While application processing is underway for the Winter Founder Institute Seattle session, it is not to early to be thinking about launching your product.  One high visibility possibility is the DEMO Spring 2010, which takes place on March 21-23, 2010, which is close to the end of our semester.  Tonight in Seattle DEMO is having a meet-up, definately worth checking out to learn more, and a great gathering of local entrepreneurs:

DEMO 2010 Starts Now!

 The DEMO Seattle Meet-up is one stop on the DEMO Innovation tour where Matt and the DEMO team will travel around the country to connect with the DEMO community in search of  the best innovation to showcase at DEMOspring 2010.   Find out what’s new at DEMO, talk up your product or concept and connect with a great group of innovators who have already reaped the benefits of a DEMO launch.

Register for the free event at:

http://demoinnovationseattle.eventbrite.com/

Happy Thanksgiving!

The application period for the Winter 2009 semester of the Founder Institute in Seattle closes 11/27 at midnight Pacific.  Come and apply to join some of the top founders in the country.

In the country?  Yes! In a recent VentureBeat post “Seattle has the most promising entrepreneurs.”

One of those entrepreneurs, Roy Leban wrote an in-depth blog post about being accepted into the Founder Institute and his decision to enroll. He shares his insights from the perspective of an experienced entrepreneur and technologist. A clip from the post reads:

“At first glance, I might not seem like the typical candidate for the Founder Institute. I’m not a fresh entrepreneur. I’ve been doing it a long time and I’ve had both favorable outcomes (sales) and failures (losing a lot of money). And I even serve as an advisor and mentor to a lot of other entrepreneurs. But, through it all, two things have remained constant: I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and I have a lot to learn.

And those two things are the key reasons that I’m excited that I just got accepted to be part of the Founder Institute’s winter session in Seattle.”

If you want to join Roy and jumpstart your startup apply to the Founder Institute by midnight on 11/27 at:  http://www.founderinstitute.com/apply/5

This just in: We’ve got a location now for our second info night–please join us on the Redmond Microsoft campus for a look at what the Founder Institute is bringing to Seattle and how you can participate and benefit! Come learn about the curriculum, resources, mentors, and more, get your burning questions answered, and get to know your fellow founders!

Registration for tonight’s free event is here: http://seattle-fi2.eventbrite.com/ We’re looking forward to seeing everyone there!

We have added a video of the comments made by graduating Founders of the Bay Area semester that was recorded by the San Diego chapter of the Founder Institute, FoundersList.  You can find it on our Video page here.

Also, I was interviewed by Michael Surkan of Entrepreneurs Northwest and that podcast can be found here.

Finally, Adeo Ressi, creator of the Founder Institute wrote a good post on Why Apply to the Founder Institute.

Our first Seattle information session was a great success, and we’re pleased to host another one–this time on the Eastside–on Thursday, 11/19 (venue details coming soon). Here’s a look back at the first info session…

Seattle Founders Get a Peek of Upcoming Founder Institute Session

Monday night, 11/2/09, more than 70 local founders crowded into the UW’s Boeing Auditorium to get a sneak peek at what’s in store during the inaugural Seattle offering of the Founder Institute. Adeo Ressi, founder of the Institute, and Chris Early, leader of the Seattle chapter, were on hand to answer questions and build excitement for the program to much positive response from the crowd. (Video of the session to be added soon!)

Who was there? In addition to lots of excited entrepreneurs, we were joined by one of our semester’s Mentors, CEO and founder of Napera Networks, Todd Hooper. Another great contributor to the night was the voice of recent experience, local founder and graduate from the first Bay Area Founder Institute, Louis Hong. 

Adeo talked through the history of the Institute, the goal to help launch 1000 companies a year, and the challenges and successes of the first graduating class from the Bay Area. Good questions surfaced about the application and qualification process, the warrant-pool approach to community profit sharing, and the layout of the curriculum and mentor involvement. 

