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 Bangkok 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.
Adrian Vanzyl
CEO, Ardent Capital
Adrian is a veteran early stage investor and technologist in the Digital Media space, spending most of his career in Silicon Valley in various venture backed startups. Adrian spent ten years with Blumberg Capital in San Francisco (most recently as CTO for this $100M early stage digital media focused fund, where he was also CEO of two portfolio companies). Formerly he was CTO of Sausage Software (and board member at its IPO), CTO of LookSmart (IPO on Nasdaq) - two of Australia’s earliest and largest internet successes. He was also a Group Manager at Microsoft in the US (post the successful exit of LinkExchange, where he managed the international business team).
Adrian Stewart
Founder, Loyalty in Motion
Adrian has a 20+ years track record as founder of Internet and Mobile startups across Southeast Asia, including 10 years in Thailand. He has seen a fair share of failures and successes, which includes raising US$12M in funding back in 2001 as a co-founder. Presently, he is founder of Loyalty in Motion and concurrently Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Galaxy Ventures. Loyalty in Motion is a mobile loyalty startup that operates in Thailand and recently extended into Indonesia, while Galaxy Ventures is a Bangkok-based private investment firm focused on early-stage investments in entertainment, e-commerce and everything digital.
Benjamin Ranck
CTO, Jetabroad
Benjamins started his career in the corporate world, working as a software engineer in the United States for fortune 500, and fortune 100 companies. In the US he also caught the entreprenierial bug, starting ChatterSpike, a data mining company, when he was 25 years old. After returning to Australia he co-founded All Over Geo, a mobile software company that focuses on the construction industry. Benjamin was instrumental in bringing the Founder Institute to Sydney, starting the first chapter in Australia in early 2012. He is passionate about high growth technology companies and has held a number of startup advisory roles. He is currently the CTO of Jetabroad, a fast growing online travel company, and spends time between Australia and Bangkok.
Charle Charoenphan
Managing Director, HUBBA Co., Ltd.
Charle is the Founder and Managing Director of HUBBA, Thailands first coworking community for startups and freelance. Charle is a serial entrepreneur who help launch Ascendex Consulting in 2006 and HUBBA in 2012. He is also involved in launching a few small buisnesses in Thailand.
Dr. Jay Jootar
Chairman, The VC Group
Dr. Jay has led The VC Group to invest and build startup JVs with leading technology companies in Asia and the U.S. The primary areas of focus include Interactive TV, Cloud Infrastructure, Big Data, Social Applications, and Internet of Things. He is an MIT graduate, a former telecom executive, and an MBA lecturer in Entrepreneurship.
Ian Borders
Founder / CEO, MergePay
Ian is the founder of MergePay, a suite of SaaS tools which offers small businesses and entrepreneurs simple payment solutions and helps them understand and manage their important financial data. He is also the director of MergeSpace, a creative co-working space for startups in Thailand. Ian is a UI/UX designer and developer by trade and a conversion design expert. He previously founded Sherpa, a conversion metrics app and consultancy responsible for over $30mm in sales over the last 4 years.
Jakob Lykkegaard Pedersen
Co-Founder & Investor, Pocket Playlab
Jakob is a young Danish investor and mentor at several thai startups and co-founder of Pocket PlayLab, the biggest independent mobile game developer in Thailand. He also earlier co-founded Pagemodo.com, which was among one of the first tech startups in Thailand to be acquired by an American public company.
Krating Poonpol
CEO & Founder, Disrupt University
A proclaimed technology entrepreneur and designer, Krating comes with a wide range of experiences ranging from raising seed capital, launching new innovative services and applications for the Internet (social games, mobile applications, etc.), to name but a few of his achievements. Former student at Stanford University, Krating launched and sold his first business which later partly fund his next company, Mobilitz Inc.. He was able to raise an additional U$ 1.2 Million seed fund from Angel investors (Forbes) which launched his most successful social game application (top 10 most favourite applications on the iPhone in 2010 along with other apllications such as Twitter, Instagram, WorldLens and 148 other applications). He founded Disrupt University, the hub for progressive Thai innovators that will help prepare them to stay ahead of the curve and be a successful part of this revolution. We equip our students with cutting-edge tactics adapted directly from Silicon Valley — the world’s capital of technology and innovation.
