Final Call: Silicon Valley AI Program Closes June 23.
Barcelona Fall 2016

Program Schedule

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

oct 30

Early Application Deadline

nov 13

Final Application Deadline

nov 22 06:30 pm week 1

Orientation

Date
nov 22, 2016
Time
08:30am PST

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 powerful free 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
nov 23 06:30 pm week 1

Vision and Ideas

Date
nov 23, 2016
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
nov 29

Refund Deadline

nov 29 06:30 pm week 2

Research and Customer Development

Date
nov 29, 2016
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
dic 07 06:30 pm week 3

Revenue Models

Date
dic 07, 2016
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
dic 13 06:30 pm week 4

Naming and Positioning

Date
dic 13, 2016
Time
08:30am PST
The Agentic Track

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
dic 20 06:30 pm week 5

Mentor Idea Review

Date
dic 20, 2016
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
ene 10 06:30 pm week 8

Startup Legal and IP

Date
ene 10, 2017
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
ene 17 06:30 pm week 9

Team and Advisors

Date
ene 17, 2017
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
ene 24 06:30 pm week 10

Product Development

Date
ene 24, 2017
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
ene 31 06:30 pm week 11

Mentor Progress Review

Date
ene 31, 2017
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
feb 07 06:30 pm week 12

Sales and Traction

If you can’t get customers to use and pay for your product, then nothing else matters. During the session, you will learn how to “hustle” to identify and close your first customers from entrepreneurs that have done it before. Then, you will put everything you have built to the test, by releasing your first product (if you have not already), securing your first (or new) customers, testing different pricing, and more.

Date
feb 07, 2017
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
feb 14 06:30 pm week 13

Branding and Marketing

Date
feb 14, 2017
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
feb 21 06:30 pm week 14

Bootstrapping and Fundraising

Date
feb 21, 2017
Time
08:30am PST

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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building 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

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
mar 07 06:30 pm week 16

Graduation

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
mar 07, 2017
Time
08:30am PST
The Agentic Track

Personalized by AI to your startup's needs — more advanced or more basic — with powerful free AI agents to help you complete the company building work.

Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Team & Advisors
Fundraising & Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
week 17+

Post Programs

The FI Core 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

Structured Post-Programs
Structured Post-Programs
  • A series of virtual advisory programs where you work with our Silicon Valley HQ team to reach next milestones

  • Funding Lab helps get your lead investor within 6 months

  • The FI Venture Network matches Alumni ready for funding with a massive pool of investors that specialize in writing 'first or second checks' of funding

  • Exclusive for FI Alumni

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El Founder Institute es el programa de entrenamiento de emprendedores y de lanzamiento de empresas significativas más grande del mundo, que ayuda a los aspirantes a fundadores en todo el mundo a construir compañías de tecnología duraderas. Basado en Silicon Valley y con sedes en 100 países, el Founder Institute ha ayudado a lanzar más de 9,000 compañías. La misión es "Globalizar a Silicon Valley" y construir ecosistemas sostenibles de empresas significativas que crearán un millón de nuevos puestos de trabajo a nivel mundial.


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