FAQ

The Founder Institute focuses on technology and technology-enabled businesses. This can include hardware and traditional businesses such as food, ecommerce, and brick and mortar, so long as the business has the ability to scale through technology. We typically do not accept founders looking to build non-scalable service-based companies, such as consultancies and agencies. See more information at FI.co/admissions. 

Seed-accelerators like Techstars and Y Combinator typically take a company with a team, live product, and some traction and provide them with operating capital and/or a small seed investment to help them prepare for an angel or VC round of funding. The Founder Institute works with entrepreneurs before this point in their process, and provides them with a structured process, expert mentorship, and a global network to get to traction and funding.

Pre-Accelerators exist to help you get into a seed-accelerator. While many Founder Institute Alumni do go on to seed-accelerators like Techstars, Y Combinator, and 500 Startups, this is not the sole purpose of the FI program. In fact, many companies companies leave FI further along than a seed-accelerator, or may not need funding at all. Only approximately 15% of FI alumni go on to join seed-accelerator programs, and we have relationships in place to facilitate that process when it makes sense for the company.

To see the full calendar, visit FI.co/program.

When in-person sessions resume, the local session locations are sometimes held in the same venues as the public pre-program events listed on FI.co/program, though this is not always the case. These Sessions are not open to the public, so their locations are not listed on the public website.

The Founder Institute requires a minimum of 20 hours of work per week, on average. Participating founders are required to join each three and a half hour weekly session, plus additional networking hours. The sessions will have between ten and fifteen hours of sprint work that needs to be completed before the following session, in addition to team meetings. If a participating Founder is also working on a prototype or some other aspect of the business, then the time commitment can be much greater.

In order to complete the program, a Founder must join the Feedback Sessions, complete all of the Growth Sprints in a satisfactory manner, and receive satisfactory ratings from Mentors. The Founder Institute supports the efforts of every entrepreneur, but the program is very hard, because building a meaningful company is harder. On average, about 30% of founders are able to complete program.

Joining the sessions are mandatory, however, it is understood that founders may have emergencies, illness, or pre-planned travel that may prevent them from joining one or two sessions. The Founder Institute makes exceptions on a case by case basis, but founders are advised to communicate any conflicts in schedule as early as possible to their Local Leaders. In particular, the Orientation, Mentor Idea Review, and the Mentor Progress Review sessions should never be missed.

The application fee covers the cost of processing the Entrepreneur DNA Assessment. The fee is non-refundable.

The Entrance Fee ($799 USD by Aug 07, 2022 ($999 USD after Aug 07, 2022) for the San Francisco Virtual Fall 2022 program) is fully refundable before the third session of the program (Sep 26, 2022), so that participants can see if the program is right for them.

We offer a payment plan of three equal installments of the regular Entrance Fee, in addition to a 5% service fee, with payments due monthly. Installments are payable via Stripe or Credit Card. Please reply to any email you have received from us if you are interested in a payment plan.

The Founder Institute encourages founding teams to apply to the program, and a typical cohort contains roughly 40% teams, and 60% solo-founders. When a team joins the Founder Institute, the 2.5% pledge to the Equity Collective remains the same (it is 2.5% per company, not Founder).

Founding teams can decide to send one co-founder, multiple co-founders, or all co-founders to participate in the program, but each co-founder must apply separately (noting the name of your company in your application, in the “Company Name” section). Since we are the ‘Founder’ Institute, each co-founder’s application will be evaluated independently by our admissions team (one co-founder gaining acceptance does not mean that their entire team is accepted). However, even if one co-founder is rejected, any accepted co-founders are still invited to participate.

Teams are also able to enroll in the program for a discounted Entrance Fee per-founder: Teams of 2-3 are invited to enroll for 1.5x the Entrance Fee, and Teams of 4-5 for 2x the Entrance Fee.

Each enrolled founder will be responsible for completing assignments and participating in working groups, and 1-2 team members will be responsible for pitching during program sessions. Non-participating co-founders are not permitted to join the FI program sessions, but are welcome to participate in program Office Hours and company-building assignments, as well as many perks post-program.

You can receive a full refund of your Entrance Fee in your first Founder Institute program if you drop out before the start-time of the third program session (currently, the "Customer Development" session on Sep 26, 2022). This gives you the opportunity to try out the program for two sessions, with no risk. You can see the program schedule at FI.co/program, and all refunds are processed within 30 days after the third program session.

