The McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship is the hub of entrepreneurial activity at McGill University. The mission is to find, teach, and develop world-class entrepreneurs at McGill. McGill Dobson Centre supports students, faculty, and alumni through tailored education, applied entrepreneurial frameworks and iterative mentorship. The centre helps grow and build successful companies through three programs. The McGill lean start-up helps early-stage companies. McGill Dobson Cup is an annual hundred thousand-dollar start-up competition and the McGill x1 is an accelerator program design to get start-ups and Besant ready for demo days across North America The McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship was established in 1988 thanks to a generous contribution from the John Dobson Foundation. Entrepreneurship programs are supported by a strong McGill Entrepreneur, Alumni, and Start-up Mentorship Network.

McGill X-1 Accelerator

Hosted by the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship, the McGill X-1 Accelerator is an intensive 10-week summer program designed to accelerate early traction McGill start-ups towards investment readiness and launch.

The McGill Lean Startup Program

The McGill Lean Startup Program is a hands-on program that immerses student teams by having them test, student’s business ideas and hypotheses outside the classroom. Inside the classroom, it deliberately trades off lecture time for student/teaching team interaction.

It is inspired by the Lean LaunchPad Methodology developed and taught at UC Berkeley by Steve Blank. The Program consists of one 3-hour class every week for 10 weeks in the Fall, featuring guest speakers and mentors.

McGill Dobson Centre work with early-stage McGill start-up teams on:

• customer development,
• hypothesis testing on product-market fit,
• pitch preparation,

The Program is a mix of McGill undergrads and graduate students, post-docs and researchers across all faculties. For 10 weeks, students use the flipped-classroom approach which means that lectures are not typically given in a class but instead working on projects that teams need to follow in time. The lectures are offered as a free course on the online platform Udacity: How to Build a Start-up, The Lean LaunchPad.

In class lectures are instead in-class discussions about the start-up/business hypotheses. The facilitator also helps students and the teams achieve milestones and guide them throughout the McGill Lean Start-up process.

The McGill Lean Start-up Program is facilitated by the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship. The program collaborates with experienced alumni and mentors from the Montreal community and beyond, prize winners from the McGill Dobson Cup and graduates of the McGill X-1 Accelerator, and professors from the Desautels Faculty of Management.

The McGill Demo Days

The McGill Demo Days is about developing the McGill entrepreneurship ecosystem, showcasing the successes of start-ups, and promoting program. It is an opportunity for the most promising McGill startups from the McGill Dobson Cup and the McGill X-1 Accelerator to pitch and engage with the global McGill alumni community of successful entrepreneurs, investors and VCs. The goal is to highlight the best of entrepreneurship and innovation at McGill, while also connecting McGill startup founders with potential investors and mentors with the hopes of raising venture capital financing.

McGill Dobson Cup

McGill’s flagship annual start-up competition where over $100,000 in cash prizes are awarded to start-ups across four tracks: Social Enterprise, Health Sciences, Small & Medium Enterprise, and Innovation Driven Enterprise.

The McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship´s core team of educators and coaches includes a wide array of practical experience and research knowledge, including former entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and researchers in the field of entrepreneurship. Dobson Fellows form a network of experienced entrepreneurs who teach and mentor students. There is Director of the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship, Associate Director, Program Manager and program Administrator.

Research Resources

There is an employee who provides tailored workshops for entrepreneurship classes, providing an overview of how to find business and market information using library databases. The same person is also available to provide research consultations for students working in start-ups or on entrepreneurial-related assignments. If someone is interested in the library acquiring any resources that he thinks would be useful to student entrepreneurs, or to support research and teaching in this area, this person is the main point of contact.

Online Resources

The Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship has compiled the following list of resources available online for students to further develop their entrepreneurial endeavours.

Start-up plan creation

• The Business Model Canvas
• Create a lean start-up plan

Financial Modelling

• Excel based financial modelling software

Growth Hacking

• Online Surveys Basic Data Reporting (Infographics)
• Analytics
• Social media management dashboard
• A/B Testing
• Website Usage Analysis
• Funnel Analysis
• Social Reviews
• Landing Pages
• Launch Management
• Wire Framing Tool

Marketing Material

• Web design, logo design, any design

Customer Service

• Building relationships  
• Building forums
• Online community

• Online accounting software

Human Resources:

• Payroll provider

Operations

• File System
• Document Management & Research Material
• Email
• Long distance
• Virtual Phone System

Technology

• eCommerce system
• Email Management
• Amazon Web Services (Hosting)