Location
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Winter 2010 Bay Area
Applications: Nov 07, '10
Sessions: Nov 14, '10 - Feb 23, '11
Vision
Our vision is to Globalize Silicon Valley by creating and fostering local startup ecosystems in promising markets across the globe. We aim to help launch 1,000 technology companies per year in over 50 cities worldwide.
Sponsors
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is the premier legal advisor to technology and growth enterprises worldwide, as well as the investment banks and venture capital firms that finance them. Over the past four decades, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has established its reputation by having an unmatched knowledge of its clients' industries and deep and long-standing contacts throughout the technology sector. The firm's legal expertise serves clients at all stages of growth, from venture-backed start-up companies to multibillion-dollar global enterprises. The firm's clients include some of the most recognized names in the technology, retail, life sciences, venture capital, and finance sectors. The firm has offices in Austin, Palo Alto, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai, and Washington, D.C.
HP Startup Central has offered cover the Course Fee in an HP Fellowship program. Three strong technical candidates will be selected to attend the Founder Institute courtesy of this HP offering.
Startup Weekend is a non-profit organization that has become one of the leading catalysts for startup creation, co-founder dating, and entrepreneurship in over 100 cities and 25 countries worldwide. At Startup Weekend events, attendees pitch ideas, form teams, and build functional prototypes in just 54 hours. Startup Weekend - "No Talk, All Action."
Testimonials
Should You Apply to the Founder Institute? by Stefan Broda
Founder Insight gives you feedback from the startup trenches.
In this post from his blog, Founder Institute graduate, Stefan Broda, Founder of BeforeWeDo, shares his experience with the Silicon Valley Founder Institute. His honest and candid feedback is a must-read for any entrepreneur considering the program. Thinking of applying? Check out what Stefan had to say about mentor feedback, networking, time commitment, assignments, and more.
Why The Founder Institute? by Darryl Rettig and Renee Zau
Founder Feedback gives you insights from the startup trenches.
In a post from their blog, Darryl Rettig and Renee Zau, Co-founders of DonationMatch, share their experience at the San Diego Founder Institute. Comparing the program to the popular 90's film, The Karate Kid, they suggest the Founder Institute teaches the necessary tools for success by offering "practice in disguise".
My Experience at the Founder Institute, by Kiran Bulusu
In this post from his blog, Kiran Bulusu, Founder of Sensory Health Systems and a graduate of the Silicon Valley chapter, shares his recent experience with the Founder Institute.
Read on to learn more about the life of a founder in the Silicon Valley chapter.
The Founder Institute was my Startup Muse, by Tom Frazier
The first Sydney Founder Institute program concluded a few weeks ago, with seven promising graduate companies. One of the newly graduated founders, Tom Frazier (Co-Founder of ProcessGo!), posted a review of his experience with the program on his company blog. According to Tom, "The Founder Institute has become this thing that helps people articulate their ideas, bonds founders within a community and channels creativity into a funnel, and spits out amazing little businesses with big ambitions."
3 Lessons Learned from the Founder Institute, by Vladimir Blagojevic
Founder Feedback gives you insights from the startup trenches.
On his blog "Be Launched", Vladimir Blagojevic, Founder of Grant Snap and newly minted Graduate of the Brussels Founder Institute, described the three top lessons he learned from the Founder Institute.
Starting from Scratch with FI, by Andrea Lo
Founder Feedback gives you insights from the startup trenches.
In a guest blog post that ran on Women 2.0 today, Andrea Lo (Founder of Piggybackr) describes how the Founder Institute was just what she needed to start her first company.
FI Reviews Straight from Graduates
Many Graduates from the recent Winter Bay Area Semester have written about their experience with the Institute. Lucky for us, one Graduate (Maren Kate) aggregated the different reviews and posted them on her blog EscapingThe9to5.
Comparing the Founder Institute to TechStars, by Scott Yates
TechStars is a great entrepreneurship program, and so is the Founder Institute. We both help grow and foster local start-up communities, but we go about it in different ways. Scott Yates, an accepted Founder in the Spring 2010 Denver Area Semester, has put up a very informative comparison chart on his blog to show the differences. Check it out here.
Views of an Accepted Founder, by Roy Leban
Roy Leban wrote an in-depth blog post about being accepted into the Founder Institute and his decision to enroll. It provides an interesting insights from the perspective of an experienced entrepreneur and technologist. A snippet from the post is below.
At first glance, I might not seem like the typical candidate for the Founder Institute. I'm not a fresh entrepreneur. I've been doing it a long time and I've had both favorable outcomes (sales) and failures (losing a lot of money). And I even serve as an advisor and mentor to a lot of other entrepreneurs. But, through it all, two things have remained constant: I'm an entrepreneur at heart, and I have a lot to learn.
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