Sponsored Programs: a Virtuous Cycle

For Sponsors

  • Port Labs membership for your team

  • Reach startups and growing companies

  • Support entrepreneurship, innovation, and wealth creation in less-resourced communities

  • Support teams working on solutions to problems you have today

  • Leverage the combined resources of our team and membership to work on long-term problems you care about

Our sponsors are long term partners who who bring real benefits for our members; in return, we help ensure their own needs are met. We’re skilled at solving complex problems, and want to hear about yours.

Our Programs Work

  • Designed and led by our team of skilled problem solvers with sponsor input throughout

  • Integrated with our membership program and member community

  • Structured and replicable

  • Entrepreneur and expert-run

  • Adaptable to a wide range of subject matter areas

  • Hands-on design and prototyping built in

Our world is changing. We need to collaborate in new ways to keep up with that change.


 

All sponsors receive Port Labs membership…

  • Cultivate direct relationships with our member companies

  • Partner with us to host events in our space / on our virtual platform

  • Use our platform to share information about how your products and services benefit our members

  • Recruit employees and freelance contractors from our membership and partner network

  • Place staff and interns in our facility on a short-term or long-term basis

  • Conduct offsite projects in a neutral space which enables new partnerships and new approaches

  • Present challenges to our member community, and identify new solutions with their help and ours

Program Elements

Interlocking Modules to Scaffold a Range of Needs

Program modules are equally suitable for short term or pilot programs, and longer-term initiatives. These examples of standard program components can be customized at every level, to accommodate the needs of sponsors.

Provide Your Products to our Members

  • Develop relationships with companies as they are making key strategic decisions

  • Software licenses, hardware, services, supplies

Direct Sponsorship of Member Companies

  • We recruit proposals from teams working in areas of interest to you

  • Sponsored members receive partial or full subsidy for membership and support services for 6 or 12 months

$5k Innovation Challenge

  • We solicit applications in selected area(s) of interest

  • Select six participants to pitch to a panel of experts, which includes your representative

  • Teams make five minute presentations to a panel of experts

  • One team is selected, and receives:

    • $5,000 no-strings cash grant,

    • 3 month Product Lab Incubator Membership

  • Winners of this Challenge have priority access to other Product Lab incubator programs.

Innovation Weekend

  • A specific challenge is put to our network of innovators, inviting individuals and teams to participate

  • Individuals and teams participate in focused ideation in a narrow subject matter area

  • Both in-person and remote participation can be accommodated, depending on the program’s specific needs

  • Culminates in a $5k Innovation Challenge event, and grant award to the winning presentation

Four Week Accelerator

  • We work with you to select a cohort of participants

  • We develop shared goals and commitment for each participant

  • Each week sets out specific goals which are achieved through work between sessions

  • Further sessions refinement of materials to clearly frame problem, solution, opportunity, next steps and asks

  • Teams emerge with organized and thoughtful materials which can be used to support organizational development, fundraising, business development, etc.

  • Culminates in a $5k Innovation Challenge event, and grant award to the winning presentation

Continuous Incubator / R&D Platform

  • Follows the general structure of our Six Month Incubator

  • Cohorts run continuously, with new participants selected for each cycle

Six Month Incubator

  • Candidates submit ideas they have already identified on their own, or produced in an Innovation Weekend or Four Week Workshop - Six individuals or teams are selected to participate in the program - All participants receive:

  • No-strings grant of $3,000 for participation

  • Six month free Product Lab Incubator Membership

  • Participation in weekly cohort and one-on-one sessions is required - Team goals are set weekly, depending on the needs of each project to achieve program goals

  • Culminates in a pitch event - all participants present their product to a panel of expert judges

  • Winning presentation receives a $10,000 grant and an additional 6 months Product Lab membership to continue development of their product