Flightpath is a member community for tech leaders, product developers and venture builders. Built around high-performance leadership, mentorship and apprenticeship programming, our community offers members space to share struggles and wins, whether you’re a start-up founder or leader in a fast-growing team. We curate core and peer groups that build trust and accountability, host small gatherings and events, and organize community-building adventures with our members. It’s about building alongside peers you can trust, allies you can learn from, and friends you can celebrate with.
Our members fall into three main types:
a) startup leaders in emerging and growth stage, tech-enabled or tech-first companies;
b) product developers building products and growing technical teams; and
c) venture builders who are emerging and seasoned venture capitalists, fund managers, investment analysts, and ecosystem builders.
Members come from start-up, early-stage growth and later-stage growth companies, willing to learn, share and build within our community. While many members are based regionally in our homebase of Edmonton, our community is made up of members from across Canada, US and beyond.
Flightpath 2.0 is led by Ken Bautista, alongside a new team and braintrust.
Flightpath was originally founded in 2012 by Ken Bautista and Cam Linke, initially to invest in early stage founders coming out of Startup Edmonton — a company that was also co-founded by Ken and Cam. Over the years, the team kickstarted DemoCamp, Startup Drinks, Startup Weekend, Launch Party, Hackathons, GameCamp, Founders & Funders, Preflight, Startup Week, Startup Crawl, Students to Startups, Student DevCon, Ignite Edmonton, and TEDxEdmonton.
Our community is built around five community principles: Entrepreneurship, Fellowship, Mentorship, Apprenticeship and Friendship. Entrepreneurship: Flightpath members are builders and problem solvers
Fellowship: Flightpath members work together towards shared community goals
Mentorship: Flightpath members share knowledge and experience as peers
Apprenticeship: Flightpath members learn actively by doing and building
Friendship: Flightpath is a community by founders, for founders
We recruit members on an intake basis three times each year (Fall/Winter, Spring and Summer), aligned to ongoing and seasonal programming. Click the “Apply as a member” button, complete the application and we’ll do an initial review to ensure you meet the criteria as a prospective member (e.g. tech-first company, seeking high-growth). We’ll then contact you for an interview and conversation to learn more about you, talk about challenges, goals and outcomes you seek as a member, and what value you’ll bring to the Flightpath community. We’ll take 7-10 business days to complete our review as a team, discuss with select braintrust members, and hopefully have good news about your application status, along with next steps.
Like any for-profit startup, we believe in providing value for our customers. Our revenue streams are driven through member fees, project sponsorships and profits generated through our investment portfolio. To maintain a high degree of quality within our member community, we also offer a limited number of memberships annually, curated based on value over quantity.
We know you’ve got a lot on your plate. When it comes to community, our philosophy is not about the amount of time you spend in it, but the quality of the interactions you have with other members. We want you to get the most out of your membership, so we’ll look to you to determine what that means to you. For some members, connecting frequently is part of the value. For others, checking in is more of the experience they’re seeking. Either way, we promise to bring you quality connections, conversation and community, as long as you can offer us your most authentic self.
As we roll out our new Flightpath member platform in early access, we know it's still a work in progress. We're working with early access members to mobilize core and peer groups, develop useful resources and organize exclusive gatherings. More importantly, you’ll be an essential part of the founding Flightpath member community, providing feedback and direction on how we can best serve tech founders, hackers and builders around Canada. Early Access members will receive a special welcome package, filled with Flightpath branded collateral.
You’re leading or building a fast-growing, tech-enabled or digital-first startup — as a founder, leader, developer or investor. For emerging startups, you have a product launched, with initial users/customers and may be pre-revenue. You reside in North America and are building a company that services North America and beyond.
Most Flightpath events, summits and programs are offered exclusively to our member community, with select opportunities for non-member participation. We also directly back and co-host select startup community events and meetup groups, which are fully open to everyone.
No, Flightpath is an independent, for-profit corporation. As a private company, we maintain our own governance and operations, with some support provided through non-dilutive contributions from private and public ecosystem partners.
Flightpath was founded by individuals responsible for founding Edmonton, Alberta's tech community. During this time, we played a particular role as community organizers, offering early stage incubation programming, and providing physical space to work and meet. Since then, we’ve seen Edmonton’s innovation ecosystem evolve with many new support organizations, accelerator programs and community spaces for all. With Flightpath 2.0, we’re focused on investing directly in more tech founders, leaders and builders around Canada, using a vetted, private membership network model, curated on quality over quantity.
Full members are assigned to core groups, small (6-8 person), curated peer groups that meet every 4-6 weeks for peer coaching sessions. Core groups are made up of members and leaders at the same career stage, from different roles, industries and functions. Core groups provide members with a private and confidential forum to discuss challenges, experiences and opportunities with peers on an ongoing basis.
Peer groups are organized around team roles and functions (e.g. product, DevOps, people, sales) and/or industry verticals and sectors (e.g. fintech, urbantech, venture capital). Peer group meetups are organized monthly, featuring deep dive discussions, guest speakers and project sharing. Peer groups are led and hosted by members, remotely or in-person.
No, Flightpath does not rent out or offer work/program space to members. However, we work closely with several space partners around Canada to host our programming, and can provide referrals as required.
Although we’d hate to see you go, you’re welcome to cancel your monthly membership at any point to leave. Once your membership has been canceled, all of your member benefits will be retracted. For annual members, you’re welcome to cancel anytime before your next annual renewal to leave (but your annual membership is non-refundable).