Program Schedule

Understanding the significance of addressing internal struggles is crucial for entrepreneurs striving for success. Join us for an enlightening webinar where Jonathan Greechan and Alex Raymond will uncover practical strategies to overcome common obstacles such as burnout, impostor syndrome, and self-imposed limitations. Gain invaluable insights on maintaining balance and mindfulness amidst the journey of entrepreneurship, ensuring sustainable growth aligned with your core values. Don't miss out on this opportunity to equip yourself with the tools needed to conquer your inner demons while fostering professional success.

This is where it all begins. During the Accelerator Kickoff you will meet the Local Leaders and fellow Founders in your cohort, and learn about local partners.

Sprints

During the Accelerator Kickoff, your cohort will be split up into the "Validate Track", “Launch Track”, or “Growth Track”, depending on the stage your business. The "Validate Track" helps the earliest-stage founders validate an idea and build a team; the "Launch Track" focuses earlier Founders and teams on launching and getting initial traction; while the "Traction Track" focuses teams with a live product and customers on traction and funding. 

The below deliverables are in addition to any custom "Epic Sprints" you may receive based on your specific challenges, and below is a small sample of the deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Launch Track Deliverables

1. Progress - Outline your business ideas and any testing or progress made to date. 
2. Hotseat Pitch - Prepare a one minute verbal pitch for the weekly “Founder Hotseat”, where you present to Mentors during the Feedback Sessions. Start with our one-sentence pitch template, and if you do not have a final idea yet, describe yourself and a field that you are passionate about and uniquely qualified to build a business around.
3. Co-Founders - If you are looking for a Co-Founder, create a basic description of what you are looking for, and this will be shared with the rest of your cohort.

Growth Track Deliverables

1. Program Goals - Outline the monthly objectives your team wants to achieve during the four month Core Program.
2. Key Performance Indicators - Outline the KPIs that you are currently using to track success. Analyze the validity of these metrics, and create a plan to share updated metrics and progress with your Local Leaders every week in the program.
3. Hotseat Pitch - Prepare a one minute verbal pitch for the weekly “Founder Hotseat”, where you present to Mentors during the Feedback Sessions. Start with our one-sentence pitch template, followed by why your team is uniquely qualified to execute your business and the progress that you’ve made to date.

In each weekly Feedback Session, Founders will pitch and outline their progress to the Mentors for feedback, and get tips and insights on the week's topic. This week you'll get tips on how to develop a strong vision for your business.  

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Launch Track Deliverables

1. Ideation - Catalogue the ideas that you are interested in pursuing, or examine different variations of the current business you are pursuing.
2. Initial Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 15 people that have knowledge of the customer problems or may be potential customers themselves.
3. Market Research - Utilize our market research template to collect accurate and available market information on the customer problems you are analyzing. 

Growth Track Deliverables

1. Customer Interviews - Using our templates, interview at least 15 customers. If you already have done extensive customer development then outline your current findings and identify areas that require deeper understanding.
2. Identify Unknowns - Document a detailed understanding of the main customer problem, and fill any required gaps in your customer knowledge. 
3. Visioneering - Describe what your business will look like when it has $100 million in annual revenues, including the vision, culture, and main revenue stream, and outline at least 5 steps that need to happen for your company to reach that goal.

Discover how to boost your B2B sales using LinkedIn! Join us to learn about social selling – using platforms like LinkedIn to build Professional relationships and make sales. Whether you're already a startup founder or just getting started, this event will equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to drive meaningful results. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your B2B sales strategy to the next level, and network with like-minded individuals!

Join us for an exclusive event where we break down the secrets to successful fundraising using simple, actionable marketing tactics. Learn how to engage investors, amplify your message, and achieve real results for your startup. Whether you're a startup founder or you're in the ideation stage, this event is your ticket to fundraising success, and at the end, you are also invited to engage in a networking session with other founders with similar experiences to yours.

In this Feedback Session, Founders will present any customer development progress to the Mentors to examine if they are pursuing a scalable business with a clear and actionable customer problem. The Mentors will also provide tips on how to validate your key assumptions, interview potential customers effectively, and best interpret the feedback you receive.

