Founder Institute & SJSU: Cultivating Future Founders
The Founder Institute and San Jose State University (SJSU) created a tailored startup incubator, SpartUp, to provide students with accessible, self-paced entrepreneurship education, mentorship, and resources.
The Challenge
As SJSU expanded its innovation department and planned the launch of its first incubator, they recognized a significant issue in the entrepreneurial education provided within traditional degree programs. Many students lacked the essential skills, mentorship, and exposure needed to start a business.
Additionally, the university faced challenges in ensuring ongoing student interest across multiple programs and making the startup process accessible to students with varying schedules and backgrounds. This led to the need for a flexible and comprehensive solution to meet the diverse needs of aspiring student founders.
The Solution: Flexible Student Incubation
The Founder Institute launched the SpartUp Incubator, a customized, idea-stage student program designed to inspire, educate, and activate new founders.
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1Self-Paced Learning
To accommodate participants with varying schedules, SpartUp allowed participants to engage in a flexible, self-paced curriculum that students could complete at their convenience while still receiving real-time insights and tracking for administrators.
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2Business Building Curriculum
FI provided access to its developed learning management system. Students got involved in business-building exercises and sprints, which helped them develop essential entrepreneurial skills such as market research, business modeling, and pitch preparation.
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3Mentorship and Networking
Students gained access to FI’s global network of mentors and investors, receiving personalized guidance and opportunities to connect with relevant business advisors.
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4Post-Program Support
Upon successful completion, students received ongoing access to FI’s portfolio success team, networking tools, and opportunities for pitching at large online events and exclusive networking sessions, ensuring their continued growth. All program graduates were introduced to FI’s post-graduate accelerators and were offered exclusive community discounts.
Key Takeaways
The partnership between FI and SJSU played a crucial role in fostering student entrepreneurship. In 2024, SJSU was ranked the #4 best public university in the U.S., (and #16 overall) by the Wall Street Journal (a leap of 157 spots from 2023). By offering accessible, practical startup resources, the program effectively supported aspiring entrepreneurs and cultivated a dynamic entrepreneurial culture on campus.
Results
The SpartUp Incubator had a transformative impact on SJSU's innovation programs.
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The SpartUp Incubator -
Post-Graduate Assistance
- 150%
- Increase in Enrollment from Year One to Year Two
- 4
- Recurring University Startup Competitions Launched
- 4th
- Place Rank Among Public Universities in the U.S.
As a new Incubator program at SJSU, we needed a way to help founders get up to speed quickly, and FI was a perfect fit. The flexibility to learn at their own pace is critical in supporting all founders from all backgrounds, and the pre-built content was easy to deploy.
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More About Founder Institute
The Founder Institute (FI.co) is the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator. Since 2009, we have helped tens of thousands of employees and new/ idea-stage entrepreneurs validate, test, and launch startups worth an estimated $30BN+. Our mission is to activate and empower talented and motivated entrepreneurs to build meaningful technology businesses worldwide
The Founder Institute is the world’s most proven network to turn ideas into fundable startups, and startups into global businesses. Since 2009, our structured accelerator programs have helped over 7,500 entrepreneurs raise over $1.85BN in funding. Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 100 countries, our mission is to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful technology companies worldwide.
