This is the first big checkpoint in the program to determine each Founder’s progress. During the Mentor Idea Review, every founder will present their customer problem and progress to a panel of FI Mentors for extensive review. Founders will receive a rating, and receive feedback on the validity of their idea, their customer problem, market size, the soundness of their revenue model, and more.
Assignments
After the Mentor Idea Review, all assignments are Standard, and Founders receive a larger number of custom "Special Assignments" based on their specific challenges.
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Corporate Materials - Update your 3 minute pitch deck based on the Mentor Idea Review Feedback, and include a new and updated one page executive summary using our template.
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Law Firm Identification - If you don’t already have a law firm, identify at least two local law firm candidates that have experience working with startups, and recruit one for your startup using our process and guidelines.
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Advisor Candidates - You will create an advisory board in the next 5 weeks, so start by developing a target list of new advisor candidates based off you identified needs and gaps in knowledge/ connections.
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Advisor Outreach - Leverage the FI network to get introductions to your targets where necessary, and follow our templated process to make progress on your advisory board.
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Sales Follow-up - Continue to work on securing sales or commitments for revenue. For B2B solutions, get as many contracts or letters of intent as possible. For B2C solutions, aggressively your revenue (or submitted information indicating they will pay you).
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Sales Plan - Based on the needs of your financial model and sales follow-up research, develop a plan to build and grow your revenues over the next three months.
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Financial Model - Develop a simple financial model based on our template that focuses on expenses (“burn”) to understand your cash needs. Develop a revenue forecast for 12 months and factor in timing considerations from your sales follow-up work.
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Business Calendar - Create a calendar to track all of your relevant business due dates, regulatory filings, and other obligations and related events.