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 Spring 2013 Chicago Founder Institute, including many from out of town. See the full list below.
Adam Siegel
Founder, Inkling
Adam Siegel is the founder and CEO of Inkling which was founded in 2006 after receiving seed funding from YCombinator. Much like an internal weather forecasting service, Inkling provides software and services that help companies and government agencies harness the collective wisdom of their employees to generate predictions about key business events and operating performance. Before founding Inkling, Adam was a consultant at Accenture in their Technology Labs group, performing client services and managing a research effort around next generation user interfaces. Adam has a BA from Indiana University in Political Science.
Alex Campbell
Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Vibes
Alex Campbell is Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer for Vibes Media. Alex holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has won a number of awards throughout his career, including Red Herring's Top 25 Tech Rebels, Crain's Business Chicago Top 40 Professionals under 40 and was inducted into the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame in 2009. Alex is a member of the Entrepreneurs' Organization of Chicago, the Chicago Economic Club and is also a board member of Junior Achievement of Chicago.
Andrew Lee
Senior Advisor, U.S. Small Business Administration
Andrew Lee is currently a Senior Adviser with the U.S. Small Business Administration where he focuses on high-growth startups. Before his advising role, he co-founded JamLegend, the online equivalent of Guitar Hero, which reached more than 2M users and was later acquired by Zynga, where he worked on flagship game FarmVille. While in college, Andrew created Fantasy Congress, an online political fantasy game that garnered recognition from the NY Times, BBC, NPR, and Time Magazine, amongst others. Before startups, Andrew worked in politics for then U.S. Senator Ken Salazar, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the Environmental Protection Agency. He is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College where he was a Truman Scholar, Udall Scholar, Rhodes Scholar Finalist, and named Student Entrepreneur of the Year. Check out his TedX talk - tiger mothers, startups, and games, oh my!
Bart Carlson
CEO, Napersoft
Bart Carlson is the Founder and CEO of Napersoft, a leading provider of Customer Communications Management (CCM) software solutions. Prior to founding Napersoft, Bart was a Founder and Vice President of Group 1 Software, which specialized in direct marketing packaged applications software. Bart played a leading role in Group 1 Software's highly successful initial public offering in 1986. Previously, he founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of National Systems Laboratories, a private consumer database marketing software packaged applications company. Bart is also the past Chairman of Geneva Technology Partners, Inc.; NewsWire One, Inc.; and Northern Illinois Angels LLC, an early stage investment network. Bart received his Bachelor of Science in marketing education and business administration from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL.
Charles Kwon
Managing Director, Bridge Partners
Charles Kwon is a Managing Director at Bridge Partners, a management consulting firm focused on helping clients with innovative and effective sales, marketing and channel programs that drive business results. He is a veteran entrepreneur, business executive and consultant with over 20 years of experience in the technology industries. Previously, he was President and CEO of Neodesic/Fleetxchange, a B to B e-commerce and community portal for tractor/trailer fleets. He also co-founded and/or was a senior executive at a number of software and hi-tech technology companies including DSP Development Corporation, Ixthos, Inc., Extenprise, Inc., and Nanoink. He also was a consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton and VP Strategy and New Ventures at Wallace Computer Services, a NYSE, Fortune 1000 company. Charles attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his MBA from Kellogg School of Management and was name one of Chicago's "40 Under 40" by Crains.
Dave Sonders
Associate Partner, gravitytank
Dave Sonders is a strategist and associate partner at gravitytank. Drawing from experience in design, strategy, quantitative analysis, and marketing, he leads innovation efforts across a wide range of companies and industries. Dave guides teams through the complexity and ambiguity of innovation challenges, creating breakthrough products and services for organizations like FedEx, Skype, Unilever, The City of Chicago, Best Buy, and Samsung. His blended approach to innovation includes equal measures of analytical rigor, user empathy, and insight-driven creativity.
David Pessis
Co-Founder and CTO, Fippex
David Pessis is the co-founder of Fippex, which is a cloud-based, client enablement and communications platform that allows organizations, across a wide range of industries, to better connect with clients. Fippex gives businesses a unique and easy way to share, store, and organize content so customers have access to what they need, when they need it. David has worked with leading technology companies such as IBM and Accenture. David earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and his Master of Science in Information Technology from Northwestern University.
David Culver
Co-Founder, Forward Momentum
David Culver is the Co-Founder and Chief Collaboration Instigator of VentureSHOT, Chicago's "High Energy" Entrepreneur Collaboration Center & Business Incubator. www.VentureSHOT.com VentureSHOT also hosts the Funding Feeding Frenzy event series that connects entrepreneurs with Angel Investors, VCs and other Private Capital sources (www.FundingFeedingFrenzy.com). David is also the Co-Founder of Forward Momentum (ForwardMomentumLLC.com) and Adventerra, (Adventerra.net). He is responsible for the Vision, Business Strategy and Strategic Marketing aspects of these companies. David has a degree in Economics and enjoys helping entrepreneurs launch new companies with a focus on revenue generation and encouraging seasoned entrepreneurs to re-energize their businesses and grow them rapidly.
