FAQ

This is up to you. FI is more interested in the person, and less interested in the business idea. Founders must select one idea to turn into a company prior to the Mentor Idea Review, roughly 30 days into the program.

For early-stage founders, founders are broken into smaller working groups by related ideas. These groups are then given specific assignments for refining, researching, and validating ideas.

Possibly. Some applicants supply multiple ideas that they intend to pursue, some of which may be similar to yours. That being said, founders in similar spaces have often ended up collaborating in the past, and your intellectual property will be protected by the founder NDA.

All founders, mentors, and local leaders joining sessions of the Founder Institute have to sign NDAs before participating in the program. Your IP is protected under the NDA.

First, navigate to the join page: https://FI.co/join. After selecting your city, filling out information about your idea or company, and paying the $25 USD application fee, you will be provided with a link (both by email and on the site) to fill out the admissions assessment. Learn more about our admissions process at FI.co/admissions.

We focus on founders, not ideas. As a result, all applicants are required to take a proprietary psychometric/ aptitude test developed by the Founder Institute and leading social scientists. Learn more about the assessment at FI.co/DNA, and our full admissions process at FI.co/admissions.

The Founder Institute encourages founding teams to apply to the program, and a typical cohort contains roughly 40% teams, and 60% solo-founders. When a team joins the Founder Institute, the 4% pledge to the Equity Collective remains the same (it is 4% per company, not Founder).

Founding teams can decide to send one co-founder, multiple co-founders, or all co-founders to participate in the program, but each co-founder must apply separately (noting the name of your company in your application, in the “Company Name” section).

Teams are also able to enroll in the program for a discounted course fee per-founder: Teams of 2-3 are invited to enroll for 1.5x the course fee, and teams of 4-5 for 2x the course fee.

The Early Application Deadline is 2020-07-19, and the Final Application Deadline is 2020-09-06. To apply, visit FI.co/join.

If you enroll by the Early Admissions Deadline (2020-07-19) in Washington DC), you will be invited to take the Admissions Assessment for free, and you will be eligible for a reduced course fee.

Fellowships are normally awarded within 5 days after the Early Admissions Deadline (2020-07-19) in Washington DC). All Fellowship recipients are notified by email no later than 7 days after the Early Admissions Deadline, and unfortunately due to the large number of applications, we cannot always notify all applicants that they have not been chosen for a Fellowship.

You can apply to any other Founder Institute program without redoing your application or retaking the Admissions Assessment.

If you want to defer your acceptance from this program to the next program, just let us know via email. We will then mark you as Declined, and you will be notified via email when the next program opens applications. Typically, this will take place in the next 6-12 months. While most people who defer their acceptance are admitted to the future program, we cannot guarantee this because you will be judged against a new cohort of applicants.

If you want to change your city, just log into the Founder Institute website and go to the application page (FI.co/join), where you can see the chapters currently enrolling and pick a new one.

The Founder Institute will not reveal any application information to the public. Once enrolled, founders are given the option to make parts of their profiles public.

Yes. The Founder Institute is appropriate for both aspiring founders, and founders that are running a business that is less than two years old and with less than half a million in annual revenues. Founders that are more advanced in the program are put on the "Growth Track", which focuses more on generating traction and preparing for funding.

Because founders and teams come into the program at different stages of the pre-seed stage, the Founder Institute program bifurcates between a "Launch Track" for earlier-stage founders, and a "Growth Track" for later stage founders and teams. The "Launch Track" is designed to help individuals and teams at the idea-stage validate their business, grow their team, and launch their startup. The "Growth Track" is designed to help teams that are post-launch generate traction and prepare for funding. 

If the company is incorporated with an acceptable legal structure, then the company only needs to issue the warrant or option with the help of a law firm, or professional firm. Otherwise, the legal partner needs to work with the company to transition an incorrect structure to the proper structure as part of the engagement.

