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Currículo

Valencia Virtual 2021

El Founder Institute ofrece un curriculum semanal de sesiones constructivas de empresas, diseñadas para ayudar a emprendedores a pensar y trabajar cada aspecto de su negocio, desde la idea inicial al modelo de facturación. Cada sesión está liderada por tres CEO / Mentores, quienes comparten sus opiniones únicas y muchas veces diferentes sobre un tema. Los Founders que participan en el programa tienen tareas para poder ayudar a construir aspectos clave de sus empresas entre las sesiones que se completan en seminarios con sus compañeros.

Orientation

Meet the cohort & learn our methodology

Date: abr 27, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Vision

Define a strong business vision

Date: abr 28, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

In each weekly Feedback Session, Founders will pitch and outline their progress to the Mentors for feedback, and get tips and insights on the week's topic. This week you'll get tips on how to develop a strong vision for your business.  

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

 

Launch Track Deliverables

  1. Ideation - Catalogue the ideas that you are interested in pursuing, or examine different variations of the current business you are pursuing.
  2. Initial Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 15 people that have knowledge of the customer problems or may be potential customers themselves.
  3. Market Research - Utilize our market research template to collect accurate and available market information on the customer problems you are analyzing. 

 

Growth Track Deliverables

  1. Customer Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 15 customers. If you already have done extensive customer development then outline your current findings and identify areas that require deeper understanding.
  2. Identify Unknowns - Document a detailed understanding of the main customer problem, and fill any required gaps in your customer knowledge. 
  3. Visioneering - Describe what your business will look like when it has $100 million in annual revenues, including the vision, culture, and main revenue stream, and outline at least 5 steps that need to happen for your company to reach that goal.

Customer Development

Analyze your customer feedback

Date: may 04, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Revenue

Validate a scalable revenue model

Date: may 11, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Branding & Design

Get feedback on branding & design

Date: may 18, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Mentor Idea Review

Test the core business on a mentor panel

Date: may 25, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

This is the first big checkpoint in the program to determine your progress. During the Mentor Idea Review, you will present a longer presentation to a panel of FI Mentors for extensive review. You will receive a rating, as well as feedback on the long-term viability of your offering, revenue model, growth strategy, and more. 

 

Sprints

After the Mentor Idea Review, Founders receive a larger number of custom "Epic Sprints" with deliverables based on their specific challenges. Below are examples of some of the standard deliverables. 

 

  1. Corporate Materials - Immediately update your 3 minute pitch deck and video based on the Mentor Idea Review feedback, and develop a new and updated Executive Summary using our template.
  2. Advisor Candidates - You will create (or fill out) an Advisory Board in the next 5 weeks, so develop a target list of new advisor candidates based off your identified needs and gaps in knowledge/ connections. 
  3. Advisor Outreach - Leverage the FI network to get introductions to your targets where necessary, and follow our templated process to make progress on your advisory board.  
  4. Sales Follow-up - Continue to work on securing sales or commitments for revenue, growing the rate month over month. For B2B solutions, get as many contracts or letters of intent as possible. For B2C solutions, aggressively increase your revenue (or submitted information indicating they will pay you). Document all lessons learned.
  5. Financial Model - Develop or professionalize your financial model based on our template that focuses on expenses (“burn”) to understand your cash needs. Develop a revenue forecast for 12-18 months and factor in timing considerations from your sales follow-up work.
  6. Legal - Identify your short to medium term legal needs, and if you don’t already have a law firm, identify at least two local law candidates that have experience working with startups. Begin vetting new or existing law firms using our guidelines. 

Legal & IP

Review your legal infrastructure

Date: jun 01, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Go-to-Market & Scale

Improve your strategy to launch or scale

Date: jun 08, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

In this Feedback Session, Mentors will provide Founders with feedback on their current go-to-market plans and progress, and cover topics like marketing messaging, unit ecomomics, customer acquisition, and more.   

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

  1. Alternatives - Identify two alternative models (markets or “pivots”) for your go-to-market solution to discover the most lucrative market opportunity. Interview at least 2 customers for each alternative.
  2. Advisor Follow-Up - In the next Step you will finalize advisors, so begin finalization meetings with your top candidates, and set up test Advisor Test Projects where necessary following our templates.
  3. Test Marketing Messaging - Write at least three separate marketing messages for your solution, and A/B test them using landing pages with at least 100 engagements each. 
  4. Customer Acquisition Channels - Identify at least five initial or new major marketing channels to acquire customers that are appropriate for your solution.
  5. Conversion Rate - Begin testing at least three of your new customer acquisition channels, pushing as much traffic through them as possible to evaluate their comparative conversion rates. 
  6. Unit Economics - Research any data on the standard Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) and standard Lifetime Value (LTV) for your industry and segment, and compare and analyze against the metrics you have collected thus far. 

