Launch Your First Climate Tech Startup

That's OK! Icademy was designed to teach you everything you need to know to start an impactful & successful company. You'll learn startup best practices through online micro-courses and live workshops with ClimateTech experts. You'll also be paired with a Field Guide--an experienced entrepreneur who will personally guide you along your journey. And if you need extra help or support, you can rely on our network of ClimateTech founders and experts to get anything you need.

Yes, and we encourage you to do so! Here's the truth... Most startups fail because they run out of time. The founders either run out of money before they can find product-market fit, or they burn themselves out (or both). Icademy supports you in finding an impactful and scalable solution to a real problem quickly and efficiently. All of the beginning steps of creating a startup can be done while you have a full-time or part-time job, and there are actually many advantages to doing so. Connect with one of our Field Guides to learn more about how you can create your company while keeping your full-time job.

Like most startup questions, the answer to this is "it depends." With Icademy, you'll learn how to build a sustainable business--that is, one that is designed to succeed and have an outsized impact on the climate crisis in the long term. In order to do this, you'll first ensure that you've found a problem that you're passionate about and that customers are willing to pay you to solve. Then you'll come up with an innovative solution that uses your unique Superpower, and you'll test it with real customers.

Some founders can get revenue in the door and work on their startup full-time in as little as a couple of months. Most founders will need to pivot a few times to find the optimal solution, which can take anywhere from three months to a few years. Most successful founders aim to be working on their startup for seven to ten years.

Icademy is designed to be flexible to your schedule. In the Vol. 1: Find program, you'll meet with your Founders' Circle every two weeks for one hour and with another member of the Icademy community for 30 mins every week, and the rest is up to you. Typically, founders spend about an hour a week with the program and 3-10 hours per week executing on their startup. In some weeks, you may spend the majority of your time learning a new best practice, or you may spend all of your time conducting customer discovery interviews or a Minimal Viable Test.

Unlike traditional accelerator programs or bootcamps, Icademy doesn't require you to go through a set program each week, so you can proceed at your own pace. Your Founders' Circle peers and Field Guide will keep you accountable to your goals and keep you moving forward. And if something comes up, you can pause, cancel, or resume your membership anytime.

Yes! We like to think of startup ideas like stars in the sky. There are millions of them. The trick isn't just finding an idea, but finding the idea that you're passionate about, that has a large enough market, that you have the skills to solve, and for which the timing is perfect.

We're not going to lie, this is hard work. But with Icademy, you get personalized guidance on how to find and evaluate ideas that fit all these criteria, so that you vastly increase your chances of building a successful and impactful company that fits with your unique vision and lifestyle.