The Founder Institute does not accept partnership and LLC formats because these companies are not optimal for issuing shares and raising capital.

Between 20 and 50 founders typically enroll in a given cohort. A number of factors encourage limiting the group size, such as the capacity of reserved meeting facilities, the ability to deliver a meaningful mentorship experience, and the quality of the shared upside among participants.

Yes. After you successfully apply, you will be logged into the Founder Institute site. On the right hand side, it should say: Semester: Washington DC Virtual 2020, Role: Founder, Status: Applied. This indicates that your application has gone through. As the Founder Institute processes applications, your status will change to "Reviewing," "Accepted," "Finalist" or "Rejected." Within 48 hours, the admissions team will begin reviewing your application and you will receive an email notification. FI will also email you when your application status changes.

See a sample Founder Institute Feedback Session here.

No. The Founder Institute has a mix of full-time and part-time founders in the program. Many businesses get started with part-time founders until the company gains traction. Once a company gets off the ground and properly capitalized through revenues or investment, FI expects that the founders will start working full-time.

Yes. Since participants have shared areas of interest and hail from a variety of backgrounds, it is common for founding teams to be established with different program participants. In one case a Mentor even joined one of the Founder Institute companies as a Co-Founder.

Graduating from the Founder Institute is challenging. First, only roughly 30% of applicants are admitted to the program. Then, less than 30% of accepted founders generally make it through the program. In order to graduate, a Founder needs to develop an engaging idea for a technology company that is validated by the program mentors, plan out the business, work on an offering, incorporate their company, and complete all of the required assignments - all within a four month timeframe. Reasons for not graduating differ, but each Founder who leaves is invited to join a future program, when they are ready to launch a business.

If a solo-founder drops out after the Refund Deadline (the third session of the program), they are able to apply any course fees paid towards the next Founder Institute program in their city. Approximately 30-40% of founders that drop out of the program return to the next program.

If you want to enroll in the next program, you will need to pay a small re-enrollment fee ($50), plus any difference in course fee. We will not refund any fees if the course fee for a future program is lower.

The Founder Institute selects Mentors with a broad range of industry experiences, including hardware, software, manufacturing, biotech, entertainment, digital media, investment, services, and B2B/B2C. Most Mentors have started multiple companies and are currently running a well-known startup. In addition, all Mentors are anonymously rated by program participants for the sake of quality control.

The pairing process is informal. Founders have the opportunity to ask questions of mentors before, during, and after each session. While some mentors are extremely busy, it is expected that the majority of mentors will help founders where they have common interests. The mentors are compensated through the Equity Collective, and mentor compensation increases with positive ratings from participating founders. This gives mentors the extra incentive to help the founders, provide introductions, etc. In addition, a final review is done after the program is completed, creating an incentive for longer term mentor involvement.

To see the Local Founder Agreement, select the city of your choosing from the drop down on the top right corner of the site, and then go to FI.co/agreements.

The Program will include a session about legal topics during the Startup Legal and IP session. If you need help with getting incorporated, you can always ask for help during the program's office hours, or speak with our local legal partner, leaders, or mentors.

You should engage a law firm for incorporating your company during the Program, and we will provide you with the guidance and tools to do so. In some countries, professionals, such as corporate secretaries or accounting firms, are customarily hired to incorporate a company. It is important that you hire a professional to create the corporation to ensure that it is done properly and investors can fund your company.

The Founder Institute strongly recommends that Founders go with our legal partner, but we do not mandate it. Our legal partners deeply understand the Founder Institute process and know how to help early stage Founders. Most legal partners also provide discounted and/or deferred pricing.

Cheap legal alternatives will not be able to help you when very technical problems happen. In the long run, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We suggest that you check with your lawyer and research on local prices and policies.

You are allowed to incorporate in whatever country you see fit, as we have localized agreements in many jurisdictions. During our Startup Legal & IP session, we will give you advice on how/where to incorporate as well. For those incorporating in the United States, we recommend Delaware C-Corps as they are the most conducive to raising venture capital. There are similar safe-havens for corporations all across the globe.

