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 Autumn 2013 Berlin 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 C. Mitchell
CEO, ZIG Capital
Andrew Mitchell, co-founder and Managing Partner of ZIG Capital, has led investments in a number of industries including finance, marketing services, manufacturing, distribution, and consumer products. He has more than twelve years of business management experience. Andrewʼs core strength is operational process management and he has also worked with firms focusing on growth planning and strategy/
Benjamin Thym
CEO, barcoo
Benjamin Thym is the CEO of barcoo - the mobile product guide that already convinced more than 12 Million Germans to scan barcodes with their mobile phones. barcoo became the biggest pure mobile brand in Germany with 0€ marketing spendings. Prior to barcoo, Benjamin worked as a strategy consultant for BCG and Deloitte. Benjamin holds a degree from Universitaet Karlsruhe.
Cédric Naintré
Director, Redwood MES
Co-founder of the third largest Internet Service Provider in Chile. Co-founder of Glowria, the largest online DVD rental service in continental Europe. Formerly General Manager of StarMedia Chile, an Internet portal, and partner in a venture capital firm operating in Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Education: Inseec Business School and HEC Executive MBA. Co-fondateur de Netline, le troisième Fournisseur dAccès Internet au Chili et premier indépendant. Co-fondateur de Glowria, service de location de DVD et VOD en ligne dont VideoFutur a fait lacquisition. Anciennement DG de StarMedia Chili (portail internet) et associé dans une entreprise de capital risque opérant au Brésil, Chili et en Argentine. Ecole de commerce INSEEC et HEC Executive MBA.
Christian Angele
CEO, Imedo
Christian Angele is Founder and Managing Director of one of Germanys top health portals. Featuring a full-featured health community + doctor rating platform.
Christoph Sollich
The Pitch Doctor, Startup Consultant
Christoph Sollich is a freelance startup consultant specializing in business model generation, strategy, marketing and pitching. After writing his diploma thesis about “Virtual Communities” (old-school speak for “Social Networks”) and a detour through advertising (as a copywriter) he started working in startups in 2007, since 2009 as a freelancer. After winning a couple of “Best Pitch” awards (and no awards for his ideas!) at hackathons and startup weekends, startups started asking his advice about pitching - although only he refers to himself as “The Pitch Doctor”. He describes himself as supremely intelligent, very funny, extremely good-looking and excessively humble.
Claas Van Delden
Managing Director, SevenVentures GmbH
Class van Delden is the managing director of SevenVentures GmbH, a subsidiary of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, which focuses primarily online investments. His previous experience includes positions at Holtzbrinck Digital GmbH and Boston Consulting Group. His educational background includes University of St. Gallen, Stockholm School of Economics.
Daan Loening
CEO, Kinderfee
Daan Loening is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of kinderfee.de. kinderfee.de is an online market place for child care services. The marketplace operates using the Trusted Community Principle. kinderfee.de helps parents find loving and trustworthy child carers close to their home, by facilitating search and providing trusted recommendations from other parents.
Dominik Faber
CEO, softgarden GmbH
Dominik started his first company at the age of 19. He is a passionate entrepreneur and a german SaaS pioneer. In the early years he drove 100.000 Miles a year to visit -and to sell his software to- large enterprises (DAX100).
Emil Kendziorra
CEO, onFeedback GmbH
Emil is the co-founder and CEO of onFeedback - a fast-growing company that provides customer intelligence and customer feedback for franchise companies, large chain stores, the healthcare sector as well as smaller businesses. He hold a degree in medicine, where he focused on translational cancer research at the University of Göttingen and Miami. Since then he worked his whole life in startups and own ventures.
