Great Founders
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The World's Premier Idea-Stage
Accelerator and Startup Launch
Program

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Partners

WSGR
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is the premier legal advisor to technology, life sciences, and other growth enterprises worldwide. We represent companies at every stage of development, from entrepreneurial start-ups to multibillion-dollar global corporations, as well as the venture firms, private equity firms, and investment banks that finance and advise them. The firm's broad range of services and practice areas are focused on addressing the principal challenges faced by the management, boards of directors, shareholders, and in-house counsel of our clients.

CodigoDelSur
CodigoDelSur is a designer and developer of digital products. Having worked with Founder Institute startups in the past, they come as a highly recommended Founder Institute referral. They are composed of highly skilled software, web, and mobile app developers, who are excited to incorporate the latest technologies into the applications they develop.

Xero
Xero is everything you need to run your business financials. Work with a beautiful small business accounting software complete with accounting, invoicing, payroll, inventory and more. Xero seamlessly integrates with over 500+ business apps, including CRM, point-of-sale, time tracking, ecommerce, just to name a few. Join the 700,000+ businesses using Xero in more than 180 countries.

Vet-Tech
Vet-Tech is America's Veteran-led Startup Accelerator headquartered in Silicon Valley. With over 100 military veteran startups in our community, Vet-Tech's top 20 portfolio companies have raised over $10 Million in funding and have been accepted into world class programs like Tech Stars and Founder Institute.

Startup Weekend

 

Through the Startup Weekend Fellowship, members of the Startup Weekend Community who want to start a technology company can apply to the Silicon Valley Founder Institute chapter for free, and the best overall applicant will be invited to participate in the Founder Institute's step-by-step startup launch program for free as well.

Eligibility: In order to be eligible for the Startup Weekend Fellowship for the upcoming semester, you must complete your application and admissions test by Sunday, December 11th, 2016, using this link.

Grant: The recipient of the Startup Weekend Fellowship will be awarded within 5 days after the deadline.

Click here to apply for the Startup Weekend Fellowship.


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An Intensive Curriculum

The Founder Institute does not provide superficial startup education and encouragement, like many other free programs. Instead, our proven, structured program will push you to make years of progress on your business in just 3.5 months. Plus, sessions are held at night, so you can keep your day job.

See the Curriculum

Month 1
Idea & Customer Development
Month 2
Company & Team Formation
Month 4
Go-To-Market, Bootstrapping, & Fundraising
Month 3
Product Development & Distribution

Committed Mentors

Founder Institute Mentors are vested in your success through a "Shared Liquidity Pool", so they are extremely helpful. Plus, our Mentors are almost exclusively Founders and CEOs with experience building or leading fast-growth tech companies. In most semesters, the ratio of Mentors:Founders is greater than 2:1.

See the Mentors

Adeo Ressi Aaron Patzer Phil Libin
Founder Institute mint.com Evernote
Robin Chase Peter Vesterbacka Jeffrey Paine
Zipcar Rovio Golden Gate Ventures

The Results

Many of the world's fastest growing startups have used the Founder Institute to form and improve their business ideas, create an advisory board, recruit co-founders, improve their pitch, launch a product, prepare to raise capital, generate revenue, and more.

See the Graduates

2,300
72%
$550M
Companies Launched
Company Survival Rate
Total Funding Raised

A Global Network

Based in Silicon Valley but with chapters across six continents and 150+ cities, our mission is to "Globalize Silicon Valley" and help promising entrepreneurs launch companies that create one million new startup jobs.

See the most recent network activity.

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