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 Paris Founder Institute, including many from out of town. See the full list below.
Alain Meller
Founder, NovaXone
Alain Meller has been the CEO of Kalabie, a software vendor selling to the Pharma Industry and was acquired by Agilent Technologies Inc. in 2007. Before that he cofounded Convergent Capital a VC fund investing in France and Israel, was Managing Director for E-business at NCR-AT&T and was part of the initial team as well as member of the management board of ILOG where he led one of the major product then was instrumental in the industrialization of the company. He is currently founder of NovaXone a Management Consulting firm with a particular focus on Marketing Strategy: his clients are companies of all sizes using technology as a core asset of their offers in various sectors: IT and Internet pure players, B2B providers in Energy, Healthcare, Hospitality and Telecom. Alain is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Ph.D. in Computer Science from Paris Orsay University and has obtained degrees in Business Administration from Institut Français de Gestion and Essec Paris.
Alain Baritault
Co-Founder, Cités Numériques
Alain has opened the Paris Founder Institute in France early 2010. Prior to Paris FI, he worked as a journalist based in Silicon Valley reporting on technology for more than 22 years. Alain has also been co-founder and Editor in Chief of Cités Numériques, a technology magazine for cities, regions and government in France and is now founder and editor in Chief of Collectiv-IT.fr. Previoulsy, he has been editor in chief and US correspondent for major French magazines and newspapers as Decision Informatique, 01 Informatique, SVM, La Tribune and PC Expert. He has been an advisor for many foreign companies looking for Investors, Partners and Customers in the US.
Alex Berger
Founder & President , ENTJOY SAS, THE OLIGARCHS PRODUCTIONS sarl, MM&I
Alex Berger est un producteur, concepteur, consultant et entrepreneur dans le domaine des médias et de la stratégie des projets et entreprises. Au cours de sa vie professionnelle, il a créé ou participé à de nombreux programmes (Rapido, Burger Quizz…), inventé le portail multi-accès (Vizzavi), fondé ou accéléré la croissance de plusieurs entreprises (NBdC, Chez Wam…) et a occupé de nombreux postes à responsabilité, notamment aux côtés de Pierre Lescure chez Canal+ ou encore comme patron de CanalNumédia ou VivendiNet (Groupe Vivendi-Universal). Aujourd'hui il est conseiller en stratégie et innovation au sein de MM&I, syndicateur de contenus par ENTJOY et concepteur/producteur de fictions dans THE OLIGARCHS PRODUCTIONS.
Alexandre Steiner
Managing Partner, OiO Ventures
Alexandre Steiner est le fondateur et Managing Partner d’OiO Ventures dont l’activité consiste à bâtir des portefeuilles de participations minoritaires dans des entreprises innovantes pour des grands groupes. Auparavant, après des études en France puis aux Etats Unis, il a été pendant 15 ans dans diverses fonctions dans le groupe Capgemini en France, en Belgique, En Suède, au Royaume Uni… du Corporate Development au lancement de nouvelles activités à Vice-Président Portfolio Management Process puis chez Getronics pendant 7 ans, racheté par KPN, Vice-Président du développement des offres de services, puis de l’innovation et de la stratégie B-to-B. Il est intervenu à de nombreuses reprises dans des évènements comme le Gartner Expo ou CIO summit, … et participe à différents programmes d’incubateurs privilégiant son expérience internationale et ses secteurs de prédilections : Numérique, Nouvelles Technologies, Telecom et Media.
Audrey Soussan
Analyst, Ventech
Audrey Soussan joined Ventech in 2011 where she is in charge of the deal-flow IT and manages more particularly the cross-section analysis within the framework of due diligences. She benefits from a first experience in venture capital at DN Capital in London. Audrey is also co-director of Girls in Tech Paris, a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.. She is graduated of Dauphine & ESSEC.
Bernard Lorig
Founders & CEO, Incubeo
Dr Bernard LORIG is founder and Vice President of the business angles association IT angels and founder and President of CEFT (Cub des Entrepreneurs Français des Telecom). He also preside Incubeo, a consulting company for coaching and advisoring of technological entrepreneurs. He has advised the lauching of more than 100 start-up ( 4 are now Public). In the past he has been the founder of the France telecom group spin off process. He is graduated from Telecom Paris and hold a PH.D. in physics.
