Online Event
Startup Advisors 101: How to Find Advisors and Maximize their Impact
How to Find, Vet, and Leverage Top Startup Advisors for Real Growth
Date
Mar 02, 2026
Time
08:30 pm - 09:30 pm
Address
Online Event
Great startup advisors can be a huge benefit for early-stage founders - helping them access networks, avoid mistakes, supplement missing skills, and even provide emotional support. But finding great advisors can be challenging, and their benefits are typically tied to how well you can leverage their limited time. On this interactive online event, we'll break down a practical, founder-friendly process for finding, vetting, and activating great startup advisors from our experience facilitating tens of thousands of advisor relationships since 2009.
What You'll Learn:
- How to identify the right advisors.
- The chemistry + contribution test: how to evaluate fit before making anything official.
- How to structure advisor interactions so they produce outputs.
- When and how to use the FAST Agreement to standardize responsibilities + equity and avoid drawn-out negotiations.
- Common failure modes (advisor vanity, “free consulting,” misaligned incentives) and how to prevent them.
Featured Speaker:
- Jonathan Greechan - Co-Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute - Jonathan Greechan is the Co-Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator. Since 2009, he has grown and scaled the organization to chapters in over 200 cities and over 100 countries, producing over 8100 portfolio companies with nearly $2B in venture funding. In his long career in tech and marketing, Jonathan has advised thousands of startups on marketing, growth, and product strategy and has spoken at startup conferences on four continents.
Who Should Attend?
- Founders at the idea, pre-seed, or early traction stage who want help but don’t want drama.
- First-time founders building their first advisory board.
- Operators and technical founders who need domain, distribution, or fundraising support.
- Mentors/advisors who want a clearer framework for being helpful (and getting properly compensated).
The FAST Agreement (Founder-Advisor Standard Template)
The FAST Agreement is used by tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and advisors per year to establish productive working relationships, trading advice and support for a standardized amount of equity. See the free agreement at FI.co/FAST.
Additional Resources:
Find more Startup Events, learn about the Entrepreneur DNA test or sign up for the Insights Newsletter to get the latest startup tips and trends.
About Founder Institute:
The Founder Institute is the world’s most proven network to turn ideas into fundable startups, and startups into global businesses. Since 2009, our structured accelerator programs have helped over 8,900 entrepreneurs raise over 2BN in funding. Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 100 countries, our mission is to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful technology companies worldwide.
Platinum Partners
Local Partners
Google
Linkedin
Related Events
The Founder Institute is the world’s most proven network to turn ideas into fundable startups, and startups into global businesses. Since 2009, our structured accelerator programs have helped over 8,900 entrepreneurs raise over 2BN in funding. Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 100 countries, our mission is to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful technology companies worldwide.
Support
Copyright © 2026, Founder Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved