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London Summer Virtual 2020

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 London Summer Virtual 2020 program below.

The Final Application Deadline for the London Summer Virtual 2020 program is May 24, 2020, and you can apply to the program at FI.co/join.

Orientation

Meet the cohort & learn our methodology

Date: Jun 03, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

This is where it all begins. During Orientation, we will review the Founder Institute program structure, methodology, tools, and requirements. You will meet the cohort and establish how your startup will use the program to push your business forward.

Sprints

During Orientation, your cohort will be split up into the “Launch Track” or “Growth Track”, depending on the stage your business. The "Launch Track" focuses earlier Founders and teams on validation and go-to-markets, while the "Growth Track" focuses teams with a live product and customers on traction and funding. 

The below deliverables are in addition to any custom "Epic Sprints" you may receive based on your specific challenges, and below is a small sample of the deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

 

Launch Track Deliverables

  1. Progress - Outline your business 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 Feedback 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.

 

Growth Track Deliverables

  1. Program Goals - Outline the monthly objectives your team wants to achieve during the four month Core Program.
  2. Key Performance Indicators - Outline the 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 Local Leaders 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 Feedback Sessions. Start with our one-sentence pitch template, followed by why your team is uniquely qualified to execute your business and the progress that you’ve made to date.

Vision

Define a strong business vision

Date: Jun 04, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

In each weekly Feedback Session, Founders will pitch and outline their progress to the Mentors for feedback, and get tips and insights on the week's topic. This week you'll get tips on how to develop a strong vision for your business.  

Sprints

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

 

Launch Track Deliverables

  1. Ideation - Catalogue the ideas that you are interested in pursuing, or examine different variations of the current business you are pursuing.
  2. Initial Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 15 people that have knowledge of the customer problems or may be potential customers themselves.
  3. Market Research - Utilize our market research template to collect accurate and available market information on the customer problems you are analyzing. 

 

Growth Track Deliverables

  1. Customer Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 15 customers. If you already have done extensive customer development then outline your current findings and identify areas that require deeper understanding.
  2. Identify Unknowns - Document a detailed understanding of the main customer problem, and fill any required gaps in your customer knowledge. 
  3. Visioneering - Describe what your business will look like when it has $100 million in annual revenues, including the vision, culture, and main revenue stream, and outline at least 5 steps that need to happen for your company to reach that goal.

Customer Development

Analyze your customer feedback

Date: Jun 10, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

In this Feedback Session, Founders will present any customer development progress to the Mentors to examine if they are pursuing a scalable business with a clear and actionable customer problem. The Mentors will also provide tips on how to validate your key assumptions, interview potential customers effectively, and best interpret the feedback you receive.

 

Sprints

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

 

Launch Track Deliverables

  1. 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.
  2. Customer Archetype - Use our guidelines to develop or improve an initial customer archetype for your ideal target customer.
  3. Landing Pages - For each remaining customer problem, develop or improve a professional landing page targeted to your initial customer archetype, and quickly build up a mailing list to receive customer feedback.

 

Growth Track Deliverables

  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 improved research.
  2. 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. 
  3. 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. 

Ideation and Validation Workshop (Optional)

Learn from a panel of startup experts

Date: Jun 11, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Join Mercedes Bankston and Richard Cristina, the FI London Director Team, for a bonus session on "Ideation and Validation". This session focuses on your ideation and challenges you on why you are starting the company that you plan to in the program. We will discuss validation and the ‘lean start up process’ and practical ways to conduct validation and help you achieve product market fit’.

Revenue

Validate a scalable revenue model

Date: Jun 17, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Branding & Design

Get feedback on branding & design

Date: Jun 24, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Bonus Session: Accounting and Finance

Discuss best practices for startups

Date: Jul 01, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

‘Rashesh Joshi is a chartered Director and Accountant, also cofounder of Alexander Rose, who are one of the UK’s first digital cloud based Chartered Accountants and tax specialists. Alexander Rose’s mission is to be the leading digital cloud accounting and tax provider of choice for disruptive, fast growth technology based businesses. In this session we will discuss all financial aspects of setting up a business and your commitments as a Founder. This will include taxes (business and corporate), employment law, general business tax topics and more. Rashesh is also a mentor for this cohort and will available for office hours and your upcoming Mentor review sessions.’

