Wildfire Labs Startup Studio

Wildfire Labs is a startup studio in Rapid City, South Dakota, that turns industry expertise into AI-powered software. It builds alongside founders and helps them get to real customers, faster. Founders bring deep industry expertise and a real idea; Wildfire brings the build team, the process, and the first checks. It is a studio, not an accelerator: it does not run cohorts, and founders move through three phases (Customer Discovery, Build, Go To Market) at their own pace.

Key Benefits

• Founder-friendly capital: when the fit is right, Wildfire invests early and helps line up the next round when the traction is real
• AI-first build team: engineers and designers embedded with your founding team, to compress a six-month build into an eight-week sprint
• Go-to-market engine: positioning, outbound, content, analytics, and early sales, run alongside you
• Operator network: weekly 1:1 sessions with operators who have built and scaled software companies, plus phase-matched peer groups
• Wildfire Academy: lessons, templates, and AI prompts mapped to every phase of the company, plus live sessions with operators, investors, and functional experts
• 24/7 workspace in Rapid City and a founder community

Eligibility

• Founders with deep expertise in an industry who see a real problem software can solve
• You do not need to be technical; the build team handles the engineering
• Able to commit full-time to building once you are in the Build phase
• Willing to get into the weeds on sales and customer conversations
• Open to moving to, or spending real time in, Rapid City

Program Structure

• Rolling intake: no cohorts and no cohort deadlines; founders start as soon as they are ready
• Intake: submit the application, the team reads and responds (about 1 week), then a video or in-person conversation, then you start in Phase One
• Phase One, Validate (Customer Discovery): ICP and customer map, 30+ customer interviews, pricing hypothesis, a v1 spec scoped to ship in 8-12 weeks; milestone: signed letters of intent from design partners
• Phase Two, Ship (Build): production v1 with the AI-first build team; milestone: production v1 in the hands of design partners
• Phase Three, Grow (Go To Market): positioning, GTM playbook, sales pipeline, first paying customers, fundraising prep; milestone: a repeatable GTM motion with paying customers
• The phases are structured but the pace is yours; founders do not 'graduate'