This question should be asked to your law firm as each country has different laws and policies. The legal partner should review existing employment contracts and basic visa situations to determine if a Founder is able to incorporate a business without significant ethical breaches. The Founder Institute does not sponsor nor facilitate any processes with regards to Visas. If you cannot incorporate a company, you cannot graduate from the program.

We have had many successful cases of Founders that go through the program to receive valuable feedback from mentors even while they have already had an incorporated company. If the company is incorporated with an acceptable legal structure, then the company only needs to issue the warrant or option with the help of a professional law firm. Otherwise, the legal partner needs to work with the company to transition an incorrect structure to the proper structure as part of the engagement.

The Founder Institute does not accept partnership and LLC formats because these companies are not optimal for issuing shares and raising capital.

No. At approximately 1/2 way through the Founder Institute program (around the Startup Legal & IP session), you will sign the warrant or option agreement for the company you are building in the program.

All founders, mentors, and local leaders joining sessions of the Founder Institute have to sign NDAs before participating in the program. Your IP is safe. We also tell all of our Founders that in many cases, Founders change their ideas in the program and realize that for example there is no market for the idea to scale or that there are holes in the idea that cannot be filled and therefore should be dropped.

Additionally, your idea will never be able to be replicated the same exact way that you visualize it. Ideas are worthless, execution is everything. If you actually have a good idea, then there is a big chance that someone else out there is already working on it.

By restricting yourself to talk openly about your ideas, you forgo valuable opportunities to get feedback on your startup.

The Founder Institute does not have any voting rights in our alumni companies, and we do not hold any board seats either.

During the course of the program, each Founder will be asked to incorporate their company as a mandatory part of the program. The 4% warrant will be issued from the company that is created during the FI program at this time. The necessary documents to actually issue the 4% warrant (warrant, board resolution, etc.) will all be handled after incorporation is complete.

If you drop out with more than 45 days left before Graduation ( 2021-01-19 ), then you are not obligated to issue the warrant. However, if you drop out with less than 45 days left in the program, then you are contractually bound to issue the Founder Institute warrants in accordance with the Founder Agreement. This prevents people from cheating the system and leaving the program at the very end, thereby purposefully avoiding contribution into the Equity Collective and cheating their peers, mentors, and the Founder Institute.

Similar to the 45 day stipulation above, this clause is meant to prevent founders from immediately starting a new (identical) company after Graduation that is not part of the Equity Collective, thereby cheating their peers and the Founder Institute. We would only use this clause if the new company formed within 6 months was identical or very similar in nature to the company you formed in the program.

This clause was added to the Founder Agreement after receiving feedback from alumni, and it prevents alumni that do not try to build a company within 2 years after the program from participating in the Equity Collective.

Be sure to select your city in the top right drop down menu, and visit the Agreements page.

First, try following the instructions below:

Log in to Fi.co
Click eSign Founder Agreement
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the 'Click Here to Sign' button
Digitally sign your name
Click 'Save' then click 'Submit'

If this process doesn’t work, please download the agreement from fi.co/agreements and send the signed PDF to Mailing@fi.co with your information, including full name and location of the program where you intend to enroll. Alternatively, you can reply to any emails you have received from us.

The FAST agreement (https://fi.co/FAST) gives you the legal framework to engage with mentors and advisors. It was developed by our CEO, Adeo Ressi with our partner law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, LLP (WSGR). It is a public document for anyone to use and edit. For any questions regarding the document, please consult a legal counsel.

You can reply to any email you have received from us, and we will try to respond ASAP. In addition, we host two Conference Calls per week with FI Directors to answer questions for applicants. To see the upcoming calls, visit http://fi.co/calls.

Each alumni company contributes 4% of their equity into a collective, which is shared between each cohort's alumni, mentors, local leaders, and the Founder Institute. This encourages teamwork in the local cohort, and provides returns to everyone involved in each program (including alumni). For more information, visit https://fi.co/liquidity.

