In a world where people crave for a sense of independence, working without being answerable to a direct boss, who is always on your neck, is always a welcome development, any day.
You set out to become an entrepreneur, but you never really did fulfill the dream, or, better still, you get started, but your venture fails at an early stage.
One of the major reasons identified over the years on business failure at an early stage is lack of feedback.
Founder Institute is set to start operations in Lagos, Nigeria, as four newly appointed Nigerian Directors of Founder Institute were present at a media briefing on its launch at the premises of GoDoHub, at 53, Oladipo Bateye Street, GRA, Ikeja, on Tuesday, March 19, 2019.
Founder Institute was founded in 2009 by Adeo Ressi and Jonathan Greechan and it is based in Palo Alto, California, USA.
It is setting the ball rolling for building scalable business models across the African continent.
The four Nigerian Directors coming on board are personalities with proven experience in the design and scaling of business models that attract investment.
The four are, Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata Jnr. “CFA”, Co-founder, GoDo.ng & Presenter, Tech Trends on Channels TV; Oluwarotimi Fasuyi, CEO, VasDigiMobility; Ayowande Adalemo CEO, Wave3 Wireless and Ifedy Eze, Co-founder, Maisematrix Consulting.
What is the Founder Institute (FI)?
Founder Institute is an organization that assists entrepreneurs in building enduring companies, with a support network invested in their success and through a structured business process.
The very common phrase peculiar to Startup entrepreneurs is, “I lost money”, and this leads to more than 90% of them failing to scale in their first 2 years of commencing business, irrespective of whether they were able to raise funds or not.
“The model of the Founder Institute isn’t like Seed Accelerator, nor Angel/VC platform for hackathon challenges and pitching, but a Pre-Seed Accelerator, helping teams and Founders to validate, launch and support their businesses with mentoring and structured processes”, stated Wande Adalemo, one of the four Directors.
FI already has two centers in Lagos, to serve potential applicants from a different axis and these include, The Godo Hub, GRA, Ikeja, and NG hub, Yab.
Some of the mentors include Ayo Animashaun, Founder/CEO, Smooth Operations, Tunji Abioye Founder/CEO, Fuel communications Ltd, Etok Ikpe, CEO of Car45 and host of others.
The potential beneficiaries of FI
“The FI model was created for corporate executives, every aspiring entrepreneur is a potential FI graduate”, stressed Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata Jnr, another Director of Founder Institute.
Business models for founders and teams often come in three stages, namely, the ideas stage, prototype stage, and early company stage.
Idea stage
“Only about 10% of businesses succeed in the first two years, while 90% fail in the first five years”, remarked Wande
With tons of ideas generated daily, the urge of trying your model outcomes with a spark.
If you are able to obtain capital, you might end up in the cycle of trial and error, probably due to not having sufficient knowledge of the product market.
The FI model will validate and improve this same idea, strategy, and pitch, find Co-Founders, early team members, advisors and finally, launching your company through a step by step progress.
Prototype Stage
At this stage, your business has a market value proposition.
The FI model gets expert feedback for making smarter product decisions, secure advisors who would look into existing data to give you current insights, partners to grant you access to a market they already belong to and key hires.
Nailing your go-to-market is also part of your take home.
Early company
At this stage, you have an organization generating revenue.
The FI grants you expert insight on data, to gain more traction.
Secure advisors, partners, key hires, as the prototype stage, but in addition, you get to meet investors.
Finally, launching an enduring business, with a global network.
The classes for the Founders take place at weekends and there would be a series of free Startup events for the general public, commencing with its event at Freedom Park on Thursday, March 28, 2019.
It is an avenue for attendees to learn more about the program and get to know how to build a company.
FI global view
The Pre-Seed Accelerator is in over 60 countries around the world, spreading over 175 cities.
The graduate portfolio value is over $20billion.
It has more than 30 graduate companies, with $700 million raised from investors.
Founder Institute Graduate companies include fast-rising startups across 6 continents like Udemy, Realty Mogul, Travelcar, goplaceit, Appota, and many more.
The Founder Institute is the only program of its kind that focuses on people versus ideas, accepts Founders with day jobs and shares equity with all participants.
Leaders of the world’s fastest-growing Startups have used Founder Institutes program to transition from employee to entrepreneur, test their Startup ideas, build a team, get their first customers, raise funding and more.
Based in Silicon Valley the Founder Institute’s mission, is to “Globalize Silicon Valley” and empower talented and motivated entrepreneurs to build companies that will create one million new jobs.
