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 Lima Founder Institute, including many from out of town. See the full list below.
Adeo Ressi
CEO, TheFunded.com
Adeo Ressi is Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of 17,000 CEOs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. Adeo also runs the Founder Institute, a mentoring program that helps entrepreneurs launch hundreds of world-class companies each year. The Institute is the eighth start-up that Adeo has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating.
Cesar Zevallos
CEO & Founder, Asix S.A.
Cesar A. Zevallos Heudebert is an Economist from Universidad de Lima. - CEO & Founder of Asix an interactive media consultant company in Peru since 1993. - Founder of the Red Científica Peruana RCP (Peruvian Scientific Network) the first peruvian ISP since 1993. - Maybe the first Peruvian attending TED since TEDGlobal 2005, TEDxTukuy Licensee since 2009, TEDx mentor, host of the Action Knowledge transfer and mentoring for the TEDx program globally.
Diana Castañeda
Co-Fundadora, Entrepreneurial Action Peru
Diana Castañeda is the Co-Founder of Entrepreneurial Action Peru. She is also the Executive Director for Development and part-time professor at the University of the Pacific, as well as a mentor for Startup Weekend and EmprendeAhora. Diana earned her Masters in Social Work at Boston College.
Evan Nisselson
CEO, LDV Labs
Evan Nisselson is an experienced entrepreneur and digital media expert for over 17yrs. He is an angel investor and often mentors at Seedcamp, 500Startups, Mind The Bridge [Italy], NYSeed [NY], and Tetuan Valley [Madrid]. He thrives on building teams and businesses that leverage technology to entertain, increase efficiency, and solve problems. Evan was the Founder, CEO and Chairman of venture backed Digital Railroad providing professional photographers, agencies and image buyers a web services platform and marketplace. At it's peak, the company reached thousands of premier international clients, over 10 million professional photos and with ~$3M of recurring revenue.
Glen Hellman
Cheif Entrepreneuriator, Driven Forward, LLC
Glen Hellman writes for Tech Cocktail and on his own blog Forward Thinking. You can learn more about Glen on Driven Forward's Website. He is a Global 100 Mentor at the Founder Institute, a Board Member at the University of Maryland, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, Vistage Chair and former Vistage Rookie of the Year. He's a partner in the Angel Investment Firm of Stardust Venture Partners which invests in DC area B2B startups including Founder Institute Graduate, HugeFan.
Juan Carlos Güímac
Director, Editora Central SAC
Juan Carlos got his MBA at TEC de Monterrey with a concentration on Strategy and Entrepreneurial Policy. He is an Industrial Engineer from the University of Lima. After many years of experience on the workforce he decided to start his own ventures. On the tech world he is know for his expertise on developing value propositions for Startups. He is currently the Director of Editora Central SAC.
Ludmila Volodina
MBA, MsC, SYSTEM ENGINEER, UNIVERSIDAD DE LIMA
Master en Administración de Negocios (MBA) Magna Cum Laude, Escuela de Postgrado de la Universidad de Lima. Master of Science in Engineering e Ingeniero de Sistemas, Universidad Politécnica de Donetsk (Ucrania). Profesora principal en la Facultad de Ingeniería de Sistemas de la Universidad de Lima. Directora de la Maestría en Administración de Negocios y Tecnologías de Información (MBA IT) de la Escuela de Postgrado de la Universidad de Lima.
Rolando Cruzado
President & Founder, PDMA Peru
Rolando Cruzado is Dr. and Founder at the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) in Peru; Knowledge Management Coord. at PwC and Dr. at the "International Startups Meeting Peru" on behalf of the Global AIESEC Alumni Network. Main interests focus on accelerating startup development and shareholder value through Latinamerica. Has Master Studies in Arts of Innovation and Change in England, Switzerland, Mexico and Peru.
Vanesa Kolodziej
General Partner, Nazca Ventures
Vanesa Kolodziej is a Managing Parter at Nazca Ventures and Founder of Fundadoras.org. She is also the Co-founder of Palermo Valley, co-organizer of Start-Up Weekend BA, and GOAP Argentina. Start-Up World advisor and 500 Start-Ups mentor. Four time entrepreneur with Venture Capital experience. An entrepreneur with relevant experience in the Technology, Internet and Venture Capital/ Seed Investment sector.
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.