David Pike
President, New York Trolley Company
Dave is a seasoned entrepreneur with several successful ventures under his belt. His ventures have spanned a myriad of industries from technology to transportation to apparel. Additionally, as a strategy business consultant, he has been responsible for developing and implementing solutions to help companies achieve their strategic goals and ensure their competitive advantage in the market. Dave has authored articles for several financial publications in the US and has been a guest lecturer on Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan's College of Engineering.
Emerson Spartz
CEO, Spartz Media
Emerson Spartz is best-known for founding MuggleNet, the #1 Harry Potter website, at the age of 12. Currently CEO of Spartz Media, one of the fastest-growing companies in Chicago. The Spartz Media Network - including OMG Facts, GivesMeHope, and more - receives 10 million visitors each month, and has over 9 million followers on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Spartz was invited by J.K. Rowling to her home for a personal interview and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, CBS Evening News, CNN, MTV, MSNBC, Fox News, and more. Spartz is a New York Times Bestselling Author and holds a degree from the University of Notre Dame.
Gary Gaessler
VP Sales & Marketing, Cloud Elements
Gary is the VP Sales & Marketing at Cloud Elements. Cloud Elements reduces the time and costs to develop and run Cloud Applications. We build open cloud applications faster with re-usable elements and a cloud-centric product dev team providing a unique blend of technology and app dev skills that accelerate the development of highly functional, supportable cloud-optimized apps. He was previously VP Sales of StreamStep- aquired by BMC Software in 2011. Co-founder of VoipReview- world's largest site for VoIP reviews, 8 million+ visitors, acquired in 2008. TechStars & Founders Institute mentor.
George Deeb
Managing Partner, Red Rocket Venture Partners
George Deeb is the Founder and Managing Partner of Red Rocket Venture Partners, a consulting and fund raising firm for startups. From 2009-2010, George was the CEO of MediaRecall, a B2B digital video services and technology business. George lead the sale of the business to Deluxe in February 2010 at up to a 10x return on invested capital. Between 1999-2008, George was the Founder and CEO of iExplore.com, the #1 adventure travel website with over 1MM visitors per month (now a division of TUI Travel PLC, the largest seller of leisure travel in the world). iExplore was a venture backed business, including a strategic relationship with National Geographic. Between 1991-1999, George was an Investment Banker with Credit Suisse First Boston, doing mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance in the retailing/consumer industry group. George received his BBA in finance from the University of Michigan in 1991.
Jason Weingarten
President and Co-Founder, RECSOLU
Chicagoan focused on software, mobile, and web services investments that will get him a summer home in Paris. Jason is currently the President and Co-Founder of RECSOLU, the leading provider of talent solutions to employers. Previously, Jason was a managing director of genYcapital, overseeing the investment strategy in startups. Before that, Jason co-founded eCampusRecruiter in 1999 and was the CEO there until selling the business in 2008. Jason enjoys mentoring bright entrepreneurs, playing poker, and traveling throughout Europe.
Jeff Judge
CEO, Signal
Jeff is the co-founder, CEO of Signal, a Chicago based company that provides dead simple product for mobile, social and email marketing. Signal was founded in September 2006 and recently ranked #108 in the 2011 Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies in the US. Prior to starting Signal, Jeff worked at Orbitz, Diamond, and Ernst & Young. Jeff lives in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago with his wife and two boys.
Jeff Weber
CEO, Job Search Board
Jeff Weber is the current founder of ZigaVite a web based sales enablement tool set to launch in late 2012. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Job Search Board a SaaS based job search management system. Weber was the founder of Technology Resource Center (TRC), which grew to be listed on the INC Magazine Top 500 Fastest US Private Companies list in 2001 and 2002. It was sold to a Fortune 100 in 2006. Weber is the author of From IDEA to Exit: The Entrepreneurial Journey and has been a sought after speaker and advisor to entrepreneurs. He is a board member for The Big Idea Forum a mentoring group to entrepreneurs, holds a MBA from Loyola University of Chicago and serves on the advisory board of their entrepreneurism program. Weber also founded High Growth Illinois a SBDC funded advisory service for high growth potential firms in Illinois.
Jeff Hoffman
Partner, Color Jar
Jeff Hoffman is a serial entrepreneur who is currently a partner in ColorJar, a venture accelerator. Jeff was a founder and CEO in numerous internet and technology startups, starting with travel software company CTI (sold to American Express), internet retailing pioneer Virtual Shopping (sold to Europe's Wallenberg group), Priceline.com (IPO in 1999), and uBid.com (the internet's fifth largest auction site). Jeff speaks at entrepreneurship and innovation conferences all over the world, and was inducted into the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame by the C.E.O council in 2010.
