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 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.
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.
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 Herrings Top 25 Tech Rebels, Crains 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.
Ashish Rangnekar
CEO & Co-founder, BenchPrep
Ashish Rangnekar is the CEO and Co-Founder of BenchPrep, worlds only cross-device exam prep and assessment platform. Before BenchPrep, Ashish worked on new business development and corporate strategy initiatives at Capital One Financial. He also taught as an adjunct lecturer at City University New York. He holds an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, an M.S. in Applied Mathematics at City University New York, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. As the CEO of BenchPrep, Ashish successfully built of team of 30+ professionals across Chicago, Uruguay, NY & India and raised more than $8MM in funding.
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.
David Culver
Co-Founder, Forward Momentum
David Culver is the Co-Founder and Chief Collaboration Instigator of VentureSHOT, Chicagos "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.
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.
Eric Broughton
Senior Vice President, RealPage, Inc
Eric Broughton founded the RentSentinel, RentSocial and YieldVision business lines that were acquired by RealPage Inc on March of 2013. He currently serves as Senior Vice President and has been tasked with integrating four different acquisition entities into a single high performing business unit. RentSentinels SaaS based product suite began as a simple idea and quickly grew to become the standard marketing platform for the apartment industry. Within three years his products were in use at 8 of the top 10 property management companies in the United States. He also serves the Chicagoland community as President of the Chicago Oracle Users Group and has been a key contributor to the success of several global technology firms.
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.
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 and CEO of Signal, a Chicago-based company that provides an easy to use, integrated marketing platform for small businesses. 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 three kids.
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 Europes Wallenberg group), Priceline.com (IPO in 1999), and uBid.com (the internets 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, BOSI Global
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). Winner of the 2013 Founder Institute Top Rated Mentor Award, Joe has a passion for sharing his insights with Founders. As a thought leader in entrepreneurship, he has been featured on FoxNews, CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, WGN and numerous nationally syndicated radio shows. Today he is founder of BOSI Global - a series of entrepreneurship-focused initiatives including bosiDNA.com and the BOSI Fast 50 Fund.
John R Dallas Jr
Founder and Chief Alignment Officer (CAO), Hillview Partners Network LLC
Alignment strategist John Dallas 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. Hillview aligns (1) sellers with buyers, (2) leaders with plans, and (3) work with other life. Clients range from Fortune 500 companies to sole proprietorships and individuals. Since 1974, he is founder or co-founder of five technology-based national service businesses, for which he served as President. He is author of "We Need to Have a Word."
Kevin Taylor
Director of Talent Development, Groupon
Kevin is the Director of Talent Development at Groupon, where he is helping to build a world class engineering organization. Previous to his current role, he was the President and Founder of Obtiva, a 50 person Ruby on Rails development shop that was acquired by Groupon in 2011. He is the co-owner of EventWax.com, an online event registration site. Also, he lectures on technology entrepreneurship at DePaul University and can frequently be found at conferences posing as a speaker on software development and technology startups, I.E. hackerpreneurship. Most importantly, he is a decaffeinated coffee snob.
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 hes 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.
Patricia Riskind
Senior Vice President, Press Ganey Associates
As Chief Client Experience Officer at Press Ganey Associates Inc., Patty Riskind works with over 10,000 healthcare organizations across the country to help them better understand patient perceptions and use that feedback to improve and grow. Riskind is expert at utilizing multi-mode survey approaches to help capture feedback from patients in real-time across multiple care settings. 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 Deans 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 Executives "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 Crains 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 Chicagos 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 worlds #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 worlds best Brands and agencies) meet their creative needs.
Seyi Fabode
CEO, Power2Switch Inc
Seyi Fabode is the CEO/Founder of Power2Switch (and electricity comparison shopping platform). Prior to Power2Switch Seyi was an operations analyst at EnergyQuote and as a Commercial/Operations analyst for Barking Power Station (both in London). Seyi has an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and an MSc in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Warwick University in the UK. Seyi is on the Chicago Mayors Advisory Council for Technology Diversity and ChicagoNext.
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.