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Launch Track Deliverables

1. Customer Interviews - Develop a longer series of customer interview questions based on your initial interviews and key assumptions, with at least ten open-ended customer interview questions for each customer problem.
2. Customer Archetype - Use our guidelines to develop or improve an initial customer archetype for your ideal target customer.
3. Landing Pages - For each remaining customer problem, develop or improve a professional landing page targeted to your initial customer archetype, and quickly build up a mailing list to receive customer feedback.

Growth Track Deliverables

1. Customer Archetype - Use our guidelines to create or update a detailed customer archetype of your target customer, based on either your existing customers or improved research.
2. Revenue Interviews - Interview customers about the pricing of your revenue model, using three different revenue models/ pricing schemes. Confirm your existing model or select a new one based off these interviews. 
3. Interview Competitor Customers - Identify customers of competing products or solutions and encourage them to switch to your solution, ideally securing a letter of intent (“LOI”), or developing an ongoing relationship for feedback. 

Join us for an exclusive event where you'll learn the insider secrets to crafting an irresistible pitch that captures investors' interests. Led by seasoned storyteller and marketing expert, Thea Sokolowski, this session will dive deep into the art of pitching, offering practical insights and proven strategies to help you stand out in front of potential investors. Whether you're a startup founder or entrepreneur, this event is your gateway to mastering the art of persuasion and securing the investment your venture deserves.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be creative or have a magical 'aha' moment to find a great startup idea. In reality, anyone can come up with innovative business ideas by following a structured process. On this live event, Jonathan Greechan (Co-Founder & CEO of Founder Institute) will share a framework for crafting great startup ideas that he has learned from working with over 10K startups worldwide. Then, attendees will have the opportunity to share their ideas, get feedback from others, and meet aspiring entrepreneurs interested in their space. If you have rough ideas and don't know what to do next, this is the event to attend!

In this Feedback Session, Founders will share their pitch and revenue model with Mentors for feedback and continued refinement. You will also get tips on how to sustain your startup before receiving financing or revenue, identifying the most lucrative revenue source for your business, testing different revenue sources with your target customers, and more. 

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Launch Track Deliverables

1. Customer Problem - Based on your research, select one customer problem to pursue in the program that has the greatest chance to generate significant revenue.
2. Revenue Models - Narrow down that problem to three potential revenue models, and thoroughly analyze the positives and negatives of each model.
3. Professional Pitch Deck - Use our templates to develop a professional three minute long pitch deck, based on the feedback, concepts and flow that have resonated from your Hotseat pitches.

Growth Track Deliverables

1. Expert Interviews - Speak with three financial people who have experience in a similar industry to your customer problem, and get their insights and opinion on the scalability of your revenue model.
2. Key Performance Indicators - Based on your research thus far, identify the final key metrics that will impact your ability to secure revenue (and funding). Discuss these with your Local Leaders, and finalize a tracking system for these metrics. 
3. Product Development - Refactor your plans to prioritize the release of a solution that will generate initial customer revenue and validate your riskiest assumptions.

To launch a great startup, it is critical to get feedback on your ideas from entrepreneurs who have been there and done that. On this live online event, we will gather several startup experts ready to provide feedback for aspiring entrepreneurs. The event will start by providing guidelines to create a compelling elevator pitch, and then attendees will have the opportunity to share your pitch with other entrepreneurs, advisors, and investors at virtual tables for instant feedback. Even if you don't want to share your pitch, you can still join to hear other startup ideas and witness how the experts review a pitch.

During this session, Mentors will provide advice on how to effectively pitch a startup. The goal of this session is for Founders to learn the latest best practices in building a great pitch, and get feedback on the pitches they already have.

This is the first big checkpoint in the program to determine your progress. During the Mentor Idea Review, you will present a longer presentation to a panel of FI Mentors for extensive review. You will receive a rating, as well as feedback on the long-term viability of your offering, revenue model, growth strategy, and more. 

Sprints

After the Mentor Idea Review, Founders receive a larger number of custom "Epic Sprints" with deliverables based on their specific challenges. Below are examples of some of the standard deliverables. 

1. Corporate Materials - Immediately update your 3 minute pitch deck and video based on the Mentor Idea Review feedback, and develop a new and updated Executive Summary using our template.
2. Advisor Candidates - You will create (or fill out) an Advisory Board in the next 5 weeks, so develop a target list of new advisor candidates based off your identified needs and gaps in knowledge/ connections. 
3. Advisor Outreach - Leverage the FI network to get introductions to your targets where necessary, and follow our templated process to make progress on your advisory board.  
4. Sales Follow-up - Continue to work on securing sales or commitments for revenue, growing the rate month over month. For B2B solutions, get as many contracts or letters of intent as possible. For B2C solutions, aggressively increase your revenue (or submitted information indicating they will pay you). Document all lessons learned.
5. Financial Model - Develop or professionalize your financial model based on our template that focuses on expenses (“burn”) to understand your cash needs. Develop a revenue forecast for 12-18 months and factor in timing considerations from your sales follow-up work.
6. Legal - Identify your short to medium term legal needs, and if you don’t already have a law firm, identify at least two local law candidates that have experience working with startups. Begin vetting new or existing law firms using our guidelines. 

If you are currently raising funding for your startup, or are looking to raise funding in the future, then join this online 'Ask me Anything' (AMA) event featuring Tahira Dosani (Co-founder and Managing Partner of ResilienceVC). Learn how startup funding works, how investors evaluate pitches, the types of founders investors are looking for, and more. Anyone interested in raising funding from Silicon Valley angel investors or venture capitalists are welcome to attend. Come with your questions; our investors will be ready to answer them!

The Founder Showcase is Silicon Valley's leading international startup pitch event, helping pre-seed startups learn, launch, and connect to investors. At this interactive online event, you can watch the pitches of promising pre-seed startups from across the globe. We'll also feature an inspiring keynote presentation. Stay after the pitches to network and connect with the hundreds of international founders, investors, advisors, and executives in attendance.

In this Feedback Session, startup lawyers and CEOs will explain various legal agreements, startup legal components (such as equity), cap tables, how to protect intellectual property, the best practices for managing a law firm, and more. As usual, Mentors will also provide Founders with ratings and feedback on their startup pitch and progress.

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

1. Legal Review - Review our Legal Guide to fully understand all critical startup legal components, including granting equity, vesting equity, granting options, issuing common stock versus preferred stock, and more. If any of your existing legal structure is in conflict with these best practices, then create a plan for resolution. 
2. Capitalization Table - Develop or improve your capitalization table (“Cap Table”) that shows the ownership structure of the business, using our template and guidelines.
3. Finalize Co-Founder Legal (if any) - Create a list of any co-founders, co-founder candidates or founding Team Members that you have for your Founder Institute company, and begin the next steps in formalizing the relationship.
4. Law Firm Engagement - If you don’t already have a law firm, meet with your law firm candidates and sign an “engagement letter” with your chosen firm. 
5. Corporate Formation Agreements - If you don’t already have a suitable corporation, secure all of your corporate formation agreements which govern how the business conducts itself.
6. Equity Collective - Prepare to join the Equity Collective, and send your law firm the necessary agreements and request their help to properly fill out the required fields.

Join Ryan Micheletti, Head of Operations at FI, to learn more about the next phase of your journey with Founder Institute as a FI Alumni. Learn about Funding Lab, the FI Venture Network, and Alumni Success best practices, followed by Q/A. This is an interactive open Zoom Room session.

Learn the essentials of customer acquisition through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at our event. Join Ali Abbas, an industry expert, as he shares practical strategies and demonstrations for leveraging SEO to attract your initial customer base effectively. Gain actionable insights to craft a winning SEO strategy tailored to your business goals and drive sustainable growth.

In this Feedback Session, Mentors will provide Founders with feedback on their current go-to-market plans and progress, and cover topics like marketing messaging, unit ecomomics, customer acquisition, and more.   

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

1. Alternatives - Identify two alternative models (markets or “pivots”) for your go-to-market solution to discover the most lucrative market opportunity. Interview at least 2 customers for each alternative.
2. Advisor Follow-Up - In the next Step you will finalize advisors, so begin finalization meetings with your top candidates, and set up test Advisor Test Projects where necessary following our templates.
3. Test Marketing Messaging - Write at least three separate marketing messages for your solution, and A/B test them using landing pages with at least 100 engagements each. 
4. Customer Acquisition Channels - Identify at least five initial or new major marketing channels to acquire customers that are appropriate for your solution.
5. Conversion Rate - Begin testing at least three of your new customer acquisition channels, pushing as much traffic through them as possible to evaluate their comparative conversion rates. 
6. Unit Economics - Research any data on the standard Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) and standard Lifetime Value (LTV) for your industry and segment, and compare and analyze against the metrics you have collected thus far. 

Building a great Co-Founder team is one of the most difficult yet important steps in founding a startup. While many founders may start alone, there are multiple benefits of having a Co-Founder, and taking the time to establish a quality team can mean the difference between failure and success. Join us for this fun and interactive event where you will learn best practices for building and formalizing a Co-Founder relationship. In addition, you will have the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs who are looking for a Co-Founder at virtual tables and speed networking sessions.

In this Feedback Sesison, Mentors will provide Founders with feedback on their current product, and/or product roadmap. Expert in product development will also discuss best practices in product management, roadmapping, managing product teams, and more.

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

1. Intellectual Property - If you have not already, secure and protect the intellectual property for all of the work done to date. Examine the need for patents, if applicable, following our guidelines. 
2. Solution Goals - Evaluate the current state of your solution, and outline the three solution goals that you would like the next product release to solve for your target customers over the next year.
3. Project Team - If you have not already, organize the skills and roles needed to execute on your solution goals, whether using existing team members or supplementing through hiring or outsourcing. 
4. Product Roadmap - Develop a first or updated product roadmap, using our guidelines, in order to meet your solution goals with your project team.
5. Project Plan - Fine tune the schedule of releases in your product roadmap to be as simple as possible to each test one hypothesis of the business, using our guidelines.
6. Hotseat Pitch - Prepare a five minute presentation for the Mentor Progress Review that includes sufficient information to enable Mentors to evaluate your progress and plans.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be creative or have a magical 'aha' moment to find a great startup idea. In reality, anyone can come up with innovative business ideas by following a structured process. On this live event, Jonathan Greechan (Co-Founder & CEO of Founder Institute) will share a framework for crafting great startup ideas that he has learned from working with over 10K startups worldwide. Then, attendees will have the opportunity to share their ideas, get feedback from others, and meet aspiring entrepreneurs interested in their space. If you have rough ideas and don't know what to do next, this is the event to attend!

Join us to discover how open innovation bridges the gap between startups and corporates. We'll explore global challenges and spotlight two major initiatives: the GAEA program, aimed at driving energy autonomy innovations in Europe, and the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator, which fosters digital transformation partnerships. Learn how these initiatives empower innovators and idea holders to refine their concepts, navigate the entrepreneurial landscape, and unlock new funding opportunities for corporate collaboration and growth.

Similar to the Mentor Idea Review, the Mentor Progress Review is the second major test in the program. In this session, Founders will focus on give a long presentation their progress and traction to a panel of Mentors for a detailed review. Mentors will evaluate Founders based on their progress in the program, the company’s scalability, and more.

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours: 

1. Polished Investor Pitch Deck - Create an expanded, 12-slide pitch deck incorporating any feedback from the Mentor Progress Review, using our templates. 
2. Growth - Make progress on your growth goals, and examine or adjust how your strategy and the system to keep yourself accountable is performing.
3. Product - Make progress on your next product release, and outline and address any of the setbacks that you have faced with your project team.
4. Hiring Needs - Score the progress of each member of your project team on a 1 to 10 scale, including yourself, and set up plans to improve those that are struggling. 
5. Finalize Advisory Board - Set up your advisory board with startup, industry, technology or marketing advisors, and set up a one hour conference call with all of the them, which will be your first quarterly advisory board meeting.
6. Financial Model Update - Review and update your financial model with the work done to date. Adjust the revenue projections based on your growth thus far, and evaluate the need and requirements for external funding. 

Every startup's success hinges on a well-crafted go-to-market strategy. At this live online event, we unlock the secrets to defining and reaching your target market effectively. You'll gain insights into identifying your ideal customer, crafting a value proposition that resonates, and deploying marketing tactics that convert. If you're determined to accelerate your startup's journey from concept to market leader, this event is your stepping stone.

In this Feedback Session, Founders will receive feedback from Mentors on their team plans and product progress. In addition, Mentors will discuss how to identify the roles needed to build a world-class company, how to develop a strategy to recruit, onboard and retain the best people, and more. 