Similarly, if all or part of a team decides to drop out before the Refund Deadline, then the Entrance Fees paid will be refunded in accordance with the team pricing. So for example, if all co-founders drop out, then all Entrance Fees paid will be refunded; if a 4-5 member team downgrades to a 2-3 person team, then the difference between 1.5x and 2x the Entrance Fee will be refunded; and if a 2-3 or 4-5 member team downgrades to a solo-founder, then the difference between 1x the Entrance Fee and 1.5x and 2x the Entrance Fee will be refunded, respectively.

After the Customer Development session, if you cannot finish the program for personal reasons or get dropped by the Founder Institute, you can use your already paid Entrance Fee towards a future program of the Founder Institute in the same city, you are allowed one (1) re-enroll and that re-enroll program must begin within one calendar year of the start date of the program you dropped out from. If the Entrance Fee for the new program is significantly higher than your original one, FI reserves the right to require you to pay the difference in order to enroll in the new program. However, we will not refund the difference if the Entrance Fee of the new program is lower.

In order to guarantee a spot in the program, we encourage founders to complete their enrollment promptly. Typically we close enrollment approximately 7 days before the start date of the program, but if the class fills up before then you may not be guaranteed a spot.

To pay as a team, email our support at [email protected] for a link to the co-founder price.

Evaluations throughout the program are by team. If a team is not able to meet course requirements they will be asked to leave and re-enroll in the next program. If a team member decides to stop participating, the rest of the team can continue with the program contingent on there being one Full-time team member enrolled.

The Founder Institute is always interested in speaking to qualified startup experts and local ecosystem leaders to start a local chapter. For more information, visit FI.co/lead

The Program will include a session about legal topics during the Startup Legal and IP session. If you need help with getting incorporated, you can always ask for help during the program's office hours, or speak with our local legal partner, leaders, or mentors.

You should engage a law firm for incorporating your company during the Program, and we will provide you with the guidance and tools to do so. In some countries, professionals, such as corporate secretaries or accounting firms, are customarily hired to incorporate a company. It is important that you hire a professional to create the corporation to ensure that it is done properly and investors can fund your company.

The Founder Institute strongly recommends that Founders go with our legal partner, but we do not mandate it. Our legal partners deeply understand the Founder Institute process and know how to help early stage Founders. Most legal partners also provide discounted and/or deferred pricing.

Cheap legal alternatives will not be able to help you when very technical problems happen. In the long run, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We suggest that you check with your lawyer and research on local prices and policies.

You are allowed to incorporate in whatever country you see fit, as we have localized agreements in many jurisdictions. During our Startup Legal & IP session, we will give you advice on how/where to incorporate as well. For those incorporating in the United States, we recommend Delaware C-Corps as they are the most conducive to raising venture capital. There are similar safe-havens for corporations all across the globe.

This question should be asked to your law firm as each country has different laws and policies. The legal partner should review existing employment contracts and basic visa situations to determine if a Founder is able to incorporate a business without significant ethical breaches. The Founder Institute does not sponsor nor facilitate any processes with regards to Visas. If you cannot incorporate a company, you cannot graduate from the program.

We have had many successful cases of Founders that go through the program to receive valuable feedback from mentors even while they have already had an incorporated company. If the company is incorporated with an acceptable legal structure, then the company only needs to issue the warrant or option with the help of a professional law firm. Otherwise, the legal partner needs to work with the company to transition an incorrect structure to the proper structure as part of the engagement.

The Founder Institute does not accept partnership and LLC formats because these companies are not optimal for issuing shares and raising capital.

No. At approximately 2/3 of the way through the Founder Institute program, you will be asked to sign the warrant or option agreement for the company you are building in the program.

All founders, mentors, and local leaders joining sessions of the Founder Institute have to sign NDAs before participating in the program. Your IP is safe. We also tell all of our Founders that in many cases, Founders change their ideas in the program and realize that for example there is no market for the idea to scale or that there are holes in the idea that cannot be filled and therefore should be dropped.

Additionally, your idea will never be able to be replicated the same exact way that you visualize it. Ideas are worthless, execution is everything. If you actually have a good idea, then there is a big chance that someone else out there is already working on it.

By restricting yourself to talk openly about your ideas, you forgo valuable opportunities to get feedback on your startup.

The FAST agreement (https://fi.co/FAST) gives you the legal framework to engage with mentors and advisors. It was developed by our CEO, Adeo Ressi with our partner law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, LLP (WSGR). It is a public document for anyone to use and edit. For any questions regarding the document, please consult a legal counsel.

Similar to a stock option, a warrant is an agreement between two parties that gives one party the right to buy the other party’s stock at a set price, over a specified period of time. Once a warrant holder exercises their warrant, they get shares of stock in the issuing party’s company.  Additional information here.