Market to Lab pilot addresses specific challenges for research-based ventures

First cohort at RRC Polytech and NSCC turns defined commercialization barriers into practical progress

Labs4 has completed the first pilot cohort of its Market to Lab (MtL) program, giving the national initiative early evidence of how researcher-entrepreneurs can use a short, applied sprint to move through specific barriers on the path to market readiness.

Read: Labs4 launches Market to Lab pilots at RRC Polytech and NSCC

Delivered through RRC Polytech in Manitoba and Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) in Atlantic Canada, the pilot connected founders with student teams and structured mentorship to tackle one priority challenge facing each venture. The goal was to help each founder make focused progress on the barrier holding their venture back – whether that meant refining a product feature, advancing technical research, completing a minimum viable product or preparing for testing with real users.

For Labs4, the cohort also offered a way to test the Market to Lab model in two different delivery environments: one embedded within an established applied student project space and one distributed across institutions and geography.

“Market to Lab was designed to help founders of research-based ventures develop strategy and management skills while pushing through barriers to commercialization,” said Kristen Kindrachuk, National Director of Labs4. “Many researcher-entrepreneurs have strong technology, strong insight and early evidence that their idea matters, but they still face very practical barriers before the market can adopt what they are building. This pilot gave us a way to test how targeted student talent, mentorship and a training structure can help founders work through those barriers in real time.”

A Canada-wide initiative supported by 40 colleges and universities, Labs4 delivers nationally coordinated entrepreneurship programming across the country. Market to Lab complements Labs4’s Technology Readiness Level-Up (TRL) programming which is focused on productization placing participants in applied-research environments throughout 8 regional hubs. Market to Lab supports founders who need focused help in addressing a technical or business challenge.

Manitoba pilot builds on the ACE Project Space

At RRC Polytech, Market to Lab was delivered through the Applied Computer Education (ACE) Project Space, an applied learning platform where multidisciplinary student teams build and test practical technology solutions for entrepreneurs and organizations.

The model gave MtL founders access to an existing structure: student teams, project workflows, faculty oversight and defined delivery timelines.

“Because Market to Lab runs inside ACE, founders walk into a team that is already built to deliver,” said Roberta Desserre, Labs4’s Manitoba hub program manager at RRC Polytech. “They name the barrier, and within weeks a multidisciplinary student team is turning it into something they can test. What founders take away is not just the build. It is the experience of leading that team.”

For Joshua Umeh, co-founder of Sole Capsule with Emmanuel Ifenyin, that experience was central to the pilot.

Sole Capsule is developing a smart sneaker storage and display system designed for collectors who want to protect, authenticate and showcase high-value footwear. The venture’s long-term vision includes both hardware and an app-based ecosystem, with the team also exploring how sneaker authentication technologies could support future product development.

When Joshua entered Market to Lab, the barrier was specific: Sole Capsule wanted support developing an app- and voice-controlled lighting feature for its display box. It was a bounded product challenge that a student team could take on, while still contributing to a larger commercialization path.

The ACE team included coders and project managers who worked with Joshua and Emmanuel on the user interface and lighting concept. Sole Capsule’s own team is continuing the integration work, while the box itself continues to be tested and refined.

For Joshua, the technical work mattered, but so did the leadership experience.

“You learn how to work with people, how to work with students, how to be a leader,” he said.

For an early-stage founder, Market to Lab was not only about getting work done. It was also a chance to practise leading a team through uncertainty, giving students room to solve a problem that belonged to the venture. He saw the students move from waiting for direction to contributing their own ideas. “That shift became one of the most valuable parts of the sprint.”

Another RRC Polytech founder, Devon Bath, came to Market to Lab with a different kind of challenge.

Devon is building Athos, a research tool designed to help academic researchers find information, visualize connections and work through their research with digital support. The broader goal is to make it easier for researchers to find information and collaborators across disciplines, institutions and research communities.

The barrier Devon brought to the ACE team was foundational research: author disambiguation, or the problem of distinguishing between researchers who have the same or similar names. For a tool that maps research activity and relationships, that kind of distinction matters. The wrong match can lead users toward the wrong body of work, the wrong collaborator or the wrong conclusion.