Bruno Levy
Président, Value Logic
Bruno a été l'un des cofondateurs de Smart-Trade (éditeur de logiciel leader dans le domaine de la gestion des liquidités sur les marchés de change), a cofondé et dirigé Hypermind (éditeur de cd-rom de vulgarisation scientifique vendus à plus de 200 000 exemplaires), a lancé dans le monde entier l'un des logiciel phare de l’intelligence artificiel (ILOG SOLVER) et a été président de Sobésol une société familiale qu'il a repris dans une situation de crise. Il dirige Value Logic un cabinet de conseil en stratégie qu'il a cree pour aider des grands groupes européens à aligner leur stratégie de croissance par l’innovation avec les besoins de leur(s) marché(s). Il est un des deux directeurs du Paris Founder Institute où il utilise son expertise pour aider les founders à construire leur projet de startup à partir d'une formulation précise des raisons pour lesquelles leurs futurs clients achèteront leur (future) solution. Bruno est ingénieur de l’école polytechnique et à reçu un bourse Monbusho pour étudier la robotique à l’université de Tokyo. Il a également accompli un Master en Electrical Engineering et un MBA à l’université de Carnegie Melon.
Cedric Giorgi
Co-Founder & CEO, Cookening
Cédric Giorgi is the co-founder and CEO of Cookening, a new social travel platform dedicated to Food experiences. Previous to that Cédric was Director Europe for Seesmic and Marketing Director for Scoop.it as well as Techcrunch France co-editor. Beside Cookening, Cédric is also part of the organization of the LeWeb conference, and acts regularly as advisor for startups in Paris.
Edouard Morhange
CEO, MonsieurCinema.com
Edouard Morhange is an entrepreneur in the digital and commnication domains. He was the founder in 1998 of MonsieurCinema.com, the French equivalent of IMDB, cofounded with M. Pierre Tchernia and sold to LibertySurf Group in May 2000. Then he founded Nouveau Jour, a leading BTL communication agency on the French market, sold in 2007 to QobliQ Ltd, a communication and sponsorship group backed by AIM-listed fund Ingenious Media Active Capital Limited. As a Jamie Oliver Food Revolution ambassador in France, Edouard Morhange is commited in raising awareness and inspiring people to reconnect with food to make a lasting, positive impact on their lives.
Eric Moret
Technologist, Palo Alto Networks
Eric is a seasoned manager and technologist in the networking security industry currently working at Palo Alto Networks. Through a series of acquisitions from Infosolv (4 employees), Onesecure Inc. (150 employees) and Netscreen Technologies (900 employees) to Juniper Networks (5800 employees), he spent the past 12 years in Silicon Valley where he lived the ups and downs of the American technology revolution. He is a US patent holder, the co-author of O'Reilly's "Security Power Tools" book and a Master's degree graduate of Epita.
Florence Servan Schreiber
Directrice Générale Optimiste, Essentia Conseils
Formée à la psychologie transpersonnelle en Californie, Florence Servan-Schreiber est diplômée de JFK University en 1986. Elle a été parmi les premiers à enseigner la programmation neuro-linguistique en France dans les années 1980. Elle a depuis été consultante en entreprise spécialisée dans la qualité du service et des relations humaines. Elle a été l'animatrice d'une chronique dans Psychologies, un moment pour soi sur France 5 en 2004 et 2005, la déclinaison télévisuelle de Psychologies magazine, dont elle s'est occupée de décliner les sites web.
Laurent Vieille
VP Products, Jade-i
Laurent Vieille is a co-founder of Jade-i, which enables retailers to drive their business based on customer satisfaction collected at paiement time. In the smart card industry (Schlumberger, Gemalto), Laurent focused on strategic marketing and drove the growth of a Business Unit for network security. Prior to that, he developed an Artificial Intelligence/Database technology and co-founded Next Century Media Inc. Laurent holds a PhD in Computer Science and graduated from Ecole Polytechnique. He is passionate about the adequacy of product to customer needs and about lean management.