Eren Bali
CEO, Udemy
Eren Bali is the CEO & Co-founder of Udemy, a startup that aims to democratize education by allowing anybody to teach and learn online. Udemy has raised $4.5 million from angel and institutional investors. Prior to Udemy, Eren worked at SpeedDate as a founding engineer and Director of Engineering while the company grew form 0 to 10 million users in 2 years. He also worked as a developer at BitGravity in very early stages. Eren graduated from METU (Turkey) with a degree in Computer Science and a double major degree in Mathematics. He won several awards in Mathematics, Physics and CS including a 2nd position in International Mathematical Olympiad. Eren is a graduate of Founder Institutes inaugural Silicon Valley branch.
Gabriel Yoran
Founder, Managing Director, Steganos Software GmbH
Gabriel Yoran is co-founder of consumer privacy software company Steganos and location-based social network, aka-aki. He is an expert in product design and consumer marketing with more than 10 years of professional experience. Products designed by Gabriel have earned numerous awards, including two Webby Awards and numerous Best Buy and Product of the Year awards in magazines like PC WORLD. Gabriel is a regular speaker at IT and mobile industry events such as Wireless Communication and Information (WCI), World Usability Day, Web 2.0 Expo, Mobile 2.0 Summit. He also gives Master Lectures on Entrepreneurship and Product Design.
Heiko Rauch
Angel Investor and co-founder zanox, UFOstart.com
Heiko Rauch is an entrepreneur, tech enthusiast and angel investor. Today, he is the Co-Founder of UFOstart – the first “Global Crowd Network” for Lean Startups. Previously, he co-founded zanox, Europes leading performance advertising network. His strengths in developing and maintaining lean, efficient organisational structures coupled with his strong financial competencies have proved a driving force in the success of zanox’ European and international expansion. It was also Heiko who established zanox’ subsidiary in the US – a strategic move to realise the vision of a globally spanning network covering Europe, Asia and the Northern American markets. zanox quickly established a global presence, and became Europe’s largest online marketing network, with 400 employees and annual revenues of $300M.
Holger Dieterich
Lab Manager, YOU IS NOW Startup Incubator
Holger is the manager of YOU IS NOW, the startup program of Immobilien Scout 24, the market-leading real estate marketplace in Germany. He is also curator of StartupDigest Berlin and the Lean Startup Meetup Berlin, as well as a member of the non-profit SOZIALHELDEN. Holgers background is in product management, business development and usability.
Jana Scharfschwerdt
CEO, Somea People Partners
Jana is advisor for startups and founders with her company Somea People Partners. She helps setting the right base for growth by working on a proper business model, getting the numbers right and helping to raise capital. After all she sets a proper foundation to form an efficient startup, that runs on KPIs and is organised with laser focus. After a 6 year advisory experience in M&A, strategy and reorganisation, Jana has cofounded two companies, helped to found more than twenty companies in the last 12 months and helps out as interims finance-manager in a few startups.
Jawed Karim
Partner, youniversity Ventures
Jawed, met Chad Hurley and Steve Chen whilst working in PayPal, and the trio founded the massively popular YouTube in 2005. Jawed was YouTube’s first CTO, and since selling the company, he has invested in companies like Airbnb, Palantir and Eventbrite.
Julia Derndinger
CEO, Derndinger GmbH
Founder of Trendwerk77, www.j-straps.de Founder of Dreamware, www.heaven-on-heels.de CEO of imedo, www.imedo.de Founder of German EO Accelerator Program, www.eo-accelerator.de Founder of Circus Internet, www.meinespielzeugkiste.de Work also as coach and mentor for Startups.
Louisa Heinrich
Head of Strategy, Fjord
Louisa Heinrich is relentlessly curious. She loves getting inside clients’ heads to understand the challenges they face. She also loves listening to and telling stories, to understand how people and the world work. Building on roots in Theatre and Anthropology, Louisa has been working in digital for over 17 years. She has recently founded Superhuman Ltd. on an ongoing quest to put people first, and investigate how technology can adapt to and enhance what makes us uniquely human. She has helped scores of businesses across finance, telecommunications, consumer goods, retail, media and government with Strategy, Innovation, Service Design and User Experience. Most recently, Louisa was Group Director of Strategy at Fjord, where she was responsible for driving thought leadership, exploring future trends, redesigning the agency, and generally stirring things up. She now works as a speaker, consultant and mentor at the intersection of Design, Business and Technology.
Maks Giordano
Founder, Nunatak
Maks Giordano is the co-founder of Nunatak, a highly specialized consultancy for the digital age. He has been active in the digital arena since the early nineties. After Management Board Positions with ID Media and MetaDesign, Maks Maks co-founded iconmobile in 2003, one of the first and largest mobile service agencies Worldwide. The company became part of the WPP Holding in 2007.Before founding Nunatak in 2011, Maks worked for KYTE as their managing director for Europe and was a member of the management board of the multimedia unit of the ProSiebenSat1. He was responsible for the mobile- and games- unit and in charge of innovation overall. Maks is a highly active and operational Business Angel and is among others a Mentor at the hub:raum Incubation Program of Deutsche Telekom, a Referrer at Hack.FWD and in the Advisory Board of the MAS Angel Fund.
Michael Ronen
Founder, Capsuling
Prior to Capsuling.Me Michael worked for 10 years as an international theater and film director, gaining extensive experience in the offline and online media industries. He produced and performed in shows in Israel’s national theatre, Habima, as well as other central stages and festivals throughout the country. In 2007 he founded the Conflict Zone Arts Asylum in the UK, a worldwide network of artists, where he developed strong ties with well-known media creators. In Berlin, he is invited to major startup events, like Tech Open Air, to teach a unique method he developed, called ActorPreneur, of applying theatre performance principles to the business environment. Michael is enrolled and fully sponsored in the current Founders Institute Silicon Valley accelerator program.
Ofer Valencio Akermann
CEO, Hiogi
Mr. Akerman has more than a decade of hands on experience with cyber defense, competitive intelligence, online reputation building and strategic management. Moreover, Mr. Akerman recognized internationally as one of the most innovative and creative architects in the field of cyber security. Blessed with a unique combination of deep technical knowledge and world class management experience, he has a remarkable track record of taking innovative ideas into profitability. Mr. Akerman has a vast experience with deploying ad-hoc offshore teams to resolve complex and highly demanding challenges. The resultant resolutions innovated by Akerman are currently being utilized from the Middle East to Asia. A number of his solutions are currently in use by Israel Defense Forces in both offensive and defensive applications against cyber terrorism. These same solutions (Cobrador) are being studied by agents from the U.S. and numerous other countries undergoing counter-terrorism training in Israel.
Philipp Hartmann
CEO, Rheingau Ventures
Philipp Hartmann is the CEO & Co-Founder of Rheingau Ventures, a Berlin-based digital media incubator. Prior to Rheingau Ventures, he co-founded sportme.de (online social network for sports) and madvertise.de (mobile advertising company focusing on in-app advertising). he holds a degree in Business Administration from European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel, Germany.
Ramzi Rizk
Founder/CTO, EYEEM
Ramzi Rizk is Co-Founder and CTO of EyeEm.com. Before founding EyeEm, Ramzi was a technical project manager at a Xailabs, CTO of StudentSN and spent years working as a freelancer and consultant on mobile, web, and IOT related projects. Originally from Lebanon, he moved to Hamburg in 2003 to work on his Master’s degree in Software Architecture (Media and Information Technologies). Ramzi moved to Berlin in 2005 and joined the Humboldt Universitys Information Systems department as a doctoral candidate focusing on privacy in online social networks.
Stefan Kellner
Founder, 7Moments
Stefan Kellner is Founder and CEO of 7Moments, a new way of sharing photos. As a serial entrepreneur hes working on internet consumer services since the early nineties. Before 7Moments he built Plazes.com, a location based service that was acquired by Nokia in 2008. Besides working on his own company Stefan participates in advising and investing in various startups in Berlin and elsewhere. Stefan Kellner attended Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and currently lives in Berlin.
