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Tokyo Spring 2016

Program Schedule

Our flagship 'FI Agentic' program combines structured sprints with constant feedback to help you reach the milestones needed for investment and growth.

2月 14

Early Application Deadline

4月 10

Final Application Deadline

4月 13 07:00 pm Session 1

オリエンテーション Orientation

起業家になる準備はできましたか? 春学期の仲間の中に、あなたが目指す会社の共同創業者としてふさわしい人がいるかもしれません。それぞれのワーキンググループのリーダーを選びます。また、どのようにしたらこのプログラムを通じて成功を手にいれることができるかを説明します。


Are you ready to be an entrepreneur? How well do you know your peers in the program? Is there someone that might be your Cofounder from the program? Who will lead your Working Group as President? What do you need to know to be successful in the Founder Institute? Which traits do you have that can help you be successful?

Date
4月 13, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Every Founder follows the Agentic Track, an AI-personalized curriculum that adapts each sprint to be more advanced or more basic based on your stage, with AI agents to help complete the work.

The below deliverables are in addition to any custom "Epic Sprints" you may receive based on your specific challenges, and are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. Office Hours - Book your first Office Hours with Local Leaders and Mentors to get guidance on the next steps for your business.
  2. Hotseat Pitch - Prepare a one sentence verbal pitch for the weekly "Founder Hotseat", where you present to Mentors during the Feedback Sessions.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
4月 14 07:00 pm Session 2

Vision and Ideas

Date
4月 14, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. Market Research - Utilize our market research template to collect accurate and available market information on the customer problems you are analyzing.
  2. Personas - Build an initial Buyer Persona to better understand your target customer's needs, challenges, and buying process.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
4月 20 07:00 pm Session 3

Research and Customer Development

Date
4月 20, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  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. Revenue Modeling - 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
4月 27 07:00 pm Session 4

Revenue Models

How do you build a revenue model for your idea? What are viable revenue models to pursue? How do you identify ideal customers for a revenue model? What are some common problems with popular revenue models? Are there tips or tricks with different revenue models? How do you determine revenue drivers in your model? What do you need to know to finish a model? How do you choose between multiple revenue models and multiple ideas? どのように収益を上げますか。あなたに支払いをする人(または会社)を具体的に想定しましょう。収益を妨げそうなものは何でしょうか。別の方法で収益を得る方法も検討し、適切な収益モデルの仮説を立てましょう。

Date
4月 27, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. Revenue Models - Narrow down that problem to three potential revenue models, and thoroughly analyze the positives and negatives of each model.
  2. 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
5月 11 07:00 pm Session 5

Naming and Positioning

How do you develop a good name for your business? How do you position the business with a name? What characteristics make a good name? How do you test different name candidates? What infrastructure do you need when you pick your name? Are there tips to finding a good domain name? What social media platforms should you look to get your name on? How do you develop a logo? Does a name really matter?

Date
5月 11, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
5月 25 07:00 pm Session 6

Mentor Idea Review

Are you pursuing a viable business idea? Can you present the idea in a compelling way? Have you done sufficient research on the idea? Is there a viable market? What about about the business is likely to fail? How can the business be improved? Are you a good fit to build this business over the next three, five and ten years?

Date
5月 25, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

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

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
6月 01 07:00 pm Session 7

Team and Advisors

How do you find the right team to launch your company? How do you identify the right set of advisors? How do you manage your advisors? What are responsibilities and compensation for advisors? How do you identify the right roles to help you launch a product or offering? Do you expect the roles to change over time? How can recruit people to fill roles when you have limited resources? What metrics do you track when recruiting? Do you need a cofounder? What are some common pitfalls with cofounder? Is a team necessary to launch a company?

