Thinking of Joining Antler?

I get referred to people wanting to do Antler about 5x every time a new cohort starts.

I find myself repeating the same advice multiple times, so I decided to write it down.

Let me preface this: I went through Antler in Berlin, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am proud to have them on as an investor.

My time at Antler was awesome, I met some of my best friends and my cofounder there. I am grateful for the opportunity to have participated.

The following advice is what worked for me, and how I work, think and act as a person. This might be different for you, if you are more introverted and don’t require as much structure to organize your thoughts.

Some of the friends i made at Antler! Most importantly, my cofounder Andreas!

Should I Do Antler?

Antlers core value add is cofounder matching.

Therefore:

• If you don’t have a cofounder: absolutely! It’s an amazing time.
• If you do, I would only think about YC as an accelerator — dilution v value add does not really work out anywhere else.

The team does an incredible job to bring together 50 amazing people. It’s exhausting but exhilarating to spend time, get to know and explore ideas with fascinating individuals from all sorts of backgrounds. The energy created in a room full of people who all want to found companies is unmatched and a breathtaking experience.

Antler does not (like i hear EF is sometimes):

• Consist of 25 Techies / 25 Business
• Pair you up with someone else specifically
• Push you to work on things that fit your resume
• Recruit a bunch of kids (average age in my cohort was 32, 70% second time founders)

They basically throw you into a room full of people eager to found companies and say: “have fun, pitch us something in 10 weeks”. And I loved it.

How To Make The Most Of Your Time At Antler:

1. Take strategic action

You want to be a founder? Take control, be strategic, and make things happen. No one’s waiting to meet you, everyones fascinating, put yourself out there. Antler does not rank you, does not push you to do or work on things, it’s down to you to create.

2. Vibes > Everything.

Don’t be the person who’s fixated on their idea, they tend to not be interesting to anyone else.
Don’t choose the other person just because you have perfectly complementary skills.
Be sure to choose someone, who you want to work with for the next seven years. Think about how long that is, and realise that’s the average time to exit.
Make sure you really get along with the other person, you need to love seeing and working with him/her, because chances are you’re not going to see anyone, or depend so much on any other person for a significant portion of your life.

3. Time your Track Out

Once you’ve found who you want to work with, you can declare yourselves “tracked out”, to show the rest of the cohort that you’re committed as a team. Antler is incentivized for that to happen as early as possible, as they want as many teams as possible to pitch. They will push you to do so. (Tracking out has its benefits, such as closer feedback loops and access to awesome advisors).

Get Max Schollum’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

Remember me for faster sign in

Timing your trackout is essential and rather hard.

• Tracking out too early will show the rest of the cohort that you’ve commited, and no one will take the time to get to know you anymore. Should you happen to track out in week 3, and in week 6 realise that things don’t work out, you come back to the cohort, don’t know anyone else, and every other “good” match is already taken.
• Tracking out too late is tricky, because people want to commit and start actually working instead of just “shopping around” and not making commitments.

It’s crucial for your success to time the track out well. Not too late to have your good matches be snatched away from you, but no too early so you don’t commit to the wrong person.

Working with awe-inspiring people, like the founders of Maya.

I’ll finish off, with some actionable advice:

Treat your cofounder search like a sales funnel. It might feel weird to put interpersonal relationships on a spreadsheet, but everyone is doing it, and you’re making a major life decision.

3 Steps to success:

Build a funnel, and increase time spent per section.

All 50 Names > Potential Cofounders > Coffee Dates > Ideations > Projects

• Spend time with everyone, and I mean EVERYONE!
• Move who you liked into potential cofounders, and get to know them (i.e. go have a drink in a group setting)
• Get coffee (30 mins) with the people you like, and understand who they are (upbringing, values, skills, experiences)
• Schedule Ideations with each one of the people left: spend 2–3 hours talking about what you could work on — book a room if Antler provides them
• Projects: Dive deep on potential topics. Take 2–3 Days to really explore what a partnership would look like.
  Ideally, you should aim to have 3 people in the “project” stage. I tried to see every stage as a different week.

Build evaluation criteria to put your thoughts and feelings into writing.

I used the following, but naturally you should adapt to your own:

• Project Potential
• Project Fit
• Skills
• Values
• Aeroplane Test (can i spend 8h sitting next to them without going mad)
• WorkTwin (“find your worktwin”, find someone who has a similar working style and drive to you)
• Investability (does the other person have the track record & CV to raise $$m)

Weekly retros (and this is probably the most important point)

Antler is incredibly overwhelming. You meet so many fascinating people, you spend literally every waking hour with the cohort, and have incredibly deep conversations with people you need to get to know as quickly as possible.
In the first 8 weeks of antler, I ate at home once. I left home at 8:30AM, and came home after midnight for 2 months straight.
It is really important, therefore, to take the time to understand how you’re feeling.
Sit down every Sunday, think about what you did, move people down the funnel, analyse the progress you’re making, and make plans on how to move forward.
There is so much going on in those weeks, that you will not feel in control. People are going to be tracking out left and right, the pressure is immense, and you want to make friends and impress.
Do your best to get back in the driver seat, stay cool, find someone you want to work with and deliver a solid pitch.

The evaluation starts way before the Investment Committee, so enjoy, work hard, be nice, and have a great time.

Worst case, you make 49 new amazing friends, best case you’re a founder of a VC backed business!

Now get building!