Product Development

Get feedback on your product roadmap

Date: jun 15, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Mentor Progress Review

Test your progress on a mentor panel

Date: jun 22, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Similar to the Mentor Idea Review, the Mentor Progress Review is the second major test in the program. In this session, Founders will focus on give a long presentation their progress and traction to a panel of Mentors for a detailed review. Mentors will evaluate Founders based on their progress in the program, the company’s scalability, and more.

 

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours: 

  1. Polished Investor Pitch Deck - Create an expanded, 12-slide pitch deck incorporating any feedback from the Mentor Progress Review, using our templates. 
  2. Growth - Make progress on your growth goals, and examine or adjust how your strategy and the system to keep yourself accountable is performing.
  3. Product - Make progress on your next product release, and outline and address any of the setbacks that you have faced with your project team.
  4. Hiring Needs - Score the progress of each member of your project team on a 1 to 10 scale, including yourself, and set up plans to improve those that are struggling. 
  5. Finalize Advisory Board - Set up your advisory board with startup, industry, technology or marketing advisors, and set up a one hour conference call with all of the them, which will be your first quarterly advisory board meeting.
  6. Financial Model Update - Review and update your financial model with the work done to date. Adjust the revenue projections based on your growth thus far, and evaluate the need and requirements for external funding. 

Hiring & Onboarding

Improve your team and hiring

Date: jun 29, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Growth

Establish a scalable engine for growth

Date: jul 06, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

In this session, Mentors will provide Founders with feedback on their current growth, metrics, and strategy. Mentors will discuss various growth tactics, setting growth goals and milestones, communicating your startup’s growth progress and setbacks with stakeholders and advisors, and more. 

 

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 assignments you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

  1. Growth Plan Update - Review the performance of your growth goals and adjust your growth plan to improve your performance and accountability.
  2. Sales - Pursue aggressive goals to close new revenue or users, which may be signups, payments, a signed contract, a pre-payment or a signed letter of intent.
  3. Growth Tactics - Work with your working group and advisors to brainstorm 15 new ideas to increase the top of your funnel, and provide a bulleted list of these Growth Tactics.
  4. Pivot - Consider a pivot if you are not meeting your growth goals, sales, product or hiring progress targets. If you decide to Pivot, schedule a call with one of your Local Leaders to discuss your proposed pivot in the business and do the same with your advisors.
  5. Hiring Channels - Review all of the candidates that have come through the various recruiting outreach channels and other activities, and identify the most effective channels.
  6. Post-Program Onboarding - Review FI's post-program resources, and work with your cohort on a monthly meeting schedule where you will continue to meet, provide updates, and share learnings on your progress. 

Equity & Funding

Fix any impediments to fundraising

Date: jul 13, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

In this session, Mentors will analyze Founder pitches from the perspective of an investor, identifying any remaining issues or areas for improvement. Mentors will also cover numerous topics related to fundraising, including different fundraising options, how to raise funding, and more. 

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

  1. Minimum Victory Condition - Work with your Local Leaders to establish your “Victory Condition” to achieve before the “Impact Deadline” (three months after the program ends), and add it to your business calendar.
  2. Advisor Strategy - Set up a call with each of your advisors and briefly review your “Victory Condition”, the funding strategy, hiring plan, sales plan and product plan.
  3. Use of Proceeds - Examine the capital needs of the business, and extend your financial model to project revenues and expenses for a total of 24 months from now.
  4. Final Investor Pitch Deck - Refine your investor pitch deck, and update it with all of your work to date, including details from your various plans. Test the presentation on peers and Directors and upload it to the FI site for review. 
  5. Deal Room - Create a Deal Room for future investors that includes relevant files like 'Company' documents with legal, 'Pitch Deck', 'Team' bios, 'Board Materials,' 'Financials,' 'Sales' information, 'Marketing' materials and 'Intellectual Property.'
  6. Target List - Identify local Angel Investors and Seed Accelerators, ignoring Venture Capitalists and Seed Funds. The Target List should include at least 100 local angels, 25 regional and 50 global seed accelerators, using our guidelines.

Graduation

Celebrate & onboard to our post-programs

Date: jul 27, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Completing the Founder Institute is an honor. The program is challenging, and the expectations are demanding.

In this final session, you will celebrate with your peers, friends and family, as well as select Mentors. Some Founders will also pitch to a live audience, and you will officially onboard to all of the post-program resources and assistance the Founder Institute provides.

Post Program Resources

The 4 month Core-Program is just the beginning. We have developed extensive support programs and resources for our Alumni that far exceed any other comparable startup program.

Continued Support

FI Alumni
  • Dedicated Alumni Support Team in Silicon Valley
  • Access to the world's largest network of mentors and investors (35,000+)
  • Private Alumni mailing lists
  • $2M+ in partner discounts
  • Invites to FI sessions & network events
  • Potentail introductions to investors

Post-Programs

Founder Lab
  • A series of virtual advisory programs where you work with our Silicon Valley HQ team to reach next milestones
  • Funding Lab helps get your lead investor within 6 months
  • P/M Fit Lab (2023) helps you get to Product Market Fit
  • FI Venture Network helps you get intros to investors
  • 100% customized and FREE for Alumni