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Schedule

South Africa Summer Virtual 2021

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 $1.85BN. 

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 South Africa Summer Virtual 2021 program below.

The Final Application Deadline for the South Africa Summer Virtual 2021 program is Oct 10, 2021, and you can apply to the program at FI.co/join.

Orientation

Meet the cohort & learn our methodology

Date: Oct 19, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Vision

Define a strong business vision

Date: Oct 20, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Customer Development

Analyze your customer feedback

Date: Oct 26, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Revenue

Validate a scalable revenue model

Date: Nov 02, 2021
Starts at: 12:30 pm (America/New_York)

Branding & Design

Get feedback on branding & design

Date: Nov 09, 2021
Starts at: 11:30 am (America/New_York)

Idea Review - Practice

3 Minute Pitch Practice

Date: Nov 16, 2021
Starts at: 11:30 am (America/New_York)

Founders will be given the opportunity to pitch without concequences. With feedback from cofounders and local leaders.  

Mentor Idea Review

Test the core business on a mentor panel

Date: Nov 23, 2021
Starts at: 11:30 am (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: Nov 30, 2021
Starts at: 11:30 am (America/New_York)

Go-to-Market & Scale

Improve your strategy to launch or scale

Date: Dec 07, 2021
Starts at: 11:30 am (America/New_York)

Product Development

Get feedback on your product roadmap

Date: Dec 14, 2021
Starts at: 11:30 am (America/New_York)

Pitching with Executive Presence

Finding your Executive Presence

Date: Dec 17, 2021
Starts at: 05:00 am (America/New_York)

As you know, the Founder Institute is one of the most challenging entrepreneurship programs in the world. Some Founders have already given up for one reason or another, but the fact remains that YOU are still here. Entrepreneurship is one of the most challenging yet satisfying endeavors one can pursue in your life and it's important to stay positive and keep your mission and your "why", at the forefront of all that you do. Push yourself and your team to do the best work possible at all times. Above all else, maintain a positive attitude and a positive effort.
Everyone in this class was hand picked and proven through data science that you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. The real question is how far are you willing to go and how hard are you willing to work to turn your dreams into reality. All successful entrepreneurs have faced this challenge and chosen to succeed through perseverance and dedication.
We push you outside of your comfort zone to hustle and deliver world-class results because we believe in you and are here to help you. On 4 Jan 2022, you will be delivering your 5 min pitch to investors. To help you deliver with confidence, we have invited Akua Nyame-Mensah, an executive coach, to give you a few tips on levelling up, taking space and making your Executive presence felt. 

We are trying to fit a one-day workshop into one hour. So to allow her to prepare, she has requested a video of you (visible in the video) doing your 3 min pitch with your presentation.  
Now, take moment before you squirm about another “deliverable” and ask yourself, "Do you have what it takes to breakthrough and achieve extraordinary results? Do you have executive presence? Are you hungry for success?”

Mentor Progress Review

Test your progress on a mentor panel

Date: Jan 04, 2022
Starts at: 11:30 am (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: Jan 11, 2022
Starts at: 11:30 am (America/New_York)

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

 

Sprints

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

  1. 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.
  2. Hiring Process - Develop a hiring and onboarding process using our guidelines to add team members into your organization, and begin executing on the process.
  3. Test Projects - Develop at least one test project for each of your top two or three roles, which should create opportunities for credible candidates to demonstrate their skills.
  4. Advisor Review - Arrange a meeting or phone call with at least one of your advisors to discuss your hiring work. Present everything that you have done, and incorporate their feedback into your planning.
  5. 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.
  6. (Optional) Fundraising - 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 funding round.  

Growth

Establish a scalable engine for growth

Date: Jan 18, 2022
Starts at: 11:30 am (America/New_York)

In this session, Mentors will provide Founders with feedback on their current growth, metrics, and strategy. Mentors will discuss various growth tactics, setting growth goals and milestones, communicating your startup’s growth progress and setbacks with stakeholders and advisors, and more. 

 

Sprints

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

  1. Growth Plan Update - Review the performance of your growth goals and adjust your growth plan to improve your performance and accountability.
  2. Sales - Pursue aggressive goals to close new revenue or users, which may be signups, payments, a signed contract, a pre-payment or a signed letter of intent.
  3. Growth Tactics - Work with your working group and advisors to brainstorm 15 new ideas to increase the top of your funnel, and provide a bulleted list of these Growth Tactics.
  4. Pivot - Consider a pivot if you are not meeting your growth goals, sales, product or hiring progress targets. If you decide to Pivot, schedule a call with one of your Local Leaders to discuss your proposed pivot in the business and do the same with your advisors.
  5. Hiring Channels - Review all of the candidates that have come through the various recruiting outreach channels and other activities, and identify the most effective channels.
  6. Post-Program Onboarding - Review FI's post-program resources, and work with your cohort on a monthly meeting schedule where you will continue to meet, provide updates, and share learnings on your progress. 

Equity & Funding

Fix any impediments to fundraising

Date: Jan 25, 2022
Starts at: 11:30 am (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.

Graduation

Celebrate & onboard to our post-programs

Date: Feb 22, 2022
Starts at: 11:00 am (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.

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