Ok, first of all, I'd like to say that I didn't know about Adeo Ressi's
Founder Institute until my good friend Ade from
PrinsGroup told me about it and encouraged me to apply. My first thoughts when I saw it were:
why the hell would I need that? I already took a great Entreprenurship in Technology class at the University of Maryland years ago. I even attended several 1-day workshops, and bootcamps, so why would I want to enroll in a 3-month program and go through all this stuff again?
Now that I graduated from the program, I'm pretty glad I went through it, and here's why:
Application Process
The initial personality-test type application process was very interesting and kinda disappointing because I never found out what my results where. If I had to make a guess, I'm sure they ended up somewhere in this TechCrunch post by Adeo Ressi. After that initial application was approved, a more formal process and tuition payment was required. I was ok with paying a small fee for the initial application test, but the larger tuition fee of several hundred dollars may be cumbersome for some.
After initially being placed on a wait list, I was glad to see my acceptance into the program.
The Semester
We had a weekly evening session (about 12 total), and a session facilitator was in charge of running the class for the entire semester. Our weekly evening sessions were held at a nice conference room facility (provided by Holland & Knight LLP) and there was always plenty of food and refreshments available. Most importantly, our session facilitator Jill Stelfox was awesome!!! She was very upfront with us from the very beginning, and she was clear about all her expectations. She encouraged us to bring our A-game every single time. We also had a great co-facilitator, Naresh, and he handled all the logistics smoothly.. Both Jill and Naresh were always available to help us out with our business questions and our pitch deck.
The entire semester is broken down into 12 main topics, with homework assignments due at each session. Here's the best part: our sessions were taught by some wonderful mentors! These mentors were people that started and sold several start-ups, some took VC money, some kept it lean, but all did it successfully. Each session had at least 3 mentors show up to teach us on a specifc topic. Networking with these folks and getting their feedback on our start-ups was very constructive. These guys are simply well-connected, and they have made all the mistakes, so learning from them and getting new connections was very effective.
During each session we had a hotseat where we were required to pitch our business to these mentors, and they would rate us on our pitch and give us plenty of constructive criticizm. Listen to their feedback, and take it in, regardless of whether you think they're right or wrong. The goal of the class is to constantly challenge you and make sure you have all the right skills and the right timing to develop your business. Sometimes your timing may be off (you may have too much work, family obligations, etc.), or your business may not be compelling enough or not clear enough. Whatever the reason, you may not complete the entire semester. About two thirds of the initial class did not make it to graduation. But that's fine, because you always have the option to come back next semester (or any semester) without paying anything additional. This helps you re-evaluate your business or your timeline to ensure you have the right things in place when you are ready.
The Founder Institute also has several partnerships and agreements in place with service providers for all types of start-up needs. The list of tools includes legal support, product planning, product development, product management, product testing, business infrastructure tools, recruiting and collaboration tools, branding, public relations, marketing, sales, accounting, fulfillment, modeling, and fundraising. That's a lot of great tools with discounts or free agreements!
The Takeaway
If you already have a start-up with a live offering (alpha, beta, MVP, doesn't matter!) you will greatly benefit from the program, because each session and assignment forces you to look at your business with plenty of scrutiny. You will have a well-proofed and polished business at the end of the program.
If you simply have a business idea (like me) and you need help developing it into an incorporated start-up you will also benefit from the program. However, you will have to move fast and do your best to keep up with the assignments, because the people that already have something up and running have probably covered some of the assignment questions when they developed their business. At the end of it all, you will have validated and accomplished so much in just three months! It's a lot easier to do this through the program than to do it solo.
The program really helped me test out my idea and find ways to validate it. Most importantly, it really tested me to see if I was ready to take on a new venture. That last statement is very important. When investors say they invest in the people and not their companies, that's really what they mean. It's not about the idea, it's about how capable you are with executing it. And quite frankly, if a program tests you rigourously to help you figure out if you are ready or not, then I would argue that it has already done 50% of the job. A lot of people (including myself) have spent months, and perhaps even years, dwelling on a business venture, or a product of some sort, and later found out several obstacles or obligations to make them re-evaluate their entire goal, after devoting plenty of time and money towards it. If a program helps you understand how not to do that, then it has also accomplished the remaining 50%. The Founder Institute helped me realize both.
A warning: you have to incorporate a business and get all the right legal documents in order to graduate. This requires some money. You may also have to spend some money for job postings, research, etc. The whole point is be prepared to spend whatever you think is right for your budget, or get creative and find other ways to do some of these things. I personally spent over $1,000 (not including the tuition/fees from earlier), but you don't have to spend that much. If you are simply developing an idea, this may make you feel rushed, but that's part of the process, so just get out there and build something!
