The Founder Institute: Helping Companies Help Each Other

I stumbled upon a very interesting site recently that seems like an amazing outlet for founders of all experience levels. The Founder Institute is a 4 month training program that helps new entrepreneurs develop their business growth strategies by having more seasoned founders of successful companies serve as mentors. Participating founders also receive introductions to local angel investors during 4 sessions, to aid these companies if they decide to seek venture capital financing in the future. They also get access to free or discounted services to help reduce costs as they grow their business. Another part of the institute’s model is that if any graduate of this program receives venture funding, they are asked to pay a fee of $4,500 to be put towards the operating capital for The Founder Institute. One last point to touch on is that when a founder graduates, they can contribute warrants of their company priced at fair market value into a bonus pool. 30% of the bonus pool returns goes directly back to the founders themselves, which creates a nice camaraderie amongst all graduates. One of the mentors from a recent session was Steve Iverson, CEO of Diomede Storage. Iverson explains, “Being a mentor for the institute not only gave me the opportunity to give back to fellow entrepreneurs but also to learn from them and the other mentors as well. Truly nothing else like it for tech startups. Wish I had this when I started my first company.” Whether you’re a startup company looking for new ways to get a leg up on the competition, or an expansion stage company that wants to explore some new methods of taking your business to the next level, I’d highly recommend taking a look at this option.