Wildfire Labs graduates three new startups from their accelerator program

Rapid City, S.D. (KELO) — Wildfire Labs and Elevate Rapid City held a graduation ceremony Wednesday for three promising startups that have completed their program.

Wildfire Labs is an accelerator program that helps mentor startups on their journey.

“That helps founders turn an idea, a software company idea, into a startup that has revenue. And we do that by providing a six-month program that provides them with all of the methodology and the key tools to get them through that process in six months,” Wildfire Labs Co-Founder Mike Vetter said.

Counsil, OptimusGo, and Host Happy Hour all graduated from the program this week. Each agreed that this program helped them with troubleshooting along the way.

“Struggled with and I think a lot of people in the program also do and just businesses in general is figuring out the pricing problem. So Wildfire has been so supportive in being able to figure that out and test run things, see if they work. If they don’t, that’s cool, let’s pivot, let’s figure it out again,” Host Happy Hour Co-Founder Brigit Torborg said.

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Several of the graduates in previous years have already started to show national success with their software.

“Software is very location agnostic, however, there’s a unique community here in Rapid city that helps you to build that. With the resources, the space, and the network, you to scale really quickly. And so it’s great to build as a founder in a community of other founders and that’s what we’re building in Wildfire Labs,” Vetter said.

“What is needed and what this program is aimed to do and the energy of all these startups like looking at that and being like, that’s what I want too, that’s what I’m shooting for is so cool, it’s so fun. Yeah, it’s incredibly inspiring to know that it’s been done and can be done again,” Torborg said.

Elevate Rapid City and Wildfire Labs are looking forward to this new group of startups marking another milestone in the region’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem.