How to hack your founder's journey? Founder.University is the key!
Founder.University’s promise: Build an MVP and get your first users (and possibly a $25k investment). 💸
Some background information on Founder.University is put together by the great people at LAUNCH. If you are not familiar with LAUNCH, it’s Jason Calacanis’s company that holds his accelerator, events, education, startup deals, podcasts, and newsletters. Truly, it is a miracle that he can sleep at night with everything he has going on.
Jason has been in and around startups since the beginning of the dot com boom. Founder.University is his big push to help the entrepreneurs and grow the ecosystem. He also gets to keep an eye on the top performers to possibly include in his accelerator. He is giving back while gaining an edge! 🚀
My expectations for the 12-week program:
- Double down on the fundamentals of entrepreneurship
- Learn from Jason and the LAUNCH team
- Connect with other builders and kick-ass founders
The format of the program is one live, mandatory session on Monday nights. There is also an optional Thursday night check-in.
Get Niko Zona’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The most valuable content is stowed away as the Content Pacing Guide section in Circle. Think of this as Jason Calacanis’s best hits. You hear from him or other amazing founders and builders on what it takes to build, scale, and grow a company.
The first week was basically getting your feet wet, and the incredible Jason kicked it off with a tremendous hour-long intro call. Going over his experience and what he wants us all to strive for in this 12-week program. He really is as authentic and remarkable as advertised.
The second week we got to hear from Presh Dineshkumar, who is on the LAUNCH team and has a great history of shipping wonderful products. He is a bit of a no-code wizard. He got into the weeds on what it takes to build a good product and how he thinks about businesses.
The community for Founder.University is very open and excitable, but without the massive amount of hand-holding that an On Deck does, it feels a bit disjointed. This may, in part, be on purpose because everyone is in a different place and needs different amounts of training and encouragement. The self-pacing content is brilliantly put together. It feels much more like entrepreneurial training with a group than a cohort-based learning program. Not a bad thing, just an adjustment I needed to make in my mind.
Coming into the program, I had no idea what I wanted to build, but I have had time to brainstorm and start conversations with customers, and while nothing is nailed down, I am already in a much better place. The idea I have started to zone in on is DAO onboarding. Notoriously hard to do well, and there are not a ton of mechanisms in place besides a 1-on-1 call with a community manager.
I will be dropping more articles on the progress of the course and how my ideas evolve along with it. So far, I would highly recommend joining the cohort for anyone who has that entrepreneurial itch. It will give you a great base to stand on that most other founders will find out the hard way!