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours: 

1. Candidates - Search for candidates to hire (including Co-Founders) by identifying everyone that you know who is appropriate, or leveraging the FI network, to fill the top two or three roles you are not planning to outsource.
2. Hiring Process - Develop a hiring and onboarding process using our guidelines to add team members into your organization, and begin executing on the process.
3. Test Projects - Develop at least one test project for each of your top two or three roles, which should create opportunities for credible candidates to demonstrate their skills.
4. Advisor Review - Arrange a meeting or phone call with at least one of your advisors to discuss your hiring work. Present everything that you have done, and incorporate their feedback into your planning.
5. Time Allocation - Meticulously outline your “founder’s schedule” by allocating weekly blocks of time to address your core business activities, providing you with uninterrupted time to work on each activity.
6. (Optional) Fundraising - If you don’t have sufficient capital to run the company for the next few months, then follow our guides to start a preparing documentation and research for a funding round.  

Do you want to start your own technology company, but don't know where to begin? You are not alone. Every day millions of people go to jobs they don't enjoy, but few do something about it. At the "Employee to Entrepreneur" event, you can hear the stories, tips, and best practices of those who left their jobs to pursue their own startup company. Listen to the experiences of people just like you that have made the transition, and discuss any questions or concerns that you have. Afterwards, attendees will have an opportunity to network with other aspiring entrepreneurs and share their ideas for feedback.

Have you ever thought about starting your own business? There's never been a better time! But with so many people jumping into the startup scene, it's getting harder to grab investors' attention and get customers interested. That's where we come in. Join our event to learn simple yet powerful ways to make your startup stand out. We'll talk about what catches an investor's eye, common early mistakes to dodge, and what you should do before even thinking about creating your product. After the talk, stick around for a networking session with other startup founders just like you. Get ready to make your startup more appealing, step by step.

In this session, Mentors will provide Founders with feedback on their current growth, metrics, and strategy. Mentors will discuss various growth tactics, setting growth goals and milestones, communicating your startup’s growth progress and setbacks with stakeholders and advisors, and more. 

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 assignments you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

1. Growth Plan Update - Review the performance of your growth goals and adjust your growth plan to improve your performance and accountability.
2. Sales - Pursue aggressive goals to close new revenue or users, which may be signups, payments, a signed contract, a pre-payment or a signed letter of intent.
3. Growth Tactics - Work with your working group and advisors to brainstorm 15 new ideas to increase the top of your funnel, and provide a bulleted list of these Growth Tactics.
4. Pivot - Consider a pivot if you are not meeting your growth goals, sales, product or hiring progress targets. If you decide to Pivot, schedule a call with one of your Local Leaders to discuss your proposed pivot in the business and do the same with your advisors.
5. Hiring Channels - Review all of the candidates that have come through the various recruiting outreach channels and other activities, and identify the most effective channels.
6. Post-Program Onboarding - Review FI's post-program resources, and work with your cohort on a monthly meeting schedule where you will continue to meet, provide updates, and share learnings on your progress. 

To launch a great startup, it is critical to get feedback on your ideas from entrepreneurs who have been there and done that. First, you'll learn the best practices for creating a concise and compelling elevator pitch. Then, you will have the opportunity to share your pitch with other entrepreneurs, advisors, and investors at virtual tables for instant feedback. Even if you don't want to share your pitch, you can still join to hear other startup ideas and witness how the experts review a pitch.

In this session, Mentors will analyze Founder pitches from the perspective of an investor, identifying any remaining issues or areas for improvement. Mentors will also cover numerous topics related to fundraising, including different fundraising options, how to raise funding, and more. 

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

1. Minimum Victory Condition - Work with your Local Leaders to establish your “Victory Condition” to achieve before the “Impact Deadline” (three months after the program ends), and add it to your business calendar.
2. Advisor Strategy - Set up a call with each of your advisors and briefly review your “Victory Condition”, the funding strategy, hiring plan, sales plan and product plan.
3. Use of Proceeds - Examine the capital needs of the business, and extend your financial model to project revenues and expenses for a total of 24 months from now.
4. Final Investor Pitch Deck - Refine your investor pitch deck, and update it with all of your work to date, including details from your various plans. Test the presentation on peers and Directors and upload it to the FI site for review. 
5. Deal Room - Create a Deal Room for future investors that includes relevant files like 'Company' documents with legal, 'Pitch Deck', 'Team' bios, 'Board Materials,' 'Financials,' 'Sales' information, 'Marketing' materials and 'Intellectual Property.'
6. Target List - Identify local Angel Investors and Seed Accelerators, ignoring Venture Capitalists and Seed Funds. The Target List should include at least 100 local angels, 25 regional and 50 global seed accelerators, using our guidelines.