Joe Born
CEO, Neuros Technology LLC
Joe is a consumer electronics entrepreneur. For 20 years, he has been bringing consumer electronics inventions to market, from the SkipDr disc repair devices (8 Million units sold) to the Neuros line of open electronic devices. He has helped invent, produce and market a wide variety of devices through e-commerce as well as through 20,000 brick and mortar retail storefronts (Wal Mart, Best Buy, etc).
Joe Abraham
Founder/CEO, BOSI Inc.
A serial entrepreneur, Joe has been involved in the startup and growth of over 20 companies in industries ranging from IT and consumer goods to lead generation and motorsports. Those companies have generated over $450 million in revenues to date. He is author of the book Entrepreneurial DNA: The Breakthrough Discovery That Aligns Your Business to Your Unique Strengths (McGraw Hill 2011). In addition to being a tech CEO, he is advisor to several entrepreneurship centers around the world. He has been featured on FoxNews, CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, WGN and numerous nationally syndicated radio shows on topics related to entrepreneurship and small business growth.
Joe Bezdek
Co-Founder and Former Brand Director, DivX, Inc.
Joe Bezdek is a co-founder of DivX, Inc., the creator of the popular DivX video format and technology. While there, he filled a variety of roles in product management, marketing, and brand management, most recently as brand director. He left DivX in late 2007 to spend time with his wife and three young daughters, road tripping across the country in a variety of vehicles, including a 38-foot motorhome. He has BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M and The University of Texas - Austin, respectively, but he's terribly mechanically disinclined so don't ask him to fix anything. Currently he is the co-founder of Cloudtop, a company building mobile and web applications for pilots. He also serves on the board of trustees of the Rady Children's Hospital Foundation in San Diego.
Joe Dwyer
Venture Partner, OCA Ventures
Joe Dwyer is an investor, advisor, and serial entrepreneur. He loves to transform businesses through innovation. He is a frequent guest lecturer on topics such as digital innovation, product development, and user experience design at Chicago Booth School of Business and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. He is a mentor for Excelerate, a Charter Member of TIE, and an advisor for Techweek. He has a degree in International Relations that he doesn't use as often as he'd like. He also has a law degree and an MBA from Northwestern, both of which he uses all the time.
John R Dallas Jr
Founder and Chief Alignment Officer (CAO), Hillview Partners Network LLC
John R. Dallas, Jr. is Founder and Chief Alignment Officer (CAO) of Hillview Partners Network LLC, a team of independent consultants, executive coaches, and public speakers; credentialed individuals preeminent in fields related to strategic alignment of people, money, technology, and other resources. He and his colleagues are alignment strategists. A lifelong entrepreneur, John is formerly President of five technology-based national service companies in New York, suburban Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Four of the five companies John ran were sold, and one eventually went public. His prior CEO post was President and Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Title Credit Services, Inc., then the nation’s largest high-tech aggregator of consumer credit data for banks and other financial services institutions.
Michael Carruth
President/Founder, Fiodan Corporation
After founding his first company at age 15, Fiodan Corporation President, Michael Carruth, knew the entrepreneurial path was for him. Founder of nine companies in his 30-year career, including The Creative Alliance (1991), MAC University (1992), Digital Bootcamp (2003), he is currently simmering two startup ideas, in addition to leading the Fiodan Action Sports Group division as Publisher/Editor-In-Chief. Mike has taught more classes than he's taken, and serves as a consultant in marketing/media relations and professional development for established companies, nonprofits and startups alike. A long-time writer and photographer, Mike is currently developing a series of short books on entrepreneurship, targeted at middle-schoolers.
Mona Abdel Halim
Strategic Partnerships, Manager, Orbitz Worldwide
Mona Abdel-Halim is a serial entrepreneur who recently moved to Chicago after selling her tech startup, Careerimp - a web based company in the job space with users in over 150 countries. Before Careerimp, Mona worked as a Research Associate for Illuminate Ventures - a firm focused on investing in diverse high tech companies in Silicon Valley. Mona holds an MBA and Masters of Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was a Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow. She also holds a BS in Biochemistry from UT Austin.
Neil Kane
Founder & President, Illinois Partners Executive Services
Neil Kane is the president and founder of Illinois Partners Executive Services, LLC, a firm which advises entrepreneurs and investors on technology commercialization. Most recently he was the CEO of Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., a company he co-founded in 2003 by licensing technology from Argonne National Laboratory (U.S. Dept. of Energy). Mr. Kane is the former co-Executive Director of the Illinois Technology Enterprise Center at Argonne and was Entrepreneur in Residence with Illinois Ventures, LLC at the Research Park at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Earlier he was Regional Business Development Manager for Microsoft Corporation in Chicago. In this role he identified, negotiated and closed a $25 million equity investment. He held sales and engineering roles at IBM prior to Microsoft.
