The Founder Institute's four-month curriculum covers everything you would expect from an early-stage startup program, including topics like "Startup Legal and IP” towards the beginning, to “Fundraising” near the end. What makes the curriculum special is the Mentors that teach it, whose passion, feedback and support helps our companies avoid rookie mistakes and set the foundation for a meaningful and enduring company.
The Founder Institute carefully recruits approximately 25 Mentors per Semester, who are normally the CEO or founder of a successful startup. Rather than specialists or consultants, we prefer Founders and CEOs to give our companies "the entrepreneur's perspective." The mentors share their experiences, best practices, and mistakes, while also providing specific guidance and feedback on the Founder companies.
In addition, the Founder Institute's unique Graduate Liquidity Pool allows our mentors to share in the equity of companies formed in each program - and, their share is based solely on the anonymous ratings they receive from the Founders both during, and after the program. In this way, the Founder Institute incentivizes mentors to take a special interest in our startups, and provide as much assistance as possible after the program.
We have a great lineup of Mentors confirmed for the Winter 2013 Atlanta Founder Institute, including many from out of town. See the full list below.
Adeo Ressi
Founder/CEO, Founder Institute
Adeo Ressi is the founder and CEO of the Founder Institute, the worlds largest startup-technology company accelerator. The Institute is the eighth startup that Mr. Ressi has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating. Mr. Ressi was also a Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of 17,000 CEOs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide.
Andrew Ibbotson
CEO, Digital Assent
Andrew Ibbotson currently serves as founder and CEO of Digital Assent, a healthcare technology company that helps physicians and brands more effectively engage patients at the point of care. The company’s award-winning PatientPad® technology is transforming the patient experience at doctor’s offices throughout North America. Andrew was named 2012 “Business Person of the Year” by the Metro Atlanta Chamber, “Entrepreneur of the Year” at TiECON Southeast, and “Mobile Marketer of the Year” at the 2012 Tech Marketing Awards. He was also recognized as one of Atlanta’s “40 Under 40″ business leaders by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Prior to Digital Assent, Andrew was founder and CEO of Synthis Corporation from 1999 until 2009, where he oversaw the development and launch of a touch-screen advertising and selling solution that grew to over $500 million per month in sales transactions before being acquired by a multi-billion dollar software company.
Ashish Mistry
CEO, KontrolFreek
Ashish functions as an investor and adviser to young companies. His experience includes leadership roles with high-growth companies in the technology-enabled services, enterprise IT, e-commerce, and consumer markets. Ashishs first entrepreneurial role was as co-founder of Virtex Newtorks (Acquired by Leapfrog Services), then as an early team member of AirDefense (Acquired by NYSE: MOT), followed by a senior leadership role with RCMS Group (Acquired by NYSE:ARC) and ultimately as President and CEO of KontrolFreek.
Bradley Kirkland
CEO, Stone Soup Technology, LLC
Bradley is a serial entrepreneur in the software space and CEO of Stone Soup Technology, LLC. He is currently actively involved in and investing in several startups. He also has a passion for helping other entrepreneurs succeed. Some of his interests are meeting fascinating people (almost everyone has something fascinating about them), trying new foods, mobile apps, tech startups, complex web apps, photography, paying it forward, investing, consulting, and helping connect people.
Brooks Robinson
CEO, Springbot
Brooks is Co-Founder and CEO of Springbot. Springbot wants to use big data analytics to give small online merchants Amazon-type business intelligence on their shoppers. The startup helps small and medium sized businesses get better insights into their online customers — information they can then use to more effectively market to those shoppers. Springbot recently raised $3M and is deploying this capital to build its sales, customer service and software development teams.
David Moeller
CEO, CodeGuard
CodeGuard is led by CEO and co-founder David Moeller, a seasoned manager and entrepreneur with two successful exits in the last five years. After being featured on ABCs "American Inventor", David co-founded a company and licensed technology to Whirlpool. With a passion for education, he built and grew a startup SAT/ACT test preparation business to several hundred employees before leading it to an acquisition. He was formally trained on General Electrics Technical Sales Leadership Program, and held sourcing and operations positions with GE in the U.S. and China before beginning his entrepreneurial career. David has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, highest honors, from Georgia Tech, and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.
George Mashini
CEO, Catavolt
George has been in the enterprise applications field for the last 12 years in a variety of roles ranging from development, project management, professional services, marketing and executive management. As CEO of Catavolt, George is leading a larger trend of integrating new technologies such as Cloud Computing and mobile devices into the workplace. Catavolt has become a market leader in the areas of Hybrid Cloud Computing and mobile business applications by creating software that leverages existing systems along with new technology. Catavolt provides a hybrid cloud solution that makes enterprise applications like SAP, Oracle and Infor available via the cloud and on mobile devices without any programming or disruption to IT. Georges focus remains on applying new techniques and technologies in innovative ways that bring business value to Catavolts customers.