Mentor Idea Review

Test the core business on a mentor panel

Date: Jul 08, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

This is the first big checkpoint in the program to determine your progress. During the Mentor Idea Review, you will present a longer presentation to a panel of FI Mentors for extensive review. You will receive a rating, as well as feedback on the long-term viability of your offering, revenue model, growth strategy, and more. 

 

Sprints

After the Mentor Idea Review, Founders receive a larger number of custom "Epic Sprints" with deliverables based on their specific challenges. Below are examples of some of the standard deliverables. 

 

  1. Corporate Materials - Immediately update your 3 minute pitch deck and video based on the Mentor Idea Review feedback, and develop a new and updated Executive Summary using our template.
  2. Advisor Candidates - You will create (or fill out) an Advisory Board in the next 5 weeks, so develop a target list of new advisor candidates based off your identified needs and gaps in knowledge/ connections. 
  3. 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.  
  4. Sales Follow-up - Continue to work on securing sales or commitments for revenue, growing the rate month over month. For B2B solutions, get as many contracts or letters of intent as possible. For B2C solutions, aggressively increase your revenue (or submitted information indicating they will pay you). Document all lessons learned.
  5. Financial Model - Develop or professionalize your financial model based on our template that focuses on expenses (“burn”) to understand your cash needs. Develop a revenue forecast for 12-18 months and factor in timing considerations from your sales follow-up work.
  6. Legal - Identify your short to medium term legal needs, and if you don’t already have a law firm, identify at least two local law candidates that have experience working with startups. Begin vetting new or existing law firms using our guidelines. 

Legal & IP

Review your legal infrastructure

Date: Jul 15, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Founder Institute London Alumni Panel Q/A Session (Optional)

Meet Founder Institute Alumni

Date: Jul 20, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Join this optional webinar to speak with FI London Alumni.

Go-to-Market & Scale

Improve your strategy to launch or scale

Date: Jul 22, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Product Development

Get feedback on your product roadmap

Date: Jul 29, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Mentor Progress Review

Test your progress on a mentor panel

Date: Aug 05, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 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 give a long presentation their progress and traction to a panel of Mentors for a detailed review. Mentors will evaluate Founders based on their progress in the program, the company’s scalability, and more.

 

Sprints

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

  1. Polished 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. 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 & Onboarding

Improve your team and hiring

Date: Aug 12, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Growth

Establish a scalable engine for growth

Date: Aug 19, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Equity & Funding

Fix any impediments to fundraising

Date: Aug 26, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

In this session, Mentors will analyze Founder pitches from the perspective of an investor, identifying any remaining issues or areas for improvement. Mentors will also cover numerous topics related to fundraising, including different fundraising options, how to raise funding, and more. 

Sprints

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

  1. Minimum Victory Condition - Work with your Local Leaders to establish your “Victory Condition” to achieve before the “Impact Deadline” (three months after the program ends), and add it to your business calendar.
  2. Advisor Strategy - Set up a call with each of your advisors and briefly review your “Victory Condition”, the funding strategy, hiring plan, sales plan and product plan.
  3. Use of Proceeds - Examine the capital needs of the business, and extend your financial model to project revenues and expenses for a total of 24 months from now.
  4. Final Investor Pitch Deck - Refine your investor pitch deck, and update it with all of your work to date, including details from your various plans. Test the presentation on peers and Directors and upload it to the FI site for review. 
  5. Deal Room - Create a Deal Room for future investors that includes relevant files like 'Company' documents with legal, 'Pitch Deck', 'Team' bios, 'Board Materials,' 'Financials,' 'Sales' information, 'Marketing' materials and 'Intellectual Property.'
  6. Target List - Identify local Angel Investors and Seed Accelerators, ignoring Venture Capitalists and Seed Funds. The Target List should include at least 100 local angels, 25 regional and 50 global seed accelerators, using our guidelines.

Founder Showcase

Celebrate & onboard to our post-programs

Date: Sep 02, 2020
Starts at: 01:00 pm (America/New_York)

Completing the Founder Institute is an honor. The program is challenging, and the expectations are demanding.

In this final session, you will celebrate with your peers, friends and family, as well as select Mentors. Some Founders will also pitch to a live audience, and you will officially onboard to all of the post-program resources and assistance the Founder Institute provides.

London Mentor Office Hours

Get feedback on your startup from local CEOs

Date: Sep 27, 2020
Starts at: 01:30 pm (America/New_York)

This event was created to track Mentor office hours

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