GVL Starts is a nine-week venture-building experience for early-stage founders ready to move beyond ideas and start building something real.

Built around an 80/20 model, GVL Starts flips the traditional classroom experience: approximately 20% focused instruction and 80% hands-on venture building. Founders spend the program talking with real customers, testing assumptions, building and refining their offer, working alongside experienced mentors, and making measurable progress every week.

Greenville becomes the classroom. Mentors become operators. Customers become the judges.

By the end of nine weeks, founders leave with more than a business plan or polished pitch. They leave with customer evidence, a tested business model, clearer financials, a path to market, and the confidence to make informed decisions about what comes next.

YOUR FRONT DOOR TO GREENVILLE’S STARTUP COMMUNITY

GVL Starts is more than a nine-week program. It’s an entry point into Greenville’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Founders build alongside experienced entrepreneurs, mentors, business leaders, and community partners while developing connections that continue well beyond the program. Whether the next step is finding a customer, making a key introduction, accessing capital, continuing to build, or pivoting based on what you’ve learned, GVL Starts connects founders to the people and resources that can help them move forward.

Since 2021, GVL Starts has supported more than 200 ventures across the Upstate. Alumni have gone on to raise capital, hire employees, open physical locations, and continue building companies throughout the region.

Nationally recognized for Excellence in New Venture Creation, GVL Starts is supported by a network of more than 35 collaborating partners and organizations committed to growing Greenville’s entrepreneurial community.

HOW IT WORKS

September 10 – November 5, 2026

Thursdays | 5:30–8:30 p.m.

In person | Downtown Greenville

Optional office hours available throughout the program

Each week combines focused instruction with hands-on venture building, customer interaction, mentor support, and real-world challenges. Founders advance through weekly milestones and leave each session with completed work, documented evidence, and a clear next step for their venture.

WHAT YOU’LL BUILD

Over nine weeks, you’ll work toward:

• A clearly defined customer and problem
• Real customer interviews and market evidence
• A tested value proposition and customer offer
• A prototype, minimum viable product, or functioning service
• Tested pricing and revenue assumptions
• A customer acquisition and sales pipeline
• A 12-month financial forecast
• A legal and operational readiness plan
• A 30-day post-program action plan
• A clear, evidence-based path toward launch, growth, or your next pivot

THE NINE-WEEK EXPERIENCE

Week 1 | Start With People, Not Products

Define what progress looks like for your venture, build your customer discovery strategy, and prepare to get outside the room and talk to the people you’re building for.

Week 2 | Customer Reality

Put your assumptions to the test through customer conversations and real-world evidence. Determine whether the problem you’re solving is important enough to build a business around.

Week 3 | Define the Market

Identify your target market, early adopters, competitors, and the most practical path to reaching your first customers.

Week 4 | Design the Offer

Turn what you’ve learned into a focused customer offer, sharpen your value proposition, and identify the assumptions that could make or break your business model.

Week 5 | Build the Smallest Credible Version

Create something customers can experience, a prototype, minimum viable product, or service offering, and put it in front of real people.

Week 6 | Price It and Ask for the Sale

Test pricing, talk with prospects, make real customer asks, learn from objections, and begin building your sales pipeline.

Week 7 | Make the Business Work

Build your financial model, understand your unit economics and cash needs, and prepare the legal, financial, and operational foundation needed to move forward.

Week 8 | Ship the Venture

Activate a customer-facing offer and test the full experience as you prepare to introduce what you’ve built to Greenville.

Week 9 | Venture Showcase

Bring it all together. Introduce your venture to Greenville’s startup community through an interactive public experience designed to create customer connections, gather feedback, make introductions, explore potential partnerships, and build momentum for what comes next.

MENTORSHIP THAT MOVES WITH YOU

Every founder is paired with an experienced mentor who works alongside them throughout the nine weeks.

Mentors aren’t there to give you the answers. They’re there to challenge your assumptions, review your progress, help you work through difficult decisions, make targeted connections, and hold you accountable to moving your venture forward.

You remain the builder. Your mentor helps you build smarter.

TOOLS TO KEEP BUILDING

Every founder receives complimentary access to LivePlan, a business planning and financial forecasting platform used throughout GVL Starts to build financials, test assumptions, track milestones, document progress, and create a roadmap for what comes next.

Your access gives you another tool to continue building beyond the nine-week experience.

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

GVL Starts is designed for early-stage founders who have something they’re ready to put to the test.

You might have:

• An idea you’ve been thinking about but haven’t launched
• An early prototype, product, or service you’re ready to validate
• A new venture that’s already operating but needs a stronger path to customers, revenue, or growth
• You do not need a polished business plan or pitch deck.
• You do need to be willing to talk to customers, test your assumptions, accept direct feedback, make decisions, and consistently work on your venture throughout the nine weeks.

WHAT WE EXPECT FROM FOUNDERS

GVL Starts is built around execution. Participants are expected to attend all nine sessions, complete meaningful work between sessions, engage directly with customers, work consistently with their mentor, meet weekly milestones, and actively move their venture forward.

Sometimes the evidence says launch.

Sometimes it says refine.

Sometimes it says pivot.

The goal isn’t to leave with a better pitch. It’s to leave with a more credible venture and the evidence to know what to do next.

PROGRAM COST

$499

*Limited need-based scholarships are available.

GVL Starts does not take equity in participating ventures.