Scott Litman and Dan Mallin know the challenges of early-stage entrepreneurship. About 20 years ago, the two founded MN Cup, an annual statewide competition for startups. Now, they’re expanding their range, set to work with an East Coast educational group known as Birthing of Giants on a program targeting the next phase in business leadership: when a company already has traction but must figure out how to grow.

Birthing of Giants is producing a Minnesota spin-off of its MBA-level educational bootcamp next year under Litman and Mallin. For decades, Birthing of Giants has tackled the problem of growth and scale. The Brooklyn, New York-based group first “incubated” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-’90s, in partnership with Inc. magazine, and today offers weeklong training sessions at Princeton University for entrepreneurs anxious to reach new heights.

Set to launch in January, the Minnesota program will take on 10 to 20 founders whose businesses earn between $5 million and $250 million annually, with eight quarterly, in-person sessions over two years, Mallin says, and faculty expected to come in from across the country. The program culminates in a “capstone week” at Princeton.

An informational meeting is set to take place Oct. 16, 3:30–5 p.m., at 7400 Metro Boulevard, Suite 195, in Edina, featuring Litman and Mallin as well as Birthing of Giants chair Lewis Schiff. (Pre-registration is here.)

“[Birthing of Giants] recruited us because Dan and I, together, are five-time founders with successful exits,” Litman says—and because of their MN Cup experience.

If MN Cup helped fill a void in the startup landscape, here is another void, Litman says: “A lot of businesses never get there, but once you’re [at the growing stage], there’s not a lot of people you can go to”—for help on training a board of directors, for example, or raising capital, or managing employees. “It’s pretty lonely business, to be the founder.”

Sessions for the Minnesota cohort, to take place in a facility off Highway 100 and I-494, Mallin says, will focus on “four levers” important for scaling: “money, the model, the market, and management.”

The curriculum’s aim is to get companies to an exit. “Our goal is to make every company, at the end of this process, substantially more valuable,” Mallin says, adding that entrepreneurs ideally become so ready to exit, they don’t want to. “It’s kind of like when you’re selling your house and you fix it up before you sell it.”

Birthing of Giants recently announced Eric Krucke, a former Warren Buffett CFO, as a faculty member, Mallin adds. “That gives you an example of, hey, we’re bringing in real people that can help you and your team gain experience.”