Matt Walters
Principal, Ardent Capital
Matt Walters is a Principal at Ardent Capital, a Bangkok based VC firm with investments across Southeast Asia. Matt comes from the US where he was previously the founding Head of Business Development and CFO of Topicmarks, acquired by Tagged, Inc. in 2011. Matt has worked in and managed teams around Asia, Africa and the Americas for nearly a decade, including with American International Group (AIG) and Room to Read where he helped scale the startup into 13 countries, getting promoted on Oprah and Clintons Global Initiative along the way. Follow him at @mattpwalters.
Natavudh Pungcharoenpong
CEO/Founder , Ookbee
Moo Natavudh is a tech entrepreneur with over 12 years experience in founding, funding and managing tech companies in Thailand. He is currently the founder and CEO of OOKBEE (www.ookbee.com), Thailands biggest e-book store with market shares over 85%. OOKBEE raised US$2 million in Sep 2012 from InVent (a venture capital arm of In Touch). Besides Ookbee, Moo also the founder and CEO of IT WORKS, one of the leading software companies in Thailand.
Natsakon Kiatsuranon
CEO & Co-Founder, ShopSpot Mobility Pte Ltd
Natsakon is a tech-entrepreneur who has run his own tech-startup since May 2008. Currently running “ShopSpot Mobility Pte. Ltd.”, a fast-growing technology startup operating at the cross roads of lifestyle commerce and mobile in Asia. ShopSpot is backed by top-tier investors including Jungle Ventures and SingTel Innov8, and a group of Thailand based angel investors led by Kris Nalamlieng.
Opie Lopansri
Founder and CEO, Stamp
Opie is the founder and CEO of Stamp, a market leader in mobile loyalty solutions in Thailand, which employs its proprietary, patent-pending Stamp hardware device. In 2013, Stamp won the Echelon Thailand Satellite and the Outstanding Technology Award from Thailand’s Princess IT Competition. Prior to Stamp, Opie operated 2 other non-technology related businesses in the cosmeceutical and auto service industries over the past 10 years.
Oranuch Lerdsuwankij
Co-Founder, Thumbsup
Oranuch, co-founded and managed a highly engaging tech blog & professional community thumbsup.in.th in Thailand which was a well-known among tech enthusiast in Thailand. She provides digital marketing consulting and training to many leading companies and universities in Thailand. Oranuch (mimee) had intensive direct experience in business marketing and product development with telecommunications and IT industry more than 11 years working for companies such as Truemove, Atos Origin and Total Access Communication(DTAC). Her professionals lie in Mobile Telecom Industry, Online Marketing (such as Social Media, Mobile Marketing) and Digital Trend & Technology. Now she is also Partner and Marketing Director of Computerlogy.Co.Ltd.
Patai Padungtin
Principal / Evangelist , Builk Asia Co., Ltd.
Construction engineer and general contractor turns into tech business since 2005, experienced in construction-specific ERP with a bold ambition to disrupt construction industry. 2011: Winner of Asia-Pacific ICT Awards, Industrial Applications 2012: Most Promising Startup in Echelon 2012.
Pawoot Pom Pongvitayapanu
Founder & Managing Director, TARAD.com
Mr.Pawoot Pongvitayapanu (Pom), an online entrepreneur, E-Commerce and Online media business leader, Prior to holding Managing Director and Founder at TARAD.com Co., Ltd. which includes ThaiSecondhand.com and TARAD.com the Biggest E-Commerce Service in Thailand. TARAD.com join with Rakuten Group No.1 E-Commerce Site in Japan by Year 2009 and become part of Global E-Commerce network of Rakuten Group. He has new startup company name "Zocial Inc" Online & Zocial Network Monitoring - Ranking and Winter Egency online Agency. He is also President of Thai E-Commerce Association, Consultant for Thai Webmaster Association. He is teacher and gust speaker for all over country, advisory at Silpakorn University and Google Business Group (GBG) Country Champion Thailand and Founder. Many people call him as "Thailand Internet Icon & Pioneer"
Rapeepat Pattanakulchai
Managing Director, PKM Consulting Group
Rapeepat is the founder and managing director of PKM Consulting Group Co., Ltd. The company provides clients knowledge management platform for private and government sectors. The application “Fairvalue” is the Thailand first tax research system and KM tools. Rapeepat was a senior tax consultant at PwC. Currently he also advises several local and foreign IT startup in doing business in Thailand.