Patricia Riskind
Senior Vice President, Press Ganey Associates
As senior vice president, medical services at Press Ganey Associates Inc., Patty Riskind works with medical practices and outpatient facilities to utilize multi-mode survey approaches (eSurvey and mail) to capture feedback from patients in real-time. Riskind was formerly Founder and CEO of PatientImpact LLC, an eSurvey company that Press Ganey Associates acquired in 2009; prior to PatientImpact, Riskind co-founded 3d Health, Inc., was COO of Tiber Group, and Executive Director of Business Development at Health Forum, a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association. Riskind has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Peter Tapling
President & CEO, Authentify, Inc
Peter Tapling is currently President and CEO of Authentify, Inc., a leading provider of authentication and transaction verification services. Previously, he was Regional Sales Director for Aurigin Systems and prior to that VP Strategic Development for NetDox and President of its IDMetrix subsidiary. Peter holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Computer Science from Illinois State University. He sits on the Dean's Advisory Board for the College of Applied Science and Technology at Illinois State University and is an executive director of the Illinois Technology Association.
Rajesh Voddiraju
Founder, President & CEO, CVM Solutions
Most recently, Rajesh co-founded and led CVM Solutions from its humble bootstrapped beginning in a shared office space (mid-2002) to a business that grew to over 300 Fortune 1000 clients, 140 employees, named to Inc 500/5000 Fastest Growing Firms and was recently acquired by Kroll/Altegrity (mid 2011), a $2B firm owned by Providence Equity. Held multiple roles at in IT/Management Consulting Firm including: Lead Consultant/Resident Program Manager at Ameritech, Practice Director (CRM Practice), Regional Manager for Eastern Consulting Region (leading a team of nearly 200 consultants), National Head of Sales & Marketing. Rajesh holds a BS & MS in Computer Science and has attended Management Programs at Tuck and UCLA. Rajesh is a recognized speaker and has been named to Supply & Demand Chain Executive's "Pros to Know"
Rishi Shah
CEO, ContextMedia
Rishi Shah is the CEO and Founder of ContextMedia, whose products help patients with chronic conditions live healthier through contextually relevant media services. The company’s point-of-care networks and mobile media offerings are used by millions of patients monthly and the firm’s clients include more than half of the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies. As a successful healthcare and media entrepreneur and investor, Rishi has received many accolades for his work and was named to Crain's 40 under 40 list. He serves on the boards of many early stage companies and civic organizations including the Chamber of Commerce, the Institute for Student Business Education at Northwestern University and a mentor at Chicago's start-up incubator, Excelerate Labs.
Ross Kimbarovsky
Co-Founder, crowdSPRING
Ross Kimbarovsky left a successful 13 year career as a trial lawyer (so that he could wear shorts and sandals to work every day) by co-founding crowdSPRING - the world's #1 marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design, industrial design and copywriting services. Buyers who need a logo, website, custom graphic design, industrial design or written content post what they need, when they need it and how much they’ll pay. Once posted, creatives from around the world (over 120,000 from 200 countries) submit actual work. Buyers select from among actual work (an average of 110+ per project), not bids or proposals. crowdSPRING has helped tens of thousands of buyers from 100 countries (including entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses and the world's best Brands and agencies) meet their creative needs.
Shradha Agarwal
Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, ContextMedia
ContextMedia co-founder Shradha Agarwal has always had a passion for communication. While building this media company from the ground up, Shradha looks at their patient care media platforms as existing for a social benefit. She helped brand the company as for-benefit, marrying the concept of a successful for-profit enterprise that exists for social benefit. While merging her expertise in marketing and media, Shradha makes sure ContextMedia keeps up with the latest in product development strategies throughout various technologies. Shradha's first experience with entrepreneurship was also a go at sharing information seamlessly - she started her own library when in 4th grade. Having attended a United Nations high school in Singapore, Shradha believes in the power of media and communication to solve real problems globally, but also credits the strength of a vision to its smart execution.
William Furlong
VP Business Development, Bizo
Bill is the VP of Business Development for Bizo’s B2B Agency Practice. In his role, Bill works closely with regional agencies who are looking to help their brand customers reach and engage business professional audiences, wherever they travel online. Bill had been President and Partner of SearchChannel, an Application Services Provider and E-Media Consultancy that specialized in building specialized search engines for media companies. He was also Founder and CEO of B2BWorks, the first B2B online ad network. Prior to B2BWorks, he was Managing Director of BtoB Magazine and its website, and held various management roles for the Advertising Age Group, at Crain Communications.