Date
6月 01, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. Hiring Process - Develop a hiring and onboarding process using our guidelines to add team members into your organization, and begin executing on the process.
  2. 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
6月 08 07:00 pm Session 8

Startup Legal and IP

What does a new Founder need to know about the law to launch a successful startup? How do you pick a law firm to work with? What is the process of setting up a company? How much do you need to know about the law? What agreements do you need to run a company? What are common legal mistakes? How do you handle intellectual property, including confidentiality, copyrights, trademarks and patents? How much does the law actually matter?

Date
6月 08, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
6月 15 07:00 pm Session 9

Product Development

製品のロードマップを作り、そのために必要なものを検討します。時間やコストも見積もりましょう。どうやって進捗管理をするかも決めましょう。製品作りで陥りやすい失敗はなんでしょうか。 How do you plan to build a product or offering from the beginning? What are techniques to build a product roadmap? How do you specify what to build? How do you organize resources to build a product? What are strategies to estimate time and costs? What do you track to measure success? How often do you need to see milestones achieved? What are common mistakes when building product? How do you keep product progress ongoing when you have many competing priorities?

Date
6月 15, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  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. Team Analysis - Define and get extensive feedback on the requisite technical skills, soft skills, expertise, and networks will be needed in your core team.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
6月 22 07:00 pm Session 10

Mentor Progress Review

How do you present the business entering the last few weeks of the program? Is the presentation compelling? Can the business scale? How viable is the financial model? Is the plan to build the business realistic? Is the product or offering planned out well? Can the business generate revenue? What needs to be improved for the business to be successful?

Date
6月 22, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. Polished Investor Pitch Deck - Create an expanded, 12-slide pitch deck incorporating any feedback from the Investor 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
6月 29 07:00 pm Session 11

Sales and Traction

How do you identify and close your very first paying customers? What are best practices to charge these first paying customers? Should you charge more or less in the beginning? How do you develop a sales funnel or conversion funnel? What are some best practices to track leads and sales? How do you hustle leads and close the first sales, whether business licenses or consumer subscriptions? How do you develop a culture of sales and generating revenues in the early days of a new company?

Date
6月 29, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
7月 06 07:00 pm Session 12

Branding and Marketing

Date
7月 06, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
7月 13 07:00 pm Session 13

Bootstrapping and Fundraising

What are the various ways to capitalize your company in the very beginning? How do you ask friends and family for money to support you? What are the advantages and disadvantages of bootstrapping? What do local angel investors require before making an investment? How do you develop a target list of appropriate angel investors? What materials are required to raise angel investment? What milestones should you look to achieve next? How do you set your six month and twelve month objectives in the very beginning? How should you think about selling the business or exiting the business?

Date
7月 13, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT

Sprints

Below are just high-level previews of the 10-15 deliverables you'll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

Deliverables

The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
7月 25 07:00 pm Session 14

Graduation

おめでとうございます。投資家、家族、知人の前でそれぞれプレゼンテーションして、卒業を祝うとともに、事業の推進を決意しましょう。 Most people that enter the program do not make it to Graduation, because the Founder Institute curriculum is very demanding. However, the select few that Graduate have achieved several years of progress on their startup in just a few months. We typically celebrate the Graduating class with a small event attended by family members, mentors, investors, and more. Afterwards, Graduates gain access to the Founder Institute network, tools, and ongoing resources… and the real work of building and growing an enduring company begins!

Date
7月 25, 2016
Time
03:00am PDT
The Agentic Track

Customized to your startup's needs, more advanced or more basic, with AI agents to help you complete the work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Team & Advisors
Fundraising & Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Session 15+

Post Programs

The FI Agentic Program is just the beginning of a life long journey.

Founder Institute Alumni get access to a series of advanced accelerator programs, ongoing support from our Silicon Valley Team, valuable partner and service discounts, and more to continue building the business for years to come.

Continued Support
Continued Support
  • Dedicated Alumni Support Team in Silicon Valley

  • Access to the world's largest network of mentors and investors (40,000+)

  • Private Alumni mailing lists

  • $2.5M+ in partner discounts

  • Invites to FI sessions & network events

  • Potential introductions to investors

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