Supachai Parchariyanon
Managing Director and Founder , MCFIVA
Dr. Kid is young successful serial entrepreneur and visionary thinker who’s passionate in IT and turn it from hobby (stock trading) to real business (Thailand’s No.1 stock trading app) when he was a medical student. He founded MCFIVA in 2011 and manages multi-million advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 companies in various industries in Thailand and SEA region. In 2013, D2C Inc., a subsidiary of NTT Docomo acquired a sizable stake in MCFIVA and become one of the major shareholder. He is also active angel investor and founding member of Digital Advertising Association of Thailand (DAAT) and Thailand Software Export Promotion Agency (TSEP)
Suwida Kingmuangkow
Managing Director, Expara IDM Ventures
Suwida is a Managing Director at Expara IDM Ventures and sits on the investment committee. She has ten years of experience in financial services and entrepreneurship. Prior to joining Expara, Suwida spent five years as a trader at KGI Securities (Thailand) Public Company Limited (KGI), one of Thailands largest proprietary funds. The average size of the funds under her sole supervision was more than THB 1 billion (USD 40 million).
Tanomsak Khacharoen
Co-Founder, AllProperty Media
Mr. Tanomsak Khacharoen (Champ) is an engineer turned entrepreneur. He cofounded DDproperty.com in 2007 with his wife and together drive it to become No. 1 property portal in Thailand. DDproperty.com was acquired by PropertyGuru Group, Leading Property Portal in Asia Pacific from Singapore in 2011.
Tom Srivorakul
CEO, Whats New Group – a division of Ardent Capital
Tom Srivorakul recently co-founded and advises Ardent Capital, which co-creates, invests, and operates transactional ecommerce start-ups in SE Asia. Within the Ardent portfolio, he’s also CEO of WhatsNew Group, offering vertical retail commerce. He was previously co-founder of Ensogo, the largest social commerce site in TH, PH, ID and acquired by LivingSocial in June 2011. Prior to Ensogo, he was the CEO of Impaq Interactive, an exclusive partner for MSN and Managing Director for Admax Network, a leading adnetwork in S.E. Asia. which was acquired by Komli Media in Feb 2012. He was also Regional Director for New Media, a digital ad agency acquired by STW Group in Dec. 2011. Having 10 years in emerging market digital industry and exited 3 companies. Featured as a guest speaker, moderator, and judge at numerous events and proud award recipient of the 2011 Bloomberg - Business Week Thailand Entrepreneur of the Year.
Tomas Laboutka
CEO & Co-Founder, Hotel Quickly
Tomas is a serial entrepreneur, passionate about bringing innovation and shaking-up industries. Most recently, he co-founded and lead HotelQuickly, the #1 mobile first company for for same-day hotel bookings in Asia & Pacific. He built 3 ventures over the course of past 6 years and served e.g. as Co-Founder and Managing Partner of FL Ventures Ltd, a specialist in advising start-ups on how to expand successfully across Europe. Tomas was also member of the Sub-Committee for Entrepreneurship of the National Economic Council of the Czech Government and founder of CEMS Entrepreneurs."
Vachara Aemavat
CEO, Computerlogy
Vachara Aemavat is co-founder and CEO of Computerlogy, software development specialist in Social Media integration. Computerlogy is first and only one Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer in Thailand among with a few in SEA. Vachara lead team to won Facebook World Hack 2012 Jakarta. His application, SocialEnable is one of leading social media management system in Thailand. This application also won Thailand ICT Award in 2013. His company, Computerlogy, raised series A funding from InVent (a venture capital arm of InTouch company).
Yod Chinsupakul
CEO/Co-Founder, Wongnai Media Co., Ltd.
Co-Founder and current CEO of Wongnai (Thailands Yelp). Strategic and entrepreneurial minded. Got an MBA from UCLA Anderson in 2010 after 4.5 years experience in management position. Computer Engineering undergrad.