After a well-received presentation, many thoughtful questions and answers, and a lot of conversation, a large group adjourned to the nearby Big Time Brewery for a more social setting (and one with tasty Belgian beer!). A couple of hours later, connections made and friendships sprouted, and our new founder class is starting to take shape.

What’s next? We’re looking forward to getting to know our class of founders over the next several months! Can’t wait to see what these talented, enthusiastic folks will produce! And we’re eager to meet even more at our second info session, Thursday, 11/19, 6:30pm on the Eastside. Get more details and register for the session here: http://seattle-fi2.eventbrite.com/

Seattle startups get a jumpstart with the Founder Institute, a four month training program for both new and seasoned entrepreneurs that prepares founders to lead the next generation of world-class technology companies. Registration is open now for the Seattle Founder Institute winter course, and space is limited! Applications will be accepted through November 27, 2009.

In the coming week, Adeo Ressi, founder of the Institute, and Chris Early, organizer of the Seattle chapter of the Institute, will lead three open Q&A conference calls to answer your questions about the upcoming Seattle program. We invite you to join us at one of the following times:

Tuesday 11/10 at 12:00pm Pacific

Wednesday 11/11 at 9:00am Pacific

Thursday 11/12 at 5:00pm Pacific

Call Information: (605) 715-4900 / PIN #998-602

We look forward to your participation and welcome your questions!

With a full moon and cloudy skies, we had a great Information Session at the University of Washington. Thank you to everyone who attended! (And if you couldn’t make it, don’t worry; you can still apply to join the Founder Institute.)  Adeo Ressi, founder of Founder Institute and TheFunded spoke about the details of the Founder Institute.  I’ll post some photos shortly.

One of the strengths of successful entrepreneurs is the ability to make decisions with less than perfect information. Research and investigation is good, up to a point, then it is time to decide and execute. In a startup, this keeps your company moving forward, rather than sinking into “analysis paralysis.”

Now is the time for you to make the decision – the next step in building your company is up to you.

Apply for the winter semester for the Founder Institute here: http://www.founderinstitute.com/apply/5

Massage Away Your Stress: We also announced a special offer to make the application process as stress-free as possible.  You can take away the stress of applying to the Founder Institute when you apply and pay the $50.00 application fee by midnight Pacific tonight, 11/3/09. When you do, we will send you a $120 gift card for a massage at WellnessOne. Makes you feel calmer already, right?

Take the next step in building your company and apply now!

As applications are coming in for the Founder Institute in Seattle, it is clear we’ve caused some people to ask themselves: Is now the time to found a company?  I believe the right time is when your passion feels like it is on fire — not just your passion for your idea, because your idea will morph over time — you need to have passion to be a founder. 

Steve Blank asks a lot of the right questions in his blog post: Am I a Founder? The Adventure of a Lifetime. Excerpted from his post:

 “When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves:

Are you comfortable with:

• Chaos – startups are disorganized
• Uncertainty – startups never go per plan

Are you:

• Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.  How quickly will you recover?
• Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else.  Can you recognize and capitalize on them?
• Creative / Pattern Recognition – can you think “out of the box?”  Or if not, can you recognize patterns others miss?
• Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? 24/7?
• Tenacious – can you keep going when everyone else gives up? Can you keep giving 200% despite all the naysayers who don’t believe in your idea?
• Articulate – can you create a reality distortion field and have others see and share your vision and passion?

And I remind them that they should be bringing some type of domain expertise (technical or business) to the table.

This is the minimum feature set for founders.”

 The whole post is here and is absolutely worth the read.  Are you ready?

I thought Guy Kawasaki’s Get Up and Get Going! talk would be an appropriate first content posting as FounderWise gets up and gets going!

Enjoy…

founder  (foun’dər)
n.  One who establishes something.

wise  (wīz) 
adj. Wise as to the affairs of this world.

FounderWise  (foun’dər·wīz’) 
adj.  Having the shrewd awareness, experience, and resourcefulness needed for survival in a difficult, often dangerous startup environment. Compare: streetwise.