Marcos Polanco
COO, iCare Medical
Mr. Polanco is currently Chief Operating Officer of medical device startup iCare Medical; he started his career in Silicon Valley performing database research at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories that resulted in the TimesTen technology later acquired by Oracle. Mr. Polanco went on to various technical & managerial roles at Silicon Valley startups before co-founding Imana, Inc. in 1995 to commercialize social search algorithms he co-invented and patented. Returning to his hometown, he led the establishment of an undergraduate software laboratory at Interamerican University in Puerto Rico which released the open source SNAP Platform for Java developers. Subsequently, he joined the Government of Puerto Rico as Founding Director of its information technology investment promotion division. In that role, Mr. Polanco negotiated the launch of Microsoft, Honeywell Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, and HCL Axon technology centers on the island. Returning to private industry, he has cultivated the startup community as co-organizer of Startup Weekends, co-director of the Founder Institute and principal at innovation consultancy Clearshore. Mr. Polanco holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University.
Marine Huber
Analyst, Omnes Capital (Prev Credit Agricole Private Equity)
Marine Huber joined the VC team of Omnes Capital (ex-CAPE) in 2010. She is involved in sourcing new deals, in managing and analysing IT deal flow and in the follow up of portfolio companies. she has a first experience in advisory at Bionest Partners and also worked for the renewable energy team at Credit Agricole Private Equity for a year. Example of previous deals in which Marine was involved : Viavoo (Social CRM), Visiware (Interactive TV and social gaming), TennisPoint (ecommerce), TrustYou (e-reputation management)
Maximilien Oursel 
Associé, Pléiade Venture ( edit )
Maximilien OURSEL, Associé chez Pléiade Venture. De formation universitaire (Dauphine et UPMC), j’investis et j'accompagne les entreprises innovantes en tant qu'investisseur en capital depuis 1999 au sein de la structure Seeft/Pléiade Venture.
Nicolas Roux
CEO, Aspectize
Nicolas is CEO and Co-Founder of Aspectize, a software Company, which's vision is to change the way web business applications and software are built. Passionate by the processus of creating value, especially in software field, Nicolas has been successively independant developper and consultant, manager of R&D team of former Leonard's Logic, and COO of Winwise, a service company specialized in development with Microsoft Technologies. Today, Aspectize has built a faster, simpler and more sustainable way of translating business changes into software applications, that helps entrepreneurs to implement the LeanStartup.
Odile Vaicbourdt
COO, Palico
Odile Vaicbourdt is the COO of Palico, an online marketplace for the private equity fund community. She has 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in distribution, new technologies, e-commerce, e-marketing, and retail distribution. Her specialties include retail and online content distribution, generating new business models, general management, and e-commerce. Odile has previously held positions at Atari, Namco Bandai Partners, Boonty, Difintel SA, and Play Up.
Philippe Beauregard
Managing Partner, Brunswick Law Firm
Philippe Beauregard's areas of practice include venture capital, private equity and M&A. In the past 12 years, his main focus has been on the representation of start-ups — or investors — at all stages of their development in a wide variety of industries (life sciences, energy, software, mobile/telecom and the internet). He is the head of Brunswick corporate department, a french independent business law firm operating also in the field of IP, IPOs, insolvency, business disputes, tax and labour law
Pierre-Antoine Durgeat
Product Manager, Novacodex
Pierre-Antoine is advising companies through his consulting firm NovaCodex, building on his startup experience and his lean product development approach to ensure efficient design and implementation of technological projects. Prior to Novacodex, Pierre-Antoine has created and operated several large internet services, both as CTO and as founder (dismoiou, Boonty, Mappy, SNV). Pierre-Antoine graduated from Supélec in 1998 with Master's degree in Engineering.
Sebastien Sacard
Directeur Produit Web
Après avoir été Responsable Technique chez Kelkoo puis Chef de Produit Senior chez Yahoo! pendant 7 ans, Sébastien a été Directeur Produit chez Drimki, puis Directeur Technique chez Myfab. Il a ensuite été co-fondateur de la Startup Advertory en tant que Directeur Technique & Produit. Depuis 5 ans il accompagne des startups et des PME à mettre en place une organisation produit (vision, stratégie, développement) afin de livrer plus rapidement des produits répondants à la demande de leurs clients. Sébastien anime également des ateliers sur la gestion de projet Agile, et travaille actuellement à la mise en place d'un media en ligne sur la Vision Produit.
