This is where it all begins. During Orientation, we will review the Founder Institute program structure, curriculum, tools, and requirements. You will review why you have pursued entrepreneurship, and how you or your team will use the program to push your business or business idea forward.

Assignments

During Orientation, Founders and teams will be segmented into the “Standard Founder” or “Advanced Founder” assignment tracks, depending on the stage of their business or business idea.

These assignments are in addition to any custom "Special Assignments" Founders receive based on their specific challenges, and below is a small sample of the assignments you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Standard Founder Assignments

1. Progress - If you have started working on one or more ideas before the program, outline each of your ideas and any testing or progress made to date. 
2. Hotseat Pitch - Prepare a one minute verbal pitch for the weekly “Founder Hotseat”, where you present to Mentors during the sessions. Start with our one-sentence pitch template, and if you do not have a final idea yet, describe yourself and a field that you are passionate about and uniquely qualified to build a business around.
3. Co-Founders - If you are looking for a Co-founder, create a basic description of what you are looking for, and this will be shared with the rest of your cohort.

Advanced Founder Assignments

1. Program Goals - Outline the monthly objectives you or your team want to achieve with your business while participating in Founder Institute, including the specific support you feel that we can give you to succeed beyond the curriculum.
2. Key Performance Indicators - Outline the specific metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) that you are currently using to track success. Analyze the validity of these metrics, and create a plan to share updated metrics and progress with your Directors every week in the program.
3. Hotseat Pitch - Prepare a one minute verbal pitch for the weekly “Founder Hotseat”, where you present to Mentors during the sessions. Start with our one-sentence pitch template, followed by why you are uniquely qualified to pursue the idea, and any progress that you’ve made to date.

In this session, you’ll hear from a panel of experienced Mentors on how to develop startup ideas, how to properly pitch your ideas and strategies, and how to analyze your existing ideas or business. Founders will also present their startup idea to the Mentors and receive in-depth feedback on how to improve their idea and pitch.

Assignments

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

Standard Founder Assignments

1. Ideation - Catalogue the ideas that you are interested in pursuing, or explore different business opportunities in your areas of interest or expertise.
2. Customer Problems - Translate three of your top startup ideas into customer problems that you will explore turning into a business.
3. Initial Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 15 people that have knowledge of the customer problems or may be potential customers themselves.
4. Market Research - Utilize our market research template to collect accurate and available market information on the customer problems you are analyzing. 

Advanced Founder Assignments

1. Customer Problem - Outline the main customer problem and any alternative customer problems that you are trying to solve, and get feedback from your peers in the program.
2. Customer Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 5 people that have knowledge of the customer problem or may be potential customers themselves. If you have done similar interviews in the last 60 days then outline this feedback.
3. Identify Unknowns - Create a step-by-step strategy to thoroughly validate that the main customer problem exists and fill any required gaps in your customer knowledge. 
4. Plans - Describe what your business will look like when it has $100 million in annual revenues, including the vision, culture, and main revenue stream, and write at least 5 steps that need to happen for your company to reach that goal.

In this session, Mentors will discuss how to sustain your company before receiving financing or revenue, identifying the most lucrative revenue source for your business, testing different revenue sources with your target customers, and more. Founders will also continue to share their pitch and revenue model to Mentors for feedback and continued refinement.

Assignments

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

Standard Founder Assignments

1. Customer Problem - Select one customer problem to pursue in the program that has the greatest chance to generate significant revenue.
2. Revenue Models - Narrow down that problem to three potential revenue models, and thoroughly analyze the positives and negatives of each model.
3. Mockup - Create a mockup of the solution to your one customer problem that has sufficient detail to impress a target customer.
4. Pitch Deck - Use our templates to develop a first draft of a three minute long pitch deck, based on the feedback, concepts and flow that have resonated from your Hotseat pitches.