Graduating founders allocate 4% of your company to the Founder Institute through the form of a Warrant or Option, and the Founder Institute then contractually allocates any money that is generated from the Warrants or Options to various stakeholders. Upon exercising the warrant, The Founder Institute would become on official common shareholder for easy corporate housekeeping, but the contractual allocation spreads returns from the Warrants or Options with others, allowing you to have the benefit of multiple shareholders without the complexity. Teams that join the Founder Institute pledge 4% total to the collective (it is 4% per company, not founder).

Each Founder that contributes a company to the Equity Collective receives an equal share of the 25% allocated to founders. If there are 10 founders in the collective, then each Founder gets 1/10 of the collective, or 2.5%. Co-founders split their allocation. So, If there were 12 founders contributing 10 companies, and two of the 10 companies each had two co-founders, then each co-founder would get 1.25%, while all other single founders would get 2.5%. Since value in the collective is derived from companies, shares in the collective are allocated for each company contributed.

Even in small acquisitions of $5 MM or less, the financial return from the Equity Collective far exceeds the average course fee by multiple times. Below are four hypothetical situations where a Founder in the Equity Collective sells their company for anywhere between $5 MM and $250 MM. The model assumes that the collective will be diluted over time as the company gets larger and brings on investors, senior employees and partners. The model also assumes that there are 10 graduating founders, each getting 1/10 of the collective 25% allocation to founders, or 2.5% each. Please note that collective returns are paid out to individual founders, not to their companies, so returns can be used for anything that you want, from paying rent to investing in your startup.

At approximately 1/2 way through the Founder Institute program (around the "Startup Legal & IP" session), you will be required to incorporate your company and sign the warrant or option agreement. At this point you will be added to the Equity Collective. Founders that do not wish to join the Equity Collective need to withdraw from the program before the last 45 days of the program (the Washington DC Virtual 2020 program ends on 2021-01-19).

When a founder in the Equity Collective achieves a liquidity event by selling their business or by going public, the Founder Institute distribute the proceeds to the stakeholders through the following process. The founder notifies the Founder Institute that there is an impending liquidity event, and FI will provide some strategic advice on closing the deal for the best terms. FI will also work quickly to provide any necessary signatures and approvals. When the transaction is completed and a payment is sent to FI, FI then takes the total return and divides it up by the contractual allocation, which is stored in our systems and checked by our accountants. Individual distribution checks are then cut for all of the stakeholders and mailed along with a nice letter. In the future, FI may switch to PayPal for convenience.

Yes, it is a requirement for graduation.

The warrants and the collective expire after 15 years from the issue date. The Founder Institute set a realistic timeframe for companies in the collective to achieve some type of liquidity event, such as a merger, a sale or a public offering. The vast majority of businesses will either fail or succeed within 15 years.

The Founder Institute does not have any voting rights in our alumni companies, and we do not hold any board seats either.

The Founder Institute analyzed multiple equity programs, and choose 4% as the smallest amount of equity to contribute that can still return reasonable value to the collective. As one example, setting up an advisory board normally requires 5% of a company to attract 5 or 6 advisors, and the Founder Institute wanted to be less than 5% to attract over two dozen Mentors during the program. As another example, most funding incubators purchase approximately 7-10% of a company for approximately $20,000, and FI wanted to be less than these type of programs. At 4%, founders in the collective can get $100,000 in cash returns from low a nine figure exit.

