Founder Institute 2010 Planning

The Founder Institute has been operating for one year, and the organization has graduated 112 companies. What does the future hold? How do we improve the offering?

The Institute is planning a gathering of local partners, Mentors and select Founders in mid-May to discuss building a better, stronger and more durable institution.

NEW TOPICS:

• Graduate Achievement Progra...
• More interaction between Fo...
• Improving Funding Success (...

NEW COMMENTS:

• Improving the Curriculum
  
• More interaction between Fo...
  Schedule
• Improving the Curriculum
  

NEW NOTES:

• Accelerating Post-graduate ...
  I created a separate topic ...

What should the role of the Founder Institute be post-graduation? What services should the Institute provide? Should the Institute help accelerate the success of all Founders or of certain select Founders? Should there be an “advanced” session of the Institute for graduates?

In Singapore, a 3-4 month camp to get their product up and launched will be beneficial. There are multiple grants from the government to facilitate this process.
Attaching a mentor to each company for the duration will be beneficial. Mentors can get additional 1-2% of equity for a more hands on advisory role.

I created a separate topic specifically about Funding, but it could also go under this category.

I have registered FounderAngels.com to be a mailing list for angels that will get a first look at new Institute deals. Right now, seed-stage opportunities are hot, and the Institute has a great volume of high-quality deal flow.

Having singapore companies have the chance to pitch overseas in the US at Founder Showcase for e.g. is definitely a plus as the investor pool in Singapore is not as sophisticated as the other regions are.

How might the Founder Institute model change to better compensate the operators of local chapters?Should the Founder Institute charge more to Founders? Should the Institute pursue greater sponsorship?

Can’t afford to do it at this point:
Solution:
• Take mentors hostage and hold them for ransom?
• Focus on national sponsorship vs. regional to avoid diluting the classes with sales pitches
• Figure out the true value proposition for heavy hitter sponsors ( Create a distinct marketing channel with exclusive content and relationships – need to think this one over)

How to improve the admission testing and early screening to eliminate weak Founders from the program.

Getting rid of the weaklings early is critical to the success of the strong founders. People naturally want to accommodate their peers and have a difficult time expressing dissatisfaction with their classmates, unless they have a confidential means to do so. Providing more quality time for the serious candidates will make them even more successful upon graduation.

This is a request we have been getting from the Paris founders. Right now, they don’t have much visibility at all into what other Founders are working on. Also, the open offer for graduates to attend any session anywhere is great but not used as well as it could be.

same here. probably an aggregated page for facilitators to see what other program are working on. there might be interesting things we can pull out from that data. for e.g. partnerships between graduates before they even incorporate. This is happening in Singapore.

It’d be nice to have a schedule of who’s speaking, on what and where.

What is the perfect profile of a Mentor? What should the Institute expect of Mentors? Is leading a session too little? Should mentors be asked to help Founders one on one? Should Mentors be asked to do office hours? Should Mentors be invited to various sessions?

How can the Founder Institute improve the curriculum? What topics may be missing, such as startup basics or leadership? What subjects can be improved? The newest curriculum is below:

Program Orientation and Startup Basics
Vision and Values
Startup Research
Naming and Branding

BREAK: Mentor Idea Review
Revenues, Costs and Profits
Hiring and Cofounders
Startup Legal and Incorporation

BREAK: Mentor Review Pitch Deck
Product and Service Development (Roadmap)
Outsourcing, Partners and Suppliers
Intellectual Property

BREAK: Final Mentor Reviw Pitch & Pitch Deck
Marketing and Sales
Presentation and Publicity
Fundraising

Graduation

I think you could run a competition for companies being founded that may help to qualify the better quality companies. They should submit presentations and business plans to a panel of Mentors for admission to become a select member of this exclusive group.

some sessions can be back to back to speed up certain areas of the program, it is also beneficial for mentors who can do back to back sessions in a 4-5 days.

also – an easy to use feedback panel/dashboard for mentors to give their quick rating/comment on the top few selected companies. this way founders get more feedback early, and throughout the program

Jeffrey, I like that feedback panel/dashboard idea.

The goal is to help launch 1,000 companies per year. The Institute currently operates in 9 cities with a goal to operate in 15 cities by the end of 2010. How do we get from 112 companies in the first year of operation to 1,000? Where should the Institute consider expanding? What should the Institute look for in a local partner?

It would be interesting to explore an affiliate program, whereby existing Local Facilitators can help the Founder Institute identify leads for new Local Facilitators. There could be some small incentive for the existing LFs (like a small piece of the warrant pool from the new Institute programs).

The top markets in Asia will be Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, HK, Taipei, Sydney. I know people who are keen to facilitate over there.
Additionally, Jordan and Dubai are also good places.

What service should the Founder Institute look to insource? What services should the Founder Institute have as partners?

We have discussed tinkering with the Graduate format to create a special class of graduates, but it is time we formalize it.

The biggest benefit I see is from the Service Provider Partner angle. I just spoke to Rackspace, and they’re willing to give the top 3 graduates from each semester 1 year of free cloud hosting (plus a smaller discount to everyone else). I am certain that I can get other deals like this with new and existing partners, because their biggest reservation in giving us great deals is the high volume of companies (some not that high quality) that may come in as we expand. This way, they can create a two-tiered offer.

In addition, this is another carrot to get the founders to work really hard in the program (top founders get access to even greater deals).

Here’s what I propose (and I think I read this was done somewhat already in NYC);

- At the end of each program, the graduates anonymously vote for the founder/company they feel (1) put the most into the program, and (2) is best aligned to receive funding/ have commercial success. They cannot vote for themselves. This accounts for 33% of the vote.
- Institute votes (33% of the vote)
- Local Facilitator votes (33% of the vote)
- The top 3 companies graduate with a special distinction (special callouts in press, some type of ‘badge’, access to exclusive discounts like Rackspace, etc)

We should come up with a good name as well.