This post is a few days late, because, well, we've been in a post Global Founder Institute Director Symposium/ San Francisco Graduation/ Global Mentor Awards/ Founder Showcase/ Global Graduate Retreat event hangover. Given the lateness, I might as well keep this short.
The 7th Founder Showcase was by far the largest event we've ever run - almost 500 people. Mark Suster and Naval Ravikant absolutely hit their Keynote Speeches out of the park, and all 10 companies pitched very well on stage. Kaggle took the Grand Prize, with Nexercise coming in a close second.
Even though food, sleep, and even at points sanity has been scarce for our small FI team over the past week, feedback like this is what make's it all worth while: "The Founder Showcase: Launching Startups with a Community", on TheNextWeb. Here's an excerpt:
"But being a part of the Founder Institute means not only that you are locked into a support community. Even if there was only one winner at the end of the evening, you also feel that the lessons startups will learn, the great feedback they’ll get, and the other founders they’ll meet are the most important aspects of the experience. That’s probably the most positive thing about an entrepreneur’s life, despite all the tough moments along the road from finding money to building a scalable idea."
Amen to that, and thanks to everyone who participated.
Stay tuned on the Suster and Naval Keynotes; we are catching our collective breath here in the Founder Garage, and they will be released shortly.
