The Camel Accelerator

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The Camel Accelerator

10 Week program for entrepreneurs

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About the Camel Accelerator

The Camel Accelerator is a 10-week cohort program designed to help early-stage entrepreneurs gain clarity, understand your customers, and take practical steps to grow your business. Through hands-on virtual workshops, you’ll learn how to validate ideas, tell your story, and build for growth.

Each business is paired with a team of Campbell University student interns who provide research, testing, and operational support — helping founders move faster while giving students real-world experience.

This program is completely free for entrepreneurs. We just ask that you commit yourself to the program, work earnestly with your team of student interns, and come to campus for the kickoff and closing celebration. Join us in this inclusive and empowering journey, made possible by the generous support of Campbell University, NC IDEA and the RTP Foundation. We welcome a diverse range of business owners, including founders from rural communities, women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, veterans, and people with disabilities.

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Program Curriculum

Through an interactive exercise, clearly define the problem your business solves.

Discover who your ideal customers are and what they’re trying to accomplish, so you can tailor your solution to real needs.

Validate your assumptions through structured customer interviews, gaining actionable insights to guide your next steps.

Turn what you’ve learned into testable business model hypotheses and identify the riskiest assumptions to tackle first.

Visualize how customers move from awareness to action, uncovering key touchpoints and opportunities for impact.

Create the smallest testable version of your product or service — using AI and rapid prototyping — to validate your riskiest assumptions.

Learn to communicate your problem, solution, and early traction effectively to customers, partners, and potential investors.

Transform your insights and MVP learnings into a coherent, compelling Demo Day presentation.

Explore realistic growth funding options — from loans and grants to investors — and plan actionable next steps for your business.

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Program Faculty

Scott A. Kelly serves as the Director of Entrepreneurship at Campbell and teaches courses in entrepreneurship and marketing. Kelly received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky and a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. After several years of corporate life (IBM Global Services & KeySource Bank), Kelly began his career in academics by teaching at Ohio State. His experience also includes building innovation programs at Duke and Elon University and most recently was the Founding Director of Elon in San Francisco, a summer long initiative in Silicon Valley.

Tim Scales is an entrepreneurial ecosystem builder, with a focus on the design and delivery of experiences that move founders forward. Over the past decade, Tim has played a number of roles within the startup community from founder to mentor to ecosystem builder. He’s built workshops, bootcamps, accelerators, and conferences for early-stage and idea-stage entrepreneurs, always with a focus on supporting founders and their growth.

We will also have a rotating cast of incredible expert guest lecturers from the NC business community to teach some of these topics and help support students and business owners with that week’s assignments.

camel

“…those business ecosystems outside the Bay Area bubble, where startups have less access to capital or trained startup human capital, and where, especially in many emerging markets, they are more susceptible to severe and unpredictable macroeconomic shocks. Instead of the unicorn, the camel is the more fitting mascot.”