Iowa Startup Accelerator moves from ideas promoter to small business booster

This story first appeared in Celebrating Entrepreneurship 2025, an annual special section that highlights the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Corridor.

New Bohemian Innovation Collaborative, Inc.’s Iowa Startup Accelerator has piloted a new program model aimed at taking already profitable businesses and teaching them the tools to grow to the next level.

The Iowa Startup Accelerator began in 2014 with $2 million in venture capital funds. The only startup accelerator in Iowa at the time, its aim was to supercharge startup organizations’ growth and de-risk their business, with the investors getting a percentage of the equity in those businesses.

The venture was profitable for many years, accumulating a support team of accountants, programmers, marketing people and more to support the cohorts. The group became the non-profit NewBoCo, located in Cedar Rapids.

In 2020, COVID-19 changed everything.

“Across the nation, investors got away from investing in pre-revenue companies,” said Alex Taylor, director of entrepreneurship at NewBoCo. “We basically had to re-invent what that accelerator would look like.”

While researching a new model, Taylor was inspired by the University of Iowa’s John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center’s Venture School — a seven-week program offered in the evenings, both virtually and in person, making it more accessible for working people. This program helps entrepreneurs who have a business idea know by the end of the seven weeks if they want to build their product or market their service.

“The problem is, when they’re done, those graduates who have product market fit and have a good idea, they have nowhere to go for additional help,” Taylor said.

Taylor decided to transform the Iowa Startup Accelerator into an educational program, focusing on branding, prospecting, marketing and sales. Over the program’s seven weeks, NewBoCo has offered programs taught by experts on topics such as user interface/user experience on Web site construction; marketing using social media and traditional methods; and how to leverage artificial intelligence to build their messaging.

The program finished with a Demo Day on Nov. 7, where each of the six cohorts gave a four-minute pitch of their businesses with prizes available for the top three.

Taylor said his goal is for graduates of the program to be able to scale their businesses upward. He sees some being able to move on to the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, which gives participants more business training, helps them secure funding, and allows them to network with program alumni for more advice.

“My job now is coaching and mentoring these startups from curbside to Main Street to the investible,” Taylor said.

The Iowa Startup Accelerator’s focus is on growing business in Iowa, so each of the pilot program participants are Iowa-based. Businesses include payroll services, life coaching, a homeschool curriculum platform, and plug-and-play products for standard hitches.

In addition to having subject matter experts come in to teach, the business owners also spend time sharing ideas and giving each other feedback. Taylor says this helps provide accountability, as they need to report back each week on what they accomplished.

“They’re data-dumping on each other all the time,” he said.

After attending a Venture School in Des Moines and meeting Taylor at NewBoCo’s annual EntreFest, Keesia Wirt of Nevada, Iowa, applied to the Iowa Startup Accelerator to help her learn new tools to grow her business, Circa Legacy.

“I am a writer. I did not know how to run a company at all,” Wirt said. “You can get by on passion for a while, but when you really want to start to grow, you need more.”

Wirt founded the company to help preserve memories for families. She interviews people and compiles books with stories, photographs, family trees and even maps showing the family’s journey to the United States. She’ll even include historical context sidebars for younger generations — like when one client mentioned working on the Trident submarine, and she included information on it being at the forefront of nuclear sub technology.

“I want to make it obvious to that next generation, this is why your grandpa’s so cool,” Wirt said.

Marketing and sales were some of the topics she most dreaded before starting the program.

“To be able to hear from (experts), it totally changed my mindset,” Wirt said. “Don’t think of yourself as a pest, think of yourself as someone who has something that can improve their lives or their jobs, and you are just trying to help them understand that you’re out there.”

An idea she’s gathered through the accelerator class is to take all her audio and video clips and create online family portals that her clients can interact with.

Taylor is accepting applications for a spring program until Jan. 15, 2026, with a tentative start date of Feb. 27. Applicants must be Iowa-based, already revenue-generating, and have a thorough understanding of their business.

“This is not for incubating ideas — this is for accelerating business growth,” Taylor said.