Stefan Jørgensen
CEO, itembase.com
Stefan Jørgensen is the CEO of Itembase, a Berlin based tech-Startup in the eCommerce industry. With 19 Stefan founded his first startup which reached 10mio € in yearly turnover and before starting Itembase founded a social Network that reached 12mio users in 23 countries. Stefan holds a Master of Law and has lived in Denmark, the US, Spain and now Germany.
Stephanie Kaiser
Head of Studio, wooga
Stephanie is Head of Studio at wooga, a company building social games for mobile and Facebook. Having started at wooga as the 2nd employee, Stephanie designed and developed the Facebook title Monster World. Since its launch in April 2010, the team has organically grown the game to now 2m daily active users, making it the biggest monster game on Facebook. While Stephanie still cares a lot about her monsters, she is currently working on top-secret unannounced games for both platforms (mobile & FB).
Sven Ripsas
Prof. Dr., Berlin School of Economics and Law
Sven Ripsas is Professor for Entrepreneurship (Berlin School of Economics and Law (BSEL). His central research focus is on Business Model Development, Lean Startup, Entrepreneurial Personality and Entrepreneurship Education / Social Entrepreneurship. Since Summer 2012 he directs the project „Berlin Startup Insights“, that analyses key performance indicators of internet startups. Partners in this BSEL project are Deutsche Telekom and Entrepreneurs Club Berlin.
Tobias Fuchs
Partner, KPMG
Dr Tobias Fuchs is a Partner and Director of IP, Media & Technology Law at KPMG in Munich. Tobias did his Doctorate in Industrial Trade Marks at the Max-Planck-Institut für Imaterialgüter- und Wettbewerbsrecht and later worked at Taylor Wessing as well as Latham & Watkins LLP. He has over 14 years experience applying Law to areas such as M&A, Outsourcing, Technology Transfer, IP licenses, Sales contracts as well as Supply and Purchasing agreements. Tobias and his team at KPMG are passionate about supporting startups from the early stage right up until an exit or IPO for all legal, tax and accounting issues. We are very happy to have the support of Tobias and KPMG for all of our Founders in Munich and Berlin.
Ulf Kunze
Partner, GoodKarma VC
Ulf Kunze is partner of GoodKarma VC, primarily specializing in consultancy and investments with a technology focus on internet, mobile and biotech. Ulf has been at the forefront of digital and mobile media for more than a decade, consistently active in entre- and intrapreneurial roles and as investor in the ICT industry. In 1999 he founded neopoly AG a live massive multiplayer Game Studio for international media companies. Simultaneously, Ulf helped create iWorld plc., the first international incubator for mobile business, participating as a member of the advisory board.
Uri Levanon
CEO, WatchMedia Network
Uri Levanon is the founder and CEO of watchMedia network - an online video network delivering 1m daily views across various content channels. watchMedia has been working with leading brands and corporates to generate online awareness and buzz through video content. In addition, over the the last 15 years Uri has been involved with several consumer web startups and has been consulting media companies on digital strategies for Music and Video distribution
Weston Hankins
Founder, Footstep Ventures
Weston Hankins (29) is CTO of 9flats.com and co-founder of Footstep Ventures, a new Berlin-based startup. He is a pioneer of online tools that encourage real-world face-to-face interactions between individuals and a passionate believer in the power of the web to revolutionize the way we relate to everything in the world around us. Hankins became known with the success of CouchSurfing.org where he started as the 3rd employee and served as chief technical officer for over 4 years helping turn it into the worlds largest travel community – over 4 million members and present in 90,000+ cities.
Ziv Gillat
Co-Founder & VP of Business Development, Eye-Fi
Ziv Gillat is Cofounder of Eye-Fi. Previously, Ziv worked at Silverback Systems, iReady, Zaffire, Photo Access, and Apple. Ziv is a professional photographer with a passion for helping consumers backup and share their photos and videos. He received his B.S. in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