Advanced Founder Assignments

1. Expert Interviews - Speak with three financial people who have experience in a similar industry to your customer problem, and get their insights and opinion on your revenue model.
2. Key Performance Indicators - Based on your research thus far, identify the final key metrics that will impact your ability to secure revenue. Discuss these with your Directors and peers.
3. Sales - Encourage a number of people that resemble your customer archetype to buy your solution (or sign up for your service), and report the amount of revenue (or growth) that you have secured.
4. Product Development - Refactor your plans to prioritize the release of a solution that will allow you to generate initial customer revenue and validate your riskiest assumptions.

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 presenting their progress and traction to a panel of Mentors for a detailed review. Mentors will evaluate Founders based on their progress, their go-to-market plan, the company’s scalability, and more.

Assignments

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

1. 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. Bookkeeping - Start regular bookkeeping processes if you have not already, and implement tools, accounts, and monthly processes to manage it moving forward.
7. Accountant Interviews - If you don’t have an accountant already, begin interviewing potential organizations using our processes. You will need a startup-friendly accountant to understand your unique needs.
8. 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. 

In this session, Mentors will discuss how identify the roles needed to build a world-class company, how to develop a strategy to recruit, board and retain the best people for the roles, and more. Founders will also receive feedback from Mentors on their team plans and product progress. 

Assignments

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

1. Outsourcing - Identify what roles you should outsource, and use your recent release work, sales, and program work to update or execute your hiring needs.
2. Candidates - Search for candidates to hire (including Co-Founders) by identifying everyone that you know who is appropriate, or leveraging the FI network, to fill the top two or three roles you are not planning to outsource.
3. Hiring Process - Develop a hiring and onboarding process using our guidelines to add team members into your organization, and begin executing on the process.
4. Test Projects - Develop at least one test project for each of your top two or three roles, which should create opportunities for a credible candidate to demonstrate their skills.
5. Advisor Review - Arrange a meeting or phone call with at least one of your advisors to discuss your outsourcing and hiring work. Present everything that you have done, and incorporate their feedback into your planning.
6. Recruiting Outreach - Based on the feedback from your advisors, create a list of events and activities that you will attend or undertake each week for the next three months to identify new candidates for the top two or three roles.
7. Time Allocation - Meticulously outline your “founder’s schedule” by allocating weekly blocks of time to address your core business activities, providing you with uninterrupted time to work on each activity.
8. (Optional) Founding Round Setup - If you don’t have sufficient capital to run the company for the next few months, then follow our guides to start a preparing documentation and research for a “Founding Round”.  

Similar to the Mentor Idea Review and Mentor Progress Review, the Final Progress Review is the major test in the program. In this session, Founders will focus on presenting their final progress and traction to a panel of Mentors and investors for a detailed review. Mentors will evaluate Founders based on the overall status of the presentation and traction.

The ones that pass this final mentor review will be invited to graduation

Graduating from the Founder Institute is an honor. The program is challenging, and the curriculum is demanding. In this final session, you will celebrate graduating with your peers, friends and family, as well as select Mentors who will discuss the important leadership qualities needed to run a successful company. You will also learn about all of the post-program resources and assistance that the Founder Institute provides.

Assignments

1. Accountability - Create a plan to keep yourself and the business accountable to your graduation plan and growth goals after the program.
2. Leadership - Analyze how you have grown as a startup leader during the program, highlighting the positives, negatives, and in which aspects you need to grow in the future. 
3. Vision - Review your original vision for the business, and describe why you are still excited to pursue the vision, and why your team and strategy are aligned to achieve it. 
4. Perseverance - Develop a system to press forward, stay focused and deliver value in the dark times inevitable to building a lasting business. 
5. Prioritization - Finalize your system to prioritize complex projects in equally complex situations, as well as your weekly routine and “Founder’s Schedule”.
6. Celebration - In addition to the FI celebration, plan a private group celebration with your peers. As a startup leader, it is important to celebrate all milestones and successes.