Schedule

The best startup ideas are formed from the intersection of a real customer problem and your personal strengths and passions. During this session, you will learn how to form, communicate, and analyze startup ideas in a structured manner. By the end of the week, you will form and analyze several business ideas based on real customer problems that you could realistically spend the next 20 years working on, and begin interviewing potential customers about their problems.

Large markets with viable customers have the potential to elevate great ideas. In this session, you will work to identify actual customers and further validate your key assumptions. You will identify the best revenue stream for the business and ensure that the market is large enough to support a fast growing startup. By the end of the week, you will have a clear sense of your ideal customer and be in a position to start building a great company.

A landing page is a useful tool for testing customer interest. If you are solving a real problem, then customers will click and interact with a well-written page that promises a solution. Continue your customer validation work this week, supplementing your interviews with a landing page, that translates your customer insights into a value proposition that should get people to click through and express interest.

Pitching your business well is crucial in getting customers, employees, investors, advisors and other supporters. In this session you will learn how to pitch your business well, with a focus on the in-person formal presentation. You will also learn good presentation techniques, and things that founders say or do that cause investors or others to stop listening and say no. You will also prepare a first financial model for your business, and set up tools to support your operation.

The Mentor Idea Review is the first major test in the Founder Institute Program. During this session, every founder presents their customer problem to a panel of entrepreneurs and business professionals who review the idea and the progress in detail. After the session, you will incorporate their feedback into your planning, begin to set up your company and marketing infrastructure, and more.

A company is a collection of agreements between various stakeholders. In this session, you will learn the best practices to set-up a technology business in your locale. This week, you will start to create the company and the various legal agreements, including protections for any intellectual property. By the end of the week, you will have optionally retained a top law firm and be well on your way to having a well-formed business.

Getting a clear go-to market strategy is the key to every successful company. In this session, you will test different approaches to the market and learn about how to develop messages that resonate with target customers. You will also make progress on selecting your advisors, and follow up on legal work.

A great solution is mandatory for any modern technology company. This week, you will learn the best practices in product development and team management to release a world-class solution. Over the week, you will identify the resources, draft a specification and create a product roadmap to release your solution.

Being able to measure your marketing results is key to successful marketing. In this session, you will learn about how to reach your target customers and standard ways to measure the effectiveness of your efforts. Before the next session, you will know what marketing channels are most effective, so you can set up a growth plan.

Businesses need to be able to track money to make money. This week you will set up a bookkeeping system for your company, and decide how to handle the accounting. You will also determine your unit economics, and use the result to set up a growth plan for your business.

Similar to the "Mentor Idea Review", this is the second major test in the program. During this session, every founder will present their progress to a panel of seasoned professionals and entrepreneurs for a detailed review of the progress to date. Afterward, you will focus on building a startup, making weekly progress with building the product, with signing customers and with hiring key team members.

A great team is required to achieve great success as a technology company. In this session, you identify the roles that you need to build a world-class company, including analyzing if you need a Cofounder, and you will develop a strategy to recruit, board and retain the best people for the roles. Before the next session, you will have a process in place to always be recruiting top talent within your evolving organization.

Traction is the ultimate goal for every technology company, and it is one of the hardest things to achieve. This week, you will learn some of the best practices to grow your business, including some “growth hacking” techniques, and you will set aggressive growth goals that are attractive to investors. By the end the week, you will have your business in growth mode.

Fundraising is the strategy for most modern technology companies. In this session, you will learn about the different fundraising options and learn how to get started. Before the end of the program, you will understand what metrics are required to be successful fundraising and have a fundraising strategy for the next few years.

Graduating from the Founder Institute is an honor. The program is challenging, and the curriculum is demanding. In this session, you will celebrate graduating with your peers, friends and family, as well as select Mentors discussing leadership. Following this session, you will work on your leadership style. As a Graduate, you will gain access to a global network and further programs to help with fundraising, growth and other business acceleration.