The Founders Institute

June 29, 2011

nobody is going to steal your stupid idea

UPDATE: I left the FI after 5 weeks of the program

This week I started a 4 month program at the Founders Institute (FI) in Palo Alto run by Adeo Ressi and I am loving it. The aim of the FI is to create meaningful and enduring technology companies. It provides expert training, robust feedback and support from an awesome network of highly successful CEOs and Founders. I have not blogged here about OBeeDee yet, but in the next post I will explain all about the company and how the FI is helping to refine and develop the concept.

I really like the way the course is delivered in a no nonsense tough love way. Its direct and to the point, but at the same time inspiring. Every evening members of the class are pulled forward, sat in the hot seat and given 1 minute to pitch their concept. The feedback is tough, at times amusing, but also incredibly valuable. Right now the class is quite big and only 13 people dropped out after the first session and so not everyone has had the chance to pitch yet. There are some interesting ideas coming out from those that have and one which I really like is Grub Crawl. I suggested to the Founders that they organized a Grub Crawl in Palo Alto one evening for all of the FI members, so hopefully will able to blog about it later.

I have read a lot about the explosion of incubator and accelerators in the SF Bay area and some are critical and think it points to the bubble that we are in. Maybe it does, but my personal experience of the FI so far is that they have a winning formula and help create an ecosystem that leads to more jobs and promotes innovation. I don’t see how anyone can find fault with this especially as governments all over the world spend millions trying to achieve the same.

Great People + World Class Training + Aligned Incentives = Exponentially Better Chance of Success