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 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. 

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.

Our partner, UK in Brazil Consulate, is bringging to Start Local Go Global aspiring founders and partners a Masterclass with top Deal Makers from UK.

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.  

This is an extra webinar (optional) with our Local Legal Partner Lucio Feijo Lopes https://www.linkedin.com/in/luciofeijolopes

The webinar has the goal to share with you the steps to incorporation in Brazil. The legal chalenges and opportunities to incorporate and operate a startup.

If you are not able to connect on this date/time the video of this webinar will be available to watch later this week. Connecting live gives you the opportunity to do questions to Lucion Feijo and Nima live.

Remembering you have less than 30 days to incorporation deadline, so take advantage of this opportunity. 

Please connect at 7pm on Monday (28th) via the hangouts link in this google calendar invite.

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.