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Bolivia 2019

At the Founder Institute, you won't "learn" how to build a business. Rather, you will build your business alongside top startup experts using a proven, structured process that has helped some of the world's fastest growing companies raise over $1.75BN. 

Our core program includes a series of challenging growth sprints, in addition to Weekly Feedback Sessions where you will receive constant feedback on your progress from experienced Mentors and Investors. 

See the schedule for the Bolivia 2019 program below.

The Final Application Deadline for the Bolivia 2019 program is mar 24, 2019, and you can apply to the program at FI.co/join.

Orientation

Welcome and meet your peers.

Date: abr 03, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

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.

Vision and Validation

Interview customers to develop and valid

Date: abr 10, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

Customer Development

Test your assumptions with customers.

Date: abr 17, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

In this session, you’ll hear from experienced Mentors on how to validate your key assumptions, interview potential customers effectively, and interpret their feedback. Founders will present their progress to the Mentors to determine if the are pursuing a scalable business with a clear and actionable customer problem.

 

Assignments

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

 

Standard Founder Assignments

  1. Key Assumptions - For your ideas, identify at least three key assumptions that you are making for your customer problem or problems to be real.
  2. Customer Interviews - Develop a longer series of customer interview questions based on your initial interviews and key assumptions, with at least ten open-ended customer interview questions for each customer problem.
  3. Customer Archetype - Use our guidelines to develop or improve an initial customer archetype for your ideal target customer.
  4. Landing Pages - For each remaining customer problem, develop or improve a professional landing page targeted to your initial customer archetype, and start collecting email addresses to receive customer feedback.

 

Advanced Founder Assignments

  1. Customer Archetype - Use our guidelines to create or update a detailed customer archetype of your target customer, based on either your existing customers or research.
  2. Validation - Refine the list of “unknowns” you previously developed, pick at least two of the top items, and develop a test to empirically collect evidence and draw conclusions over the next two weeks.
  3. Revenue Interviews - Interview customers about the pricing of your revenue model, using three different revenue models/ pricing schemes. Confirm your existing model or select a new one based off these interviews. 
  4. Interview Competitor Customers - Identify customers of competing products or solutions and encourage them to switch to your solution, ideally securing a letter of intent (“LOI”), or developing an ongoing relationship for feedback. 

Revenue

Develop a viable revenue source.

Date: abr 24, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

Branding and Design

Create, design and launch a brand.

Date: abr 30, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

In this session, Mentors will analyze your existing names and branding, and discuss how to develop a good name for your business, how to develop an enduring brand, and the basics of great user interface design. Founders will also share their pitch and existing branding to Mentors for continued feedback and 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. Competitor Branding - Analyze and compare the name and branding of at least 15 companies with a competing offering, in a related industry, or with a similar value proposition in a different industry.
  2. Naming Words - Brainstorm at least 50 short nouns and adjectives that evoke the characteristics of your main customer problem.
  3. Name Brainstorming - Use combinations of your naming words to develop a series of business names for the review of your peers and Directors.
  4. Name Research - Research the availability of the combined words as a domain name and list the ones that are most available.

 

Advanced Founder Assignments

  1. Branding Expert - Leverage the FI Network to set up meetings with industry experts about your final name, your customer problem, archetype, and any existing brand materials for feedback.
  2. Close Sales - Follow-up on your previous sales activities, and measure the time allocated, conversion rates, financial spending and other metrics for each activity. Your goal is to convert new sales and show quantifiable traction before the Mentor Idea Review. 
  3. Design Specification - Evaluate the design and branding feedback from your peers, Mentors, and expert meetings, and begin fixing the issues by creating a Design Specification. If you don’t have an internal design resource, find someone that can complete the job in 2 weeks. 
  4. Idea Review Pitch Deck - Finalize your 3-minute pitch deck for the Mentor Idea Review, using our templates and guidelines. Practice the pitch at least five times with your peers, and revise it based on feedback. Upload a final video on the assignment page.  

Mentor Idea Review

Receive expert feedback to improve.

Date: may 08, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

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. 

 

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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. 
  4. 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.  
  5. 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).
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Business Calendar - Create a calendar to track all of your relevant business due dates, regulatory filings, and other obligations and related events.

Legal

Set up the company and legal framework.

Date: may 15, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

In this session, startup lawyers and CEOs will explain various legal agreements, startup legal components (such as equity), how to protect intellectual property, the best practices for managing a law firm, and more. As usual, Mentors will also provide Founders feedback on their startup pitch and progress, ensuring that you can better explain what your company is to your growing audience.

 

Assignments

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

  1. Legal Concepts - Review our Legal Guide in detail to fully understand all critical startup legal components, including granting equity, vesting equity, granting options and issuing common stock versus preferred stock.
  2. Capitalization Table - Develop or improve your capitalization table (“Cap Table”) that shows the ownership structure of the business, using our template and guidelines.
  3. Finalize Co-Founder Legal (if any) - Create a list of any co-founders, co-founder candidates or founding Team Members that you have for your Founder Institute company, and begin the next steps in formalizing the relationship.
  4. Advisor Interviews - Meet with or call each of your advisor candidates for at least 15 minutes, discuss the customer problem and progress, and narrow down to a few top advisor candidates. 
  5. Law Firm Engagement - If you don’t already have a law firm, meet with your law firm candidates and sign an “engagement letter” with your chosen firm. 
  6. Corporate Formation Agreements - If you don’t already have a suitable corporation, secure all of your corporate formation agreements, including bylaws or similar documents, which govern how the business conducts itself.
  7. Legal Templates - Secure standard legal templates from your law firm, including a mutual non-disclosure agreement, an intellectual property assignment agreement, a basic employment agreement, a basic freelancer agreement, and a basic advisor agreement (such as https://fi.co/FAST).
  8. Bonus Pool - Prepare to join the Bonus Pool, and send your law firm the necessary agreements and request their help to properly fill out the required fields.

Go-to-Market Planning

Finalize a go-to market plan.

Date: may 22, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

Product Development

Develop a plan to build your solution.

Date: jun 05, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

Mentor Progress Review

Review your progress with CEOs.

Date: jun 12, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

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. 

Hiring and Onboarding

Start recruiting a world-class team.

Date: jun 19, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

Growth

Focus your business on growth.

Date: jul 10, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

Equity and Funding

Prepare to fundraise from investors.

Date: jul 17, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

Leadership and Graduation

Graduate and start leading.

Date: jul 24, 2019
Starts at: 07:30 pm (America/New_York)

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. 

Post Program Resources

The 4 month Core-Program is just the beginning. We have developed extensive support programs and resources for our Alumni that far exceed any other comparable startup program.

Continued Support

FI Alumni
  • Dedicated Alumni Support Team in Silicon Valley
  • Access to the world's largest network of mentors and investors (35,000+)
  • Private Alumni mailing lists
  • $2M+ in partner discounts
  • Invites to FI sessions & network events
  • Potentail introductions to investors

Post-Programs

Founder Lab
  • A series of virtual advisory programs where you work with our Silicon Valley HQ team to reach next milestones
  • Funding Lab helps get your lead investor within 6 months
  • P/M Fit Lab (2023) helps you get to Product Market Fit
  • FI Venture Network helps you get intros to investors
  • 100% customized and FREE for Alumni