Stéphane Dieutre
Consultant et coach
Stéphane Dieutre a été le fondateur de l'Agence Verte (première agence de communication spécialisée sur l' environnement) et du cabinet de conseil et d'études Think-Out. Il est maintenant Business coach, accompagne des entrepreneurs ou des équipes dans des temps de création, de transformation ou d'innovation. Il les aide à identifier leur vocation et leur offre et à s'appuyer sur leurs forces et talents spécifiques pour réussir leur projet (methodologie : appreciative inquiry). La première partie de son parcours professionnel a été consacrée au marketing, à l'innovation et au management de marque au sein de grandes agences de communication. Il a une forte experience dans le lancement de nouvelles marques et a travaillé avec de nombreuses start up. Stéphane Dieutre est diplomé de l'ESSEC. Il est formé au coaching par Jean Daniel Remond ainsi qu'à l'analyse psycho-organique. Il enseigne au Celsa sur le thème de l'innovation.
Sylvain Poisson
relations institutions et écosystèmes, SOGEDEV ( edit )
Litteraire de formation, et après avoir exercé des fonctions dans les relations internationales ou en marketing/communication institutionnel, je suis depuis 3 ans responsable des relations avec les institutions et écosystèmes chez Sogedev. J'ai aussi été 5 ans entrepreneur ! Sogedev, créé il y a 10 ans, accompagne les stratups et les PME dans leurs demandes de financement publics pour leurs projets innovants ou de R&D, de développement industriels ou immobilier, leur croissance à l'export... Ces aides prennent la forme de crédits d'impôts, d'avances ou subventions, etc. Nous sommes une cinquantaine, servant 700 clients sur toute la France. Mon rôle est à cheval entre le biz'dev, le lobbying et le marketing. Souvent mobilisé pour représenter et présenter nos métiers, diffuser des bonnes pratiques, ou comme jury, etc., j'ai une excellente connaissances des problématiques de financements en amorçage.
Thibauld Favre
CEO, AllMyApps
Thibauld Favre's Summary Entrepreneur in the Internet and Open Source industries with relevant sales, financial and technical knowledge and experience. Thibauld Favre's Experience CEO allmyapps Internet industry November 2008 – Present (2 years 10 months) 1 click is all it takes for users to fully customize their desktop with apps, themes, wallpapers... thanks to allmyapps auto-installable Packs.
Tyler Crowley
Founder & CEO, Skweal
Tyler is currently the Founder & CEO of Skweal, Producer of the Open Angel Forum/Launch Conference, and Director of Corporate Development and Strategy at Mahalo. Some of his past experience includes working as a producer for Open Angel Forum/Launch Conference, TechCrunch50, and ThisWeekIn. He is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego in Interdisciplinary Studies in Computers and the Arts, and graduated Summa Cum Laude.
Yann Lechelle
Co-founder, APPSFIRE
Yann Lechelle is a Paris-based entrepreneur with deep knowledge in software architecture, development and usage both in highly sophisticated fields (trading software in Wall Street or cartoon animation in Hollywood) or in scalable web platforms. He founded ETHERYL in 2001, a pioneer SaaS provider of networking and collaborative solutions for academic, association and enterprise markets. In 2009, he co-founded KickYourApp, a mobile app agency with a special focus on major consumer brands. In 2010, he co-founded Appsfire, a smartphone app discovery & promotion platform with global reach. Appsfire raised €2.5M from IDInvest Partners in April 2011 to pursue its global development. Yann holds a BS in Computer Science summa cum laude from the American University of Paris and an MBA from INSEAD.
Yves Peynaud
Consultant, YP Consulting
Yves Peynaud is a seasoned consultant helping entrepreneurs to step from innovative vision to market success. Yves has 25 years of expertise in Strategic Marketing, Product Marketing and International Business Development of innovative companies. Yves has developed over years a strong expertise and efficient methodology in new business planning and development, proven over a wide range of business models and industries, including: Internet, Software and Hardware design, Consumer Electronics, Telecommunications, Robotics and others. So far, he has successfully accompanied 80+ companies in their market positioning, product marketing, goto market strategy, business planning and fund raising.