Warrants have a number of advantages over equity.
(1) Successful founders from incubators often feel that they receive bad investment terms from the incubator. Warrants ensure that any equity placed in the collective for the Founder Institute and other stakeholders is priced by the market, creating a win-win scenario.
(2) Warrants do not give the Founder Institute any control or voting rights in the company

There are two types of investments done by founders, either a convertible investment or an equity investment. The Warrant or Option only matters with respect to a Qualified Equity Financing, which is defined as any equity investment for $100,000 USD or more completed by external investors, people other than the founder or founders themselves. If you join a qualifying startup program, such as YCombinator, after graduation from the Founder Institute program, a Qualified Equity Financing is defined as any equity investment for $25,000 USD or more. The Founder Institute maintains a list of qualifying startup programs that may be updated from time to time.

When a Founder in the Equity Collective completes a qualified equity investment, the shares in the company are given a value by the outside investors. At this point, the strike price of the warrant is set. The number of shares of the warrant is also set at 4% of the company after the investment is complete. Hundreds of founders have raised capital with the Founder Institute warrant in place. Most investors are used to investing in companies with Warrants or Options present.

The Founder Institute does not intend to purchase the warrant or option until a liquidity event occurs with a greater value than the strike price, at which point FI will purchase the warrant or option to return value to the Equity Collective.

The exercise price is the price-per-share granted via the Warrant. The share price is set by your investors during the first Qualified Equity Financing. As a basic overview, the warrant is an agreement that allows us to buy stock from you in the future. The price and the exact amount of shares (4%) we can purchase gets determined at your first "qualified financing" or "priced round" of the Company. The qualified financing sets the valuation of your company and the "price per share" based upon whatever terms you negotiate with the investors. Our 4% is based upon of the total outstanding shares at the qualified financing round, but this amount gets diluted over time if you raise future equity financing rounds. In practice, FI waits to actually execute the warrant (buy the shares from you) until there is a liquidity event (M&A, IPO, etc.), which could be 10 years from now. We do not actually own the shares until we execute the warrant and we have no voting rights in the company.

The warrant grants the Founder Institute 4% at the time of the first Qualified Equity Financing This 4% is fully dilutable over future rounds of investment.

This clause allows the Founder Institute to exercise the warrant and obtain shares without having to pay with cash. Please consult your lawyer if you have specific questions about this clause.

FI reserves the right to sell the equity granted via the Warrant at a time of its choosing. Alumni companies continue to participate in the collective until its termination (15 years) even if their equity has been sold.

This provision is there to protect a Founder from involuntary termination. This clause is there to help the Founder in the case that the Board wants to remove the Founder as the CEO. If you leave the company as the CEO voluntarily and would like to appoint a new CEO, the company is not required to pay the penalty.

Yes. FI encourages founders with standalone business ideas that are capital efficient to apply. The majority of topics covered in the program are relevant to any business, such as team building, vendors, and revenue. The Founder Institute is working with two dozen partners on discounted or free offerings to dramatically reduce the cost of launching a new company, making enrollment worthwhile.

Yes. The Founder Institute encourages active fundraising throughout the program for founders that are prepared and require outside capital. The goal is to get founders in front of investors multiple times before the program ends.

At graduation, top rated angel investors and venture capitalists will be invited to join and contribute. At this investor session, you will be experienced and very well prepared to pitch. In past investor sessions, over a dozen venture capital companies have been represented, with additional angel investors. FI also facilitates investor meetings outside of the program.

Some are, yes, and others are not. Only the best teams and the best companies will receive financing in the current economic climate, and these strong opportunities will be able to push for better terms. The Founder Institute aims to foster the best, and that is reflected in the terms. FI does not mandate that companies use the documents nor that the founders participate in the collective.

The Founder Institute invites a wide range of founders from different sectors to apply. Some companies need more capital and will raise more capital during the program. The amount of money that a participating Founder can expect to raise is ultimately based on the business, its specific needs, and the execution.

The Founder Institute does not invest directly in alumni companies. However, we do facilitate investment through introductions, local/ regional/ global events, and more.

The founders choose the investors, negotiate the terms, and sign the deal with assistance of - but no control from - the Founder Institute. Everything is up to the founder and the shareholders. Keep in mind that the Founder Institute will not be a shareholder of any kind pre-funding.