Female Founders
Pre-Accelerator

A pre-accelerator is a structured training and mentoring program for early-stage startup founders. Think of it as an online incubator that you can tap into while working on your startup part-time.

It will give you an understanding of core startup concepts, help you expand your network of founders, investors and others who can help you on the journey, and provide you with individual guidance in the form of mentoring from people with deep startup experience.

Pre-accelerators operate at an earlier stage than most startup accelerators, which generally use a competitive application process and accept (and invest in) a small number of startups that already have a product launched and some initial customer traction.

In contrast, the Female Founders Pre-Accelerator works with idea-stage, pre-launch and recently launched companies - including "projects" that are not yet an incorporated entity.

Many of our graduates have gone on to be accepted into world class accelerators such as Slingshot and Techstars.

The Female Founders Pre-Accelerator is for founders who are in the first 12 to 18 months of building a startup, including anyone working on an idea for a startup.

As long as your startup is based in Queensland and your team has a female founder, you can apply.

If you have an untested startup idea it will help you figure out whether it is viable, and how to get started on execution.

If you’ve already started something, the program will ensure your startup is well positioned to grow and avoid common execution mistakes.

Applications will open in late 2024.

You can register your interest using the form above.

By startup, we mean an emerging or recently-formed company that is bringing an innovative product or service to market, and that has the potential to grow. We include ideas that are not yet in a company, but that have growth potential.

Your product doesn’t have to be online or software-based. It can be a physical product or a service, as long as you’re doing something innovative.

If you’re working on a traditional small business, a not-for-profit or a social enterprise, this isn’t the program for you.

If you have ambitions to grow fast, we’d love to hear from you.

Thanks to support from the Advance Queensland initiative, we are able to offer places in the Pre-Accelerator at zero cost. FREE.

Places in the Pre-Accelerator are normally $2,000 + GST.

Everyone who does the Female Founders Pre-Accelerator receives:

• Eight weekly group masterclasses led by experienced startup founders and investors

• Four individual mentoring sessions with a mentor selected to match the needs of your company and scheduled to fit your calendar

• Access to our online Founders Course with 8 hours of video content and deep-dives with experts

• A comprehensive pack of resources and readings

By investing a small amount of time at the beginning of your startup journey you can massively increase your chances of success.

We’ve seen many successful startup founders take actions early on that have directly led to success of their companies. We’ve also seen plenty of first-time startup founders make mistakes that have caused their startup to fail. A lot of these mistakes are predictable - and avoidable - as long as you know what they are.

The Female Founders Pre-Accelerator aims to help you create a successful company by emulating the behaviours of successful startup founders, and avoiding the pitfalls that cause many startups to fail.

The Pre-Accelerator is designed for founders who are working on their startup part-time. It aims to deliver as much value as possible without requiring huge chunks of time.

Minimum expectation:

• 90 minutes each week to participate in the weekly masterclass via Zoom (Wednesdays from 5pm)

• 1 hour each fortnight for individual mentoring via Zoom (times by arrangement)

• 3-4 hours per week to work on your startup over the eight-week program

The Pre-Accelerator is available to female founders anywhere in Queensland.

Mentoring sessions, group discussions and masterclasses are held via Zoom to ensure they're accessible no matter where you're located.

The Female Founders Pre-Accelerator is open to individuals or teams of up to four co-founders.

As long as one founder is an eligible female founder, your whole team can take part.

No, as long as one of the co-founders or leaders in your team is female, the whole team is able to take part in the Pre-Accelerator.

The Female Founders Pre-Accelerator is for companies that have ambitions to grow.

You can have a software / web-based product, a physical product or a service - as long as you’re doing something innovative and aiming to build a scalable business that’s addressing a large market.

If you’re working on a startup, we’d love to hear from you.

If you’re interested in starting a traditional small business, this isn’t the program for you.

Glad you asked! Yes, we have a growing list of amazing companies that we're proud to call our alumni - including SurePact (raised $2m), Hoops (raised $700k) and Replica Studios. Read about our alumni here.

FWIW - We also consider a success to be any founder who uses the learnings from the Pre-Accelerator to avoid wasting a large amount of time or money pursuing the wrong idea, or doing something else in their startup that's likely to cause it to fail.

If you’re based outside Queensland you can still do our online Founders Course. You’ll need to cover your own registration fee.

If you don’t qualify for a place in the Female Founders Program, you can still take part in our other programs - including founder coaching and our online Founders Course.

No, the entire program is delivered online using Zoom for masterclasses and mentoring sessions.

Absolutely not. We want you to be successful, and we don't believe you should have to give up equity in return for knowledge and guidance. There are no strings attached - we just want you to go and build an amazing company.

No problem. All sessions will be held via Zoom. We'll be recording them, so if you miss a session you'll have access to the recording to catch up on the discussion.