Start Up Your Startup 

Applications are open until April 3 for the RED Labs Summer Accelerator Program, a 12-week initiative that provides UH students, faculty and recent alumni with the tools to launch and scale their small businesses. 

Housed under the No. 1 ranked Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, teams accepted into RED Labs will spend the summer growing their businesses by learning about marketing, sales, legal components of business and more. Through mentorship and advanced topic sessions, RED Labs prepares teams to run an operational business to last beyond the summer. 

“Some of the deliverables we want to see are creating a website, setting up an LLC, working on an intellectual property and launching business bank accounts,” RED Labs Managing Director Liana Gonzalez-Schulenberg said. “By the end of the summer, students won’t have just a slide presentation of what they learned. They’ll have these action items done.” 

The program is intended to be a helpful push in developing businesses, and teams should apply with either a paying customer, or a strong idea of their targeted customer base in mind.  

“If you have a technical prototype, we can help you figure out how to bring it to market,” Gonzalez-Schulenberg said. “If you're more on the small business side and have already made some revenue, we can help you figure out how to scale bigger.”  

At the end of the program, participants will present a final pitch and create a slide deck or packet of business plans and financials.  

Bauer alumnus Logan Smalley (MS ‘25) participated in RED Labs last summer. His business, Stage Select, pairs local musicians to play at venues’ secondary stages while a larger act in the same genre plays the primary stage. 

“I understand my customers much better because of RED Labs,” Smalley said. “I got to understand historically how the market looked and how it's currently changing.”  

By going through the program, Smalley said he was able to build camaraderie with other entrepreneurs.  

“The resources are great, but beyond all, it gives you the community to meet others,” he said. “You know that you're not doing it alone. You can find somebody who believes in it just as much as you and that might lead to a future investor or partner.”  

This summer’s cohort will start on May 19 and will continue meeting until Aug. 7. Interested participants can learn more about the program’s timeline, stipends and other benefits here. 

Applications close on Friday, April 3.