Guillermo Söhnlein
CEO, Blue Marble Exploration
Guillermo Söhnlein is an entrepreneur, advisor, and mentor, who has worked with dozens of startups across the U.S. He is currently Co-Founder and Co-CEO of iSpaces, a cloud computing venture, and Founder and CEO of Blue Marble Exploration, which promotes human exploration of extreme environments. Previously, he was Co-Founder of OceanGate, a global leader in deep-sea manned submersibles, and Founder and Chairman of Space Angels Network, an international group of accredited investors focused on early-stage aerospace ventures. He started his entrepreneurial career in Silicon Valley as Co-Founder of a speech recognition venture that was acquired in 2001. Guillermo earned is A.B. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and his J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
Jeff Hilimire
CEO, Dragon Army
Jeff is the co-founder and CEO of Dragon Army, a mobile app studio based in the Atlanta Tech Village. Previously Jeff was President and Chief Digital Officer of Engauge. In 1998 he started a digital agency in Atlanta (Spunlogic) with some friends and they were ultimately acquired by Engauge in March of 2008. Jeff is in the 2013 Leadership Atlanta class and a member of the 2012 Atlanta 40 under 40 class. Hes also a founding member of the Shotput Ventures Team and a part of the GA Tech incubator program, Flashpoint. Jeff sits on the boards of Junior Achievement of Georgia and The Children’s Museum of Atlanta (Imagine IT) and is on the marketing advisory board for Zoo Atlanta.
Lance Weatherby
COO, nCrowd, Inc
Lance Weatherby is the COO of nCrowd, Inc., a local commerce company that connects merchants to consumers. In May of 2011, heplayed a significant role in the company securing a $7 million in Series A funding led by Atlanta based Noro-Moseley Partners, BLH Ventures, and Linch Capital. Previously he was a Startup Catalyst with the Advance Technlogy Development Center, a startup accelerator at Georgia Tech. Lance has experience with both early stage and high growth startups. He co-founded Skribit, Socialytics, and Twitpay. Lance has held executive business development, marketing and general management positions at CipherTrust, EarthLink, and MindSpring.
Lynwood Bishop
President, MapLarge
Lynwood Bishop is President of Map Large, Inc. Dynamic Visualization of Big Data: The MapLarge API can render millions of interactive points and shapes with no pre-caching or client side processing. MapLarge maintains a cutting edge data visualization API for dynamic maps, charts and interactive query interfaces with machine assisted pattern recognition and data mining analytics. Our distributed platform has utilized thousands of servers to process large jobs. We can provide both existing product and R&D services.
Matt Liotta
CEO, PodPonics
PodPonics founder and CEO Matt Liotta combines his technological experience with his appreciation for organic products and a desire to source locally-grown produce from his hydroponic growing company. Liotta began developing his technological expertise at an early age, including taking college programming courses at the age of eight. He brings a wealth of knowledge garnered from years of experience in the software and telecommunications industries to his latest start-up, PodPonics. Matt’s industry experience includes numerous technology startups, fostering both an entrepreneurial spirit and exacting business acumen. Most recently, Liotta served as Chief Technology Officer for Spot Mobile, a publicly traded telecom company that acquired his previous startup One Ring Networks in 2008. Liotta served as One Ring Network’s Chairman and CEO from 2004. Before departing Spot Mobile in 2009 he oversaw One Ring’s 300 percent revenue growth while also serving as the lead technologist behind the organization’s next generation telecommunications network.
Moira Vetter
CEO, Modo Modo Agency
As CEO of Modo Modo Agency, Moira Vetter specializes in B2B branding, sales and marketing effectiveness and alignment between internal and external communications. Modo Modo Agency has helped over 200 firms from Fortune 20 companies to early stage, high-growth ventures over the last 22 years. Prior to founding Modo Modo Agency in 2007, Moira was President and COO of Merge Agency. Her work experience includes client-side positions in technology and healthcare, and nearly every position on an agency org chart. Moira is president of the American Marketing Association, Atlanta Chapter and is past vice president of strategy for the international board of the Business Marketing Association.
Raj Choudhury
EVP, Operations, Moxie Engauge
As EVP, Operations at Engauge, Raj Choudhury leads the agency’s operational team, establishing key services and production methodologies/processes across all operating divisions of Engauge. As an industry thought leader on new technology and agency services, he leverages innovative solutions to create the most efficient, collaborative and imaginative work environments. Raj, who co-founded Spunlogic in 1998 — which became one of the largest privately held digital agency in Atlanta, GA, before it was acquired by Engauge in 2008 — has passion for marketing and a long track record of client successes. His portfolio includes work with veritable brands such as Anheuser-Busch, InterContinental Hotels Group, Porsche, The GeorgiaDepartment of Economic Development, The Home Depot, Boston Scientific, Cox, UPS and Nationwide. He is a Board member of Everybody Wins! Atlanta. Choudhury is also a member of the Interactive Media Alliance, the American Marketing Association, CRMA, IEI, ECC and Ad Club.
Rob Frohwein
CEO, Kabbage
Rob founded Kabbage to get small businesses capital quickly, an area in which banks have long struggled. Kabbage provides financial services, including financing, to small businesses leveraging online channels to collect data and underwrite risk. Rob has guided Kabbage through $56mm in equity fundraising since its formation. Robs also a 3-time author, former co-host of a radio show, inventor with more than 30 patents and applications -- and the owner of a lifetime pass to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
