Jim Franklin is the Co-Director of the Denver Founder Institute. He's also the CEO of SendGrid (a TechStars alum), and a Mentor for TechStars as well. TechStars is a great program, and below is an excert from Jim's recent post on Brad Feld's blog about how each program is different;
"The key difference I see between the two programs is the overall goal: at TechStars your team will be in Boulder full-time and demo your work at Investor Day. All TechStars participants form an operating company by the end of the program. With the Founder Institute you will get an education on what it means to be a founder from others who have been there and done that. Most of the participants are operating a new company by the end, or shortly thereafter, but some just keep working their day job until the moment is right for them.
In addition to TechStars, we have many resources for entrepreneurs in Colorado, and all of them have their differentiating points. Here’s what I see as unique aspects of the Founder Institute:
- You can keep you day job.
- You don’t have to relocate to Boulder.
- If you graduate you contribute 3.5 percent of your company to a pool that is owned by you and the other graduates and mentors from your class. You are quite literally invested in the success of your peers.
- The mentors are exclusively experienced CEOs and founders – no service providers.
If you are ready to commit 15 hours a week for 14 weeks to get your next business ready to launch, I look forward to helping you do more, faster (although, not too fast!) And whether or not you launch your business, you will be a much better-informed founder when the time is right."
A special thanks to Brad Feld for letting Jim guest post on his blog. You can read the full article on Feld.com here.
