Curriculum

Summer 2009 Bay Area

The Founder Institute offers a weekly curriculum of company-building sessions designed to help entrepreneurs think through every aspect of their business, from the core idea to the revenue model. Each weekly session is lead by three startup CEO Mentors, who share their unique and often differing opinions on the topic, and provide our founders with expert feedback and advice. Participating Founders are given assignments to build key aspects of their companies between the sessions that are completed in Working Groups with their peers.

Program Sessions

Your Vision and Idea Types

May 19, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Develop ideas for your business.

What are you passionate about? What is your vision? How do you translate passion and vision into a business idea? How do you brainstorm ideas? What are tools for evaluating your ideas? What are the makings of a good idea versus a bad idea? Should you pursue multiple ideas at once, and when should you focus on one?

Basic Research

May 26, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Validate your idea and target market.

What market are you pursuing? Is it big enough? Is it growing or shrinking? What are the other characteristics of your market, and why do you care? How do you find data on your market? How do you define your competitors? What are inexpensive tactics to do custom market research? How can you determine if you can win in your target market, and when do you decide to walk away?

Naming and Branding

June 02, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Name and brand your business.

What is a brand? Is it you? Is it your vision? How do you determine what you stand for, and then how do you come up with a good company name? What are the characteristics of a good company name? What do you need to do to protect your name?

Intellectual Property

June 09, 2009, at 06:30 PM: File your provisional patents.

How do you manage your intellectual property using confidentiality, copyrights, and patents? What is the intellectual property of your business? What types of protections are available, and what are the costs? How do you file a patent quickly, cheaply, and with the necessary protections? What can you do on your own, and what do you need an attorney for? How do you pick the right attorney? How much does protecting your intellectual property cost, and why should you do it?

Company Roadmap

June 16, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Develop a plan to build your idea.

How do you get from an idea to an offering? How do you build an offering? What tactics should you use to ensure success? What is the plan to develop your offering? What are tips and tricks to make that plan accurate? What are common mistakes that every founder makes? What are the best practices? How do you navigate competition, and how do you win?

Earning Revenue

June 23, 2009, at 06:00 PM: Create a revenue model for your business

How to get it. How to grow it. How to track it. How to scale from the first sale to the millionth. What to look for in a business and how important is revenue. Moats in all shapes and sizes. The different types of business models for generating revenue. Generating revenue and targeting enterprise vs. consumer. Selling to Line of Business vs. IT. Symmetric vs. Asymmetric business models and why so many webs successes are asymmetric. A/B testing for causality. Goals for early revenue. B2B vs. B2C and their emotional needs. 2 routes to market, direct and indirect.

Startup Accounting Tactics

June 30, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Set-up accounting for your startup

How do you set-up an accounting solution for your startup? What do you really need? How do you grow your needs over time? What are the tricks of the trade? Understanding accounting practices on financing and business growth. Creating automated systems to make things more efficient and your life easier. Understanding why accounting is so important. How accounting and financial statements differ and their relationship with each other. How to use accounting and financial statements to help run your business. Learning about basic accounting principles: cost principle, accounting and financial statements to help run your business. Value of an engineer vs. business guy. General expenses per funding stage and hidden expenses to expect along the way. Looking at the general breakdown of expenses for an actual startup.

Business Metrics & Budgets

July 07, 2009, at 06:30 PM: How to track your progress and your cash

What metrics should you be tracking in your business? How do you build a budget to meet your metrics? How do you adjust your budgets based on missing, hitting, or exceeding your goals? Planning for uncertainty, understanding risks, weighting risk, finding growth, targeting goals. ROR Process (Responsible. Objective. Results.) Budgeting metrics and how business drivers affect them. Process of budgeting and planning. How VCs view budgets and projections. How to build a model that will attract investors.

Hiring and Firing

July 14, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Implement hiring policies and practices.

Do you need a cofounder? How do you find and choose a cofounder? What employees do you need, and when do you need them? How do you hire and fire employees? What are important qualities to look for in employees? How do you decipher a resume? What are compensation guidelines? How do you set expectations? When is it easiest and hardest to find the best resources, and why?

Recruiting Success

July 21, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Identify world-class talent

Who are the best in your field? Can you sell them on your vision? Why building a great team matters. How to identify, recruit, and screen for the best of the best? How to negotiate and compensate. Identifying when and how your hiring needs change. Recruiting for the 2 hardest positions to fill: sales and engineering.

Exit Strategies

July 28, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Build a value generation plan

How to prepare for an exit long before it happens. How to keep your start-up in the sights of both partners and buyers. How to build enterprise value every day. Don’t get caught off guard with an opportunity. Learn about what VCs expect when considering exit strategies. Exit strategy options and their timeline. Networking and getting your name out there long before you are considering an exit. How to leverage your resources when necessary. How do you sell your company for a lot of money. The role of lawyers and investment bankers. ABS (Always Be Selling).

Partners and Suppliers

August 04, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Select key vendors.

What is the core competency of your team, and what should it to be? What should you insource and what should you outsource? What vendors do you need? How do you select the best vendors for your business on the best terms? What guidelines should you use? How do you evaluate the economics? What are some horror stories to avoid?

Startup Legal and Incorporation

August 11, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Build a legal strategy and incorporate.

Why incorporate? What are the basic legal concepts that you need to know to run a successful company? What are the key legal terms that you need to care about in contracts, with your team, and with your Board? What are common legal mistakes in startups? What are the key legal documents that a startup needs to operate? When do you need to use a lawyer, and when can you handle things on your own? How do you manage a law firm efficiently to get the best work?

Marketing

August 17, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Create a messaging plan

How to sell the story of your company and your offering. How to truly understand the customer and how to sell to early adopters. Hot to roll-out a marketing plan effectively. Brand management. Accountability and tracking marketing expenses and efforts is key. Who am I trying to reach? What’s important to them? How can we help? What are their pains/challenges? How and where do they seek resolution? Guerilla marketing tactics. Online and offline marketing channels discussed.

Publicity

August 18, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Start outreach to key media sources

Getting your vision and company name out there. From blogs to radio, what works and what does not? Building long-term relationships with media people. How to leverage social media when thinking about publicity. Network in silicon valley. Everyone should have a blog. Considerations about publicity during pre-launch, launch, and post-launch of your company. Insider notes and tips about how one company took and handled positive and negative publicity.

The Funding Lifecycle

August 25, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Create a funding plan with targets

What are the typical stages of the funding life cycle for different types of startup businesses? What kind of specific milestones should one expect to meet in order to progress through those funding stages? Terms and dilution worries alleviated. How to estimate how much money you need. Lessons on raising money from an expert. How and where to even begin the fundraising process? Negotiating the deal. Where to raise money from and the difference between family and friends and VCs. Guidelines on what to do with raised funds.

Presentation

September 08, 2009, at 06:30 PM: Create a perfect pitchdeck.

How do you present your business to target partners and investors? What are the tricks to captivate and retain attention? What makes for a great presentation, and what makes for a bad one? How do you convey enthusiasm, conviction, and success? How do your meeting reflect on your company culture? How can you innovate in your meetings to reflect your culture and be more productive?