This is where it all begins. During Orientation, we will review the Founder Institute program structure, curriculum, tools, and requirements in detail. In addition, you will identify mentors that can help you get the most out of the program, meet the other founders in your cohort, and learn more about their ideas and skillsets. Assignments for this session include creating a plan to complete the program, watching recommended Founder Institute training videos, and more.
Date
Aug 02, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Office Hours - Book your first Office Hours with Local Leaders and Mentors to get guidance on the next steps for your business.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Aug 03, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Market Research - Utilize our market research template to collect accurate and available market information on the customer problems you are analyzing.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Aug 09, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Aug 16, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Revenue Models - Narrow down that problem to three potential revenue models, and thoroughly analyze the positives and negatives of each model.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Aug 23, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Aug 30, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
A company cannot be successful without a solid legal and intellectual property foundation. In this session, you will learn all of the key concepts, processes, and requirements unique to building a technology company in your locale. Before the next session, you will then select a law firm, incorporate your company using startup best practices, and develop other key agreements, such as an advisor agreement. In addition, you will take measures to secure the IP you have created to date.
Date
Sep 06, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Sep 13, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Hiring Process - Develop a hiring and onboarding process using our guidelines to add team members into your organization, and begin executing on the process.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Sep 20, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Oct 04, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Polished Investor Pitch Deck - Create an expanded, 12-slide pitch deck incorporating any feedback from the Investor Progress Review, using our templates.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Oct 11, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Oct 18, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
Date
Oct 25, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
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
Nov 04, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Weekly Focus
1. Orientation
2. Vision and Ideas
3. Research and Customer Development
4. Revenue Models
5. Mentor Idea Review
6. Startup Legal and IP
7. Team and Advisors
8. Product Development
9. Mentor Progress Review
10. Sales and Traction
11. Branding and Marketing
12. Bootstrapping and Fundraising
13. Graduation
Sprints
Pitching
Customer Development
Leadership Development
Sales & Customer Acquisition
Product Development
Revenue Modeling
Legal & IP
Branding & Design
Financial Planning
Team & Advisors
Fundraising Prep
Post-Program Onboarding
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
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
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
This is where it all begins. During Orientation, we will review the Founder Institute program structure, curriculum, tools, and requirements in detail. In addition, you will identify mentors that can help you get the most out of the program, meet the other founders in your cohort, and learn more about their ideas and skillsets. Assignments for this session include creating a plan to complete the program, watching recommended Founder Institute training videos, and more.
Date
Aug 02, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Office Hours - Book your first Office Hours with Local Leaders and Mentors to get guidance on the next steps for your business.
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
Aug 0306:30 pmweek 1
Vision and Ideas
Date
Aug 03, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Market Research - Utilize our market research template to collect accurate and available market information on the customer problems you are analyzing.
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
Aug 09
Refund Deadline
Aug 0906:30 pmweek 2
Research and Customer Development
Date
Aug 09, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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
Aug 1606:30 pmweek 3
Revenue Models
Date
Aug 16, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Revenue Models - Narrow down that problem to three potential revenue models, and thoroughly analyze the positives and negatives of each model.
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
Aug 2306:30 pmweek 4
Naming and Positioning
Date
Aug 23, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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
Aug 3006:30 pmweek 5
Mentor Idea Review
Date
Aug 30, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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
Sep 0606:30 pmweek 6
Startup Legal and IP
A company cannot be successful without a solid legal and intellectual property foundation. In this session, you will learn all of the key concepts, processes, and requirements unique to building a technology company in your locale. Before the next session, you will then select a law firm, incorporate your company using startup best practices, and develop other key agreements, such as an advisor agreement. In addition, you will take measures to secure the IP you have created to date.
Date
Sep 06, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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
Sep 1306:30 pmweek 7
Team and Advisors
Date
Sep 13, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Hiring Process - Develop a hiring and onboarding process using our guidelines to add team members into your organization, and begin executing on the process.
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
Sep 2006:30 pmweek 8
Product Development
Date
Sep 20, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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
Oct 0406:30 pmweek 10
Mentor Progress Review
Date
Oct 04, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
Polished Investor Pitch Deck - Create an expanded, 12-slide pitch deck incorporating any feedback from the Investor Progress Review, using our templates.
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
Oct 1106:30 pmweek 11
Sales and Traction
Date
Oct 11, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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
Oct 1806:30 pmweek 12
Branding and Marketing
Date
Oct 18, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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
Oct 2506:30 pmweek 13
Bootstrapping and Fundraising
Date
Oct 25, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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.
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.
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
Nov 0406:30 pmweek 14
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
Nov 04, 2016
Time
04:30pm CDT
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 15+
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
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
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
Quickly preview the program dates or copy them in plain-text format
The Founder Institute is the world’s most proven network to turn ideas into fundable startups, and startups into global businesses. Since 2009, our structured accelerator programs have helped over 9,000 entrepreneurs raise over 2BN in funding. Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 100 countries, our mission is to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful technology companies worldwide.