The ACE team of six, including a project manager and front-end and back-end developers, worked with Devon through a project charter, weekly updates, research and code development. By the end of the sprint, the team had delivered a code repository and research outputs Devon could use as Athos continued to develop.

According to Devon, the experience also helped him think differently about what it means to lead a technical project. Market to Lab gave him applied support, but it also required him to define the problem clearly, work with a team and keep communication focused.

“You need to be concise, and you need to listen,” he said.

Atlantic Hub pilot tests a distributed model

At NSCC, Market to Lab tested a different question: can the same kind of targeted commercialization support work across distance, across institutions and across a wider regional ecosystem?

For Labs4, the Manitoba projects showed how Market to Lab can work when it is embedded inside an established project space. Founders entered with different barriers, but the delivery environment gave each team a structure for turning those barriers into applied work.

Barrinique Griffin, entrepreneurship manager at NSCC and Labs4’s Ontario hub program manager, the Atlantic pilot showed that the answer is yes, provided the model is flexible enough to meet founders where they are.

“One of the key insights from the Atlantic pilot was the value of a distributed delivery model,” said Griffin. “Commercialization support does not have to be confined to a single physical space or province to be effective. By drawing on talent from across the region, we were able to create project teams that met founders where they were and provided targeted support based on their specific needs.”

That model was reflected in the experience of Lauren Mackay, a Dalhousie University student entrepreneur developing Head First Care, a concussion management platform designed to help students manage recovery and stay connected to academic support.

Head First Care is rooted in Lauren’s own experience with concussions as a student-athlete. The platform is being developed for students, with a focus on those who may not have access to the more formal supports available to varsity athletes. Lauren’s goal is to help students track symptoms, understand their recovery and connect with the supports that can help them stay in school.

When Lauren came into Market to Lab after having she had already been through TRL and had been working with a developer trained through NSCC. During TRL, her team rebuilt the public website and made significant progress on the minimum viable product. Market to Lab helped push the work across the line.

“We really needed to get the testing going,” Lauren said. “It was something we needed to push over the line. It’s been a work in progress for a year now.”

During the sprint, Head First Care finished its MVP (minimum viable product), rebuilt its public website on a more cost-effective platform and finalized the application for the next stage of testing. Her team included a developer with an NSCC software development diploma, and a Dalhousie psychology student who serves as the venture’s director of operations.

The team reflected the distributed model in practice: a Dalhousie founder working with NSCC-trained talent and support through the Atlantic Labs4 hub.

“Lauren’s experience is a strong example of what the Atlantic model can make possible,” said Griffin. “As a founder from Dalhousie University, one of our spoke partners, she was able to work with recent NSCC alumni who brought skills and expertise that were not currently represented on her team. That helped her make progress on key commercialization challenges while also creating meaningful experiential learning opportunities for emerging talent.”

For Lauren, the program also helped her become more comfortable leading a team and handing off technical work. As a founder with lived experience of the problem she is trying to solve, she had carried much of the venture’s development herself. Market to Lab helped create more structure around the people and skills needed to move the product toward testing.

The sequence from TRL to Market to Lab was also important. TRL helped advance the technical concept. Market to Lab gave the team a structure for finishing defined work and preparing for a more market-facing stage.

“The program complemented TRL by supporting founders who had already validated aspects of their technology or business concept and were ready to tackle more focused commercialization challenges,” Griffin said. “Market to Lab helped bridge the gap between early-stage validation and market readiness by providing access to talent, expertise and hands-on problem solving.”

A successful pilot moves to Canada-wide launch

Across both pilot sites, the first Market to Lab cohort showed the value of a focused, practical approach.

Sole Capsule advanced a specific product feature and gave its founders experience leading a student team. Athos received research and technical outputs that could support further development of its research-mapping tool. Head First Care finished its MVP, reduced website costs and moved closer to testing with users.

This summer Labs4 will be recruiting for the next cohort of Market to Lab participants and will be delivering tailored programming across Canada through its 8 regional hubs. Stay tuned for details on the upcoming recruitment cycle.