Create Boldly
A learning ecosystem for redemptive entrepreneurship
Design and Launch Your Big Idea
Hildegard’s Entrepreneur Lab serves undergraduate students as well as early stage startup founders. It is an incubator where participants learn principles of adaptive business, undergo formation as a leader, and apply their knowledge to the design and launch of real ventures — products, programs, and services.
Ways to join
THE REDEMPTIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP LAB
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Full-time Hildegard undergrads earn a B.A. in Christian Liberal Arts & Entrepreneurship. They practice the entrepreneurial arts in the Lab and also study Great Works of philosophy, literature, theology, economics, and the sciences in Foundations of Thought seminars.
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Students at other universities can join the Redemptive Entrepreneurship Lab as part-time visiting students while remaining at their home institution. Whether you’re studying business, humanities, psychology, education, or the health sciences, during “Semester at the Lab” you’ll to identify career opportunities in your field of study, and you’ll gain valuable project-based experience designing solutions to real problems.
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CREATORS COHORTS — An introductory support experience for ideators or part-time creators.
PILOT PROGRAM — A flexible experience for part-time creators.
LAUNCH PROGRAM — An immersive experience for full-time creators.
Program Details
Each semester, students and members focus on one of eight core themes of redemptive entrepreneurship.
Undergraduate students earn: 6 credits toward the B.A. in Liberal Arts & Entrepreneurship + a Certificate in the semester’s designated theme.
Members of Creators Cohorts or the Pilot and Launch programs earn: a Certificate in the semester’s designated theme
What is Redemptive Entrepreneurship?
Redemptive Entrepreneurship is the practice of building ventures through creative restoration — using one’s talents and resources to renew culture, serve others, and bring lasting good into the world.
At Hildegard College, this means forming entrepreneurs who unite truth, goodness, and beauty with real-world innovation—creating businesses that not only succeed, but heal what is broken and help people to live lives worthy of their God-given humanity.
01 Business model design
Discovery is the first stage in our program and in building a venture. We believe you must know yourself to lead yourself before you can lead others. In this stage, you’ll focus on discovering your leadership identity, vocation, calling, and begin ideating what role you might play in providing solutions to a critical challenge our world faces. In this stage, you’ll find your minimum viable leadership (MVL).
02 AI & the future of work
Design is the second stage, where you’ll begin concepting your idea into a product, program, or service. You’ll also begin testing early iterations of your idea with real customers and stakeholders to understand their needs. In this stage, you’ll find your minimum viable dream (MVD).
03 culture, impact, & storytelling
Pilot is the third stage of building a venture, where you’ll converge on the set of features and benefits that make your product, program, or service valuable to its intended audience. The goal of this stage is to move from your dream to establishing a minimum viable product (MVP) in the real world.
04 strategy & systems
Launch is the final and most intensive stage of our program. As founders, you will focus on growth platforms to build minimum viable audiences (MVA) around your minimum viable products. We believe that every revolution needs a clipboard. You have the ingredients to start a movement around your product, program or service, and now it's time to put the right amount of organization in place to facilitate its growth.
05 Marketing, growth, & Influence
Launch is the final and most intensive stage of our program. As founders, you will focus on growth platforms to build minimum viable audiences (MVA) around your minimum viable products. We believe that every revolution needs a clipboard. You have the ingredients to start a movement around your product, program or service, and now it's time to put the right amount of organization in place to facilitate its growth.
06 product & program design
Launch is the final and most intensive stage of our program. As founders, you will focus on growth platforms to build minimum viable audiences (MVA) around your minimum viable products. We believe that every revolution needs a clipboard. You have the ingredients to start a movement around your product, program or service, and now it's time to put the right amount of organization in place to facilitate its growth.
07 financial intelligence
Launch is the final and most intensive stage of our program. As founders, you will focus on growth platforms to build minimum viable audiences (MVA) around your minimum viable products. We believe that every revolution needs a clipboard. You have the ingredients to start a movement around your product, program or service, and now it's time to put the right amount of organization in place to facilitate its growth.
08 teams & org design
Launch is the final and most intensive stage of our program. As founders, you will focus on growth platforms to build minimum viable audiences (MVA) around your minimum viable products. We believe that every revolution needs a clipboard. You have the ingredients to start a movement around your product, program or service, and now it's time to put the right amount of organization in place to facilitate its growth.
Program Rhythms
The Hildegard undergraduate experience follows the rhythms of a startup organization, combining intensive sprints, workshops, and coaching. These meetings are designed to do more than merely impart information but to form people as leaders and creators.
Members of Creators Cohorts and the Pilot and Launch incubators participate follow the same rhythms with their cohorts.
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At our monthly “sprints,” students are introduced to a key instrument or practice of the entrepreneurial arts. Sprints begin with Hildegard’s Creators & Coffee networking and speaker series and exclusive time with the speaker, then follow with a time of focused learning and progress on students’ individual projects and ventures.
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Focusing on in-depth analysis of case studies, our workshops equip you with practical knowledge, tools, resources, and key concepts to wrestle with for your organization. These aren’t just talking heads or lectures, they’re sessions where you will put into practice what you are learning right away.
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Individual and group advisory coaching sessions are provided each month. We use The Formation Method, a system of eight disciplines that guides you to connect with yourself and your world, collaborate to address the most critical challenges you’re facing, and take meaningful actions to create solutions that will propel your ideas and ventures forward.
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Office hours are scheduled at various points throughout the program. Advisors are members of our Entrepreneur Advisory Board who support Hildegard and make themselves available to meet with you as they’re available. Students are able to sign up for a 30 minute session with the advisor to ask questions or brainstorm with them. Though not required, these are highly encouraged.
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Off-the-record, candid family-style meals with entrepreneurs and founders. Each lunch or dinner features guest founders from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. They share the good, bad, and ugly from their experiences in the startup world. The meals allow space for a Q&R with the speakers.
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Pitch nights are a hallmark of our program. Our Hildegardians pitch their early-stage products, programs, and services to members of our Entrepreneur Advisory Board who form a “Porpoise Tank”, along with family and friends.
opportunities for
redemptive innovation
Hildegard’s community members–students, faculty, staff, and mentors–are working toward solving some of our world’s most critical challenges, and this list is growing as our community grows. You’re invited to align with one of these opportunities for redemptive innovation (ORIs), or introduce another to our community based on your unique passion, mission, and vocational calling. We’re grateful to our friends at Praxis for their foundational work in creating an exhaustive list of ORIs.
End the Cycle
of Human Trafficking
Virtuous Storytelling
in Art and Media
Beauty-Driven
Education
A.I. & Human-Driven Mental Healthcare
Business Strategy for
the Common Good
Financial Solutions for Upward Mobility Among the World’s Poor
Smart Global Agriculture and Food Supply
Renewing Human Connection in a Culture
of Individualism
What Will Yours Be?
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"At Hildegard, I'm grateful that I can further my faith and my career at the same time."
Kyle, 2nd-year
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“My experience here has been transformative — books that stretch me intellectually, and a community where I can test my ideas."
Lydia, 2nd-year
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“I crossed the country for college and was warmly welcomed. It's been a deeply enriching experience."
Xavier, 1st-year
