and prepare a two-minute pitch for the culminating Pitch Event. At this event, Homegrown Pathways provides seed funding, giving youth the opportunity to bring their ideas to life.
Beyond the program, Spark Lab connects young entrepreneurs with regional resources to further develop their ventures, building skills, networks, and confidence that will carry them forward in their entrepreneurial journey.
The 7-Week Spark Lab Model Plus Pitch Event Preparation
Spark Lab Goals
Provide focus for your business’ strategic direction, including financing and customer demand.
Create relationships with other early stage youth founders in rural Colorado for peer-to-peer support.
Build your social capital and awareness of local and state funding and implementation resources that can support your future growth.
Develop your own entrepreneurial mindset and real-life experience in preparing your ideas to be pitched to a professional audience.
Gain the confidence and skills that can help you move forward in launching your own business and/or further position you as an innovator and “intrapreneur” through career pathways with other regional businesses.
Through this experience, we connect young entrepreneurs to other regional resources, including those provided by local chambers of commerce, SBDCs, colleges and universities, and workforce centers as well as state and national resources, including through the Colorado Office of Economic Development and Startup Colorado.
Homegrown Pathways’ model reimburses participants who have a long drive to get to Spark Lab and contributes seed funding to each participants’ venture through the Homegrown Pathways Youth Venture Fund. This is not only a tool to encourage strong engagement, but more importantly, a tool to communicate to young people the value and importance we place on their ideas and solutions. A pool of seed funding of $5,000+ will be competitively available to selected youth through the pitch competition event. We encourage donors interested in growing this seed funding pool to reach out to us (click here).
Building the Youth Entrepreneurship Ecosystem
Our vision is to scale this model state-wide, and thereby create additional direct pathways for youth into Colorado’s broader entrepreneurship ecosystem. We aim to develop an inter-connected network of youth entrepreneurs. Our goal is for Homegrown Pathways to have a central role in building the state’s pipeline of future innovators from across the state’s rural and underinvested urban communities.
Economists estimate that if women, people of color, and young people from rural and low-income families became inventors at the same rate as men from high-income families, innovation in the United States would quadruple. Homegrown Pathways aims to support this vision and not only build pathways into existing businesses, but also to foster entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship.