FI Alumni Panel: Meet the Portfolio Company Founders (September 2021)

Okay, welcome everybody to this Founder Institute alumni global online event. My name is Dustin Betts. I'm a community manager and content editor at Founder Institute. I sort of act as a connector between FI's alumni success team and our HQ marketing teams to help share FI portfolio alumni stories across Founder Institute's kind of global network, as well as out into the wider startup world. So that could be grad news on social, founder video interviews, company written profiles on our blog, or hosting events like this with alumni. And for those of you who don't know, Founder Institute is the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator. We've now helped launch more than 5,000 companies across more than 200 cities around the world, so on all 6 continents. We have a 21,000-strong mentor network worldwide. So if you're interested In learning more, you can see a sampling of like recent FI portfolio startup stories that were featured in the news at fi.co/news, or you can always find the full list of worldwide currently enrolling Founder Institute Pre-Seed Accelerator programs by city and region at fi.co/enrolling. And so I guess to kind of give an overview of what we're going to cover here tonight, basically I'll start by introducing our 3 alumni who are featured tonight on the panel. I will do a little bit of structured Q&A, but mostly we want to open up the conversation to answer your questions. So please do not be shy. Put your questions in the chat, and as you answer them, we'll have a producer in the background who's helping me queue up the questions and bring them so that we can ask each of the alumni in turn. Or if you have a question for just a specific alumni here on the panel, that's fine too. You can address it to that specific person, and we'll ask them that way. So yeah, just really want to encourage you to be interactive. Like, we're here to answer your questions primarily, so don't be shy with asking. And yeah, let us know where you're joining from. So I see Fabian from Las Vegas. I'm joining from central Pennsylvania tonight. And yeah, let us know in the chat who you are, where you're joining from. I see Caitlin from Boston, Massachusetts. Awesome. So I guess without further ado, I want to start by introducing each of our panelists tonight in turn. Again, all of these our FI alumni, and then right after that, we're going to kind of just go right into your questions. So up first, I would like to introduce Marlee Lake. She's the co-founder and CEO of Curled, website's hellocurled.com. Marlee, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.

Thanks so much, Dustin, and welcome everyone. My name is Marlee Lake, and I'm the CEO and co-CEO of Curled. At Curled, we're building an online marketplace for curly hair products. So essentially, we're being focusing on the pain point that people with curly hair, we have a hard time finding products that really work for us. So we're aggregating products across the web onto our platform and we're showing you and recommending products that people with your same hair type have. So we can cut out all the time looking on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook for recommendations. A little bit about me. I'm a recent college grad. I graduated from Columbia University. I studied Italian and business and I did my FI NYC cohort last fall and winter in my last year of college, and now a master's student also at Columbia. I think that's enough for now. I'm going to pass it on to someone else.

Perfect. Yeah, thanks so much, Marlee. Okay, next I'm going to introduce our second panelist. His name is Eric Lowe. He's the co-founder and CEO of Credo. The website is crado.co. Credo.co, and he's an FI Silicon Valley alumni. Eric, please tell us a little bit about yourself and Credo.

Sure, yeah, thanks for having me here, and hi everyone. Yeah, my name is Eric Lo, I'm the CEO and co-founder of Credo. My background is I'm a biologist and software engineer, and I'm from Salt Lake City, and Credo is all about plants. So we're a plant tech startup, and we're about making plants so that anyone can care for them, and we're making it easy and fun. And the way we do it is our sensors monitor plant health in real time, and they— your plants will let you know what they need. And if they need anything like fertilizer, pesticides, soil, bigger pots, we'll deliver right to your door. So we're an end-to-end plant care system.

Perfect. All right, thank you, Eric. And yeah, welcome. Thanks for being here. Third, last but definitely not least, I want to introduce Bree Brookshank. She is the founder and CEO of Radical Girl Gang. Bree, please tell us a little bit about yourself and Radical Girl Gang.

Awesome. Hi everyone. Great to be here. Yeah, so I'm the founder and CEO of Radical Girl Gang, also known as RGG, and we are the online marketplace to discover, support, and shop from emerging women-owned brands. My background is all over the place, but I started out at Nike, popped over to Outdoor Voices, and I actually started my business as a side hustle back in the day. I bootstrapped it from the ground up. I joined Founder Institute back in the summer of 2019 when I was trying to figure out exactly what my next vision was and how I wanted to scale my concept. And it really helped me get there. And I have been building it ever since.

Awesome. Well, that actually dovetails really, really nicely into the first question that I want to ask just to sort of tee off the conversation, which is, yeah, basically, at what stage were you when you began the FI Accelerator program? And sort of what was your biggest reason for choosing to join the program? And so we can go in the order that I introduced you. So Marlee, if you want to kind of tell us first, you know, where were you and what were you trying to achieve basically when you came into the Foundry Institute program?

Yeah, for sure. So I was fresh out of the ideation stage. I, you know, like a lot of us had a COVID startup idea from last summer. And when I came into the fall, I thought, okay, I'll bring my idea and sort of just validate it in Founder Institute. And I think what's worth mentioning is not only where I was with my idea, but also where I was from sort of like a business and sort of functional background. As I mentioned, I had just been a junior in college, was doing my summer internships online. Like I was not someone who had a lot of like experience working, sort of being scrappy in a startup or working in these businesses. So I think on both sides, there is a sort of ideation stage where I was and validating the heck out of my idea through my cohort, but also just learning a lot of practical expertise that sort of filled the gap in my background that I didn't have before coming to Founder Institute.

Awesome. Yeah, that's really good to hear. And how— so next, I guess, Eric, you were second in order. I think you were a bit different. So what stage were you when you joined FI? What was your main motivating reason for joining the program?

Sure. Yeah. So by the time we joined FI, we've already gone through probably 10 different business ideas, right? Credo originally was a blockchain company and the original idea was blockchain for electronic health records. And then we switched to blockchain for genetics, blockchain for real estate, blockchain for auto. We went every single route we could have blockchain in 2018. And then we're like, blockchain's not ready. This is like Tech's cool, but, you know, everyone's putting it under, you know, a business, right? And how we got into plants was purely after running out of ideas with blockchain. We're all sitting there and dealing with our own problems with plants. And on my own, I've already created the prototypes to solve my own personal problems. When my co-founder was saying he had similar problems, I was like, oh, like, I have that built. Like, here, you know, we can just take this and incorporate with that, and that solves that. And that's kind of like Should we just pursue this and make this the company? And that's how we became a plant tech company. Now, when we joined FI, I had imposter syndrome like crazy, right? I have small businesses with different levels of success, but a tech startup, I'm a technical founder or, you know, technical individual. I had no, you know, I didn't think I had a place. I didn't have a business degree. I never was formally trained. I'm an MBA. I don't know anything about business, but I thought, right? And so Founder Institute was a way to say, or for me to say, Do I have what it takes or not? So, you know, that screening process was the first one of like, well, if I fail this, do I quit now and am I done, right? Or is that just the signal of like, I need more grit and perseverance? But, you know, we got in and then getting in, my other objective was I want to do really well in this program. And it helped me do realize that I did have what it takes and that I do have the CEO or the entrepreneurial DNA, as if I like to call it, right? And, and it really suited that imposter syndrome I think that a lot of us start out with, and it's a great way to kind of get over that.

Perfect. Yeah, really interesting, I think, with having different businesses before that maybe weren't like a startup per se, and then being really focused on the blockchain, but then pivoting out of that through Hackens. That's a really interesting story. Bree, how about you? What stage were you at? I think you alluded to this in your introduction a little bit, but when you first started the program, and what was your reason behind choosing to do so.

Yeah, I love so much of what both Marlee and Eric have said because it's super relatable. I think for a lot of us, our journey as entrepreneurs kind of, it starts before we enroll in Founder Institute for most of us. And for myself, I had kind of been waking up to the fact that this was something I wanted to do. I wanted to finally follow my own vision and So I had basically left this full-time job and like corporate career to go off on my own and figure out what the fuck I was doing. And this was in 2019. And so I was growing what was essentially a lifestyle brand at the time, but I had always known that that was not ultimately how I wanted to scale my business. I knew it was the ground level version 1.0 of what would be many iterations of a feminist fucking empire I'm building, but I needed the tools to get there and I I also needed the support and the resources and I think the investment from my community to really get super clear on my vision, the market, and all of that. And so when I went into Founder Institute, it was summer of 2019. And I went in with what was really a different idea. I was really interested in the, God forbid, coworking space at the time. My thoughts have changed dramatically. But this was something I was excited about, and I think it was a great experience of like, I went in with something, I quickly kind of hit the ground running, realized, okay, this is really my time to kind of figure out, not go in with an idea, but go in with passion and with the energy to kind of uncover what I'm perfectly suited for. And going through the process with them really helped me get there, obviously with my business. So yeah, I would say we were really at the idea stage. Granted, I did have already a standing brand that I was able to somewhat pivot into the marketplace that we expanded into in 2020.

Perfect. Awesome. Thank you. Okay, first audience question I want to pose to the whole panel is from Chinta, and he's asking, you know, is it normal for first-time founders to have a lot of different ideas? It's hard to stop thinking through. All of the different ideas or be overwhelmed with having to choose to focus on one idea. How did you overcome this if it was the case for you, I guess, earlier, and did FI in any way help you with overcoming that? Anyone want to take that one?

I can jump.

Oh, Eric, go ahead. Go, you go first, Bree, and then we'll jump to—

Okay, okay, I will go ahead and go first, everyone. Okay, so I definitely think that Founder Institute is great to help with that. I actually think that that's one of the reasons that this program is helpful. They're going to make you get clear on your ideas. Whoever asked that, you know, they're— you're really going to have to— you're really going to have to test them out and prove them out. And then my other advice is, at the end of the day, it's about what are you it's not about what is the best market opportunity. It is, I think, most importantly about what are you drawn to? What are you going to put in blood, sweat, and tears for? Because that is what this journey requires. So ultimately, follow your heart in terms of the, the focus of the business because you do have to be really fiercely passionate about what you're doing.

Perfect. Yeah, do any of the other panelists want to kind of jump in and speak to that question about early stage, different ideas, overcoming being overwhelmed, or how to choose what to focus on?

Yeah, I absolutely agree with Bri. You know, you have to have purpose and passion behind your idea or you're not going to be able to sell it, right? You're not going to be able to vision to carry it on. Any obstacles that come your way, you're just going to quit. But beyond that, if you have a lot of ideas that you are passionate about, the quickest way that FI really taught us is market validation, right? Talk to a lot of people and not just people you know, but talk to the people that you think this is affecting and that this is a true problem. And you'll get really quick insights as to whether or not this idea has any potential or not.

Right.

So like I said, we did blockchain and how did we know we had to pivot? Well, we talked to all the players and we knew like, oh, These are all the problems and obstacles that we face if we want to do this for EHR. Oh, this is all the problems we face with genetics. This is the problems with, you know, Cradle v1, even when the plant idea was all about automating irrigation systems, so saving water, right? So we already had that eco-friendly, sustainable idea in place, but when we talked to consumers and they pretty much said, we're not interested in ripping up our irrigation system to put in yours. Like, water doesn't cost me that much. I don't really care. And if it does happen, I'm just going to let my lawn die. Well, that idea is dead then, right? It's like, okay, you're not going to pay money for it, then we're done pursuing it and we'll see what else we can do with what we're working on.

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I definitely think that is like part of the Founder Institute ethos, is really going out there and making sure you're testing these assumptions and validating them. So good to hear that that was part of your experience in working through that and finding out, you know, what, you know, customers challenged you on basically. There's a similar question here I want to pose to the whole panel also from Chinta, kind of general entrepreneurship question. Somebody had mentioned about imposter syndrome when first starting the company. This person is also experiencing it. Does anyone have tips for overcoming that imposter syndrome that you felt especially early on in your startup journey?

Sure. I think two things on imposter syndrome. Kind of don't believe in it, but then I also kind of do. And that's twofold. One, I think that as we kind of all mentioned, your background of experience can always kind of make you feel a little bit, you know, like anxious about like, you know, do I know what to do? Do I have the background, etc.? And that's sort of like a natural thing that I think kind of happens no matter where you are, whether you're in school, whether you're in a job, and that just requires learning. I think for me specifically, like as a young Black woman, when it comes to imposter syndrome, I think that it's not really— I don't really kind of take it as my own thing, right? I think that I, my body, my mind, my heart reacts naturally to what is like sometimes doors shut in my face because of things that have nothing to do with my actual talent or my actual intellectual ability. So I think that it has to do with recognizing how you feel, but also not necessarily always owning it as your own, right? Like it's not your problem, it's other people's problem that they have with you and that has nothing to do with you. And like you kind of just keep forging ahead. And keep creating your own path. So I think, you know, being honest and gentle with yourself, but also kind of saying fuck it when it comes to people, you know, who are just going to be ignorant with you.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You definitely can't take the detractors too seriously, yeah, as that, you know, being contributing to imposter syndrome. So I think that's like a very healthy attitude. Any other tips, Bri or Eric? Did you experience imposter syndrome or feel like you had ways that, you know, you worked to overcome that at all early on?

Oh, absolutely. I will jump in. Yes, 100%. I mean, this is, this is an easy topic for me to talk on. I mean, I don't know any entrepreneurs, at least ones who are being honest, uh, who don't deal with imposter syndrome. And it's not just at the beginning, it's throughout all of it. Throughout all of it. Yes, I experienced it at the beginning. I experienced it in my career before I was an entrepreneur. I also don't think that it's just something that we're going through, you know, in this silo. Marlee, I loved your thoughts on it and I totally agree with you on that. Like, as women entrepreneurs, you know, we know that 2.3% of venture capital funding is going towards women-led businesses. You know, we are told often that we don't have a seat at the table, and that is a problem, and it can make you feel like an imposter. Absolutely. Sometimes it's difficult to go through. I think fundraising for me personally at this stage of my company has brought out a lot of that. So I think it's very real. It's very valid. But yes, just like Marlee said, you have to tap into the bad bitch or the bad bro or whoever within and hold on to your vision, your conviction. You know why you're here and really stay very, very true to that in order to kind of get through it.

Awesome. Thank you, Bri. Yeah, I really like what you said about it's not just at the beginning. I think that's definitely true that just like in your previous career and just like when you have new things in your founder journey, like raising funding.

Totally.

It's totally, absolutely like expected that you would have a new wave of imposter syndrome as you encounter like these, these new changes. So yeah, I think that, that makes a lot of sense. We have a question here that I want to move to from Nidhi, and they're asking, how much did you typically work on your startup per week on average while you were enrolled in Founder Institute? So everybody could obviously speak to that, Marlee, do you want to go first? How much were you working on maybe, you know, pre-end, and then when you joined Founder Institute, did that change a lot how much time you were dedicating to working on your startup?

Yeah, for sure. I think especially again, because I came in like at the ideation stage, I was probably working, I could say like maybe 10 hours, like a measly 10 hours a week on my— I say measly because I was kind of like doing a lot of research for myself, like looking at my idea. Looking at potential competitors. But I think what FI does is it gives you like almost a research project, especially if you're in the ideation stage, and it gives you pointed metrics to look at and things to research. So I think with that sort of sessions and meetings combined, I— 20+ hours a week on my startup. But what I will say is that these are hours that you have to put in anyway. It's much easier to get them with guidance and honesty and people with expertise in this type of industry than it is to sort of willy-nilly do it. And you'll get there, but it happens faster and it happens with more support and sort of quicker answers doing it with FI. So I, I'm definitely grateful for the fact that FI kind of like pushes you hard to do that because you have to do it anyway.

Perfect, thanks, Marlee. Yeah, Eric or Bree, was it radically different for you? I think what we tell founders typically is to prepare for up to 20 hours of different sprint assignments each week. So your estimate was pretty on par with where we usually tell people to prepare for. Was either of your experiences very different than that in amount of time that you put into working on your business during the program?

Yeah. So I actually quit my full-time job and I went all in with Credo, right? It was just like, I have the opportunity, you know, I'm in a part of my life where I could take this big risk and I went all in. And when we joined Founder Institute, uh, that was part of the intention, right? Was we're going to do, put full effort into this and do as well as we can, right? This is the time. If we have what it takes, let's, let's show it. And so I was putting in probably A lot more, uh, 13, 14 hours a day, every day. So I was working 7 days a week building the company and also doing all the deliverables with FI. Uh, and I'll be honest, it hasn't changed. It's actually gotten worse. Um, uh, now that I have funding, it's like now there's actual real pressure on delivering what we say we can deliver. And so now it's, it's not good. I'm not telling everyone that you should do this. Uh, I know it's really unbalanced and I don't even know where work life ends anymore, or, you know, The other day I was telling my friends, I didn't even realize it was Labor Day. It was just another day, right? It's just another day where we do the same thing, we work at it all. So, but I do think you get what you put into it, right? You, you get what you put into FI. It's just in your favor to work as hard as you can, right? There's no, there's no one saying like, oh, you get a worse grade or, you know, there's no one telling you like you need to do better monitoring your performance. It's all about you and how how much you're going to put in, and that's what carries through when FI ends.

Thanks for that, Eric. Yeah, I really like that. I think it's very real. It's definitely true. Yeah, we tell people that Founder Institute kind of prepares you for the real world because of exactly what you just said. It doesn't get easier after you graduate or complete the accelerator program. Ultimately, you're going to be building a business and it's just going to get more challenging. So yeah, appreciate the candid honesty. That's what we're here to hear. Cool. I want to ask another question here, which is from Tamara, and it was sort of a— this is— feel free to speak to this or not. What degree of complexity of businesses have you found that FI is able to work with? So they're talking about like deep tech or hardware, and I know that's not necessarily applicable to maybe any of your companies, but maybe from companies who went through the program with you. Did you see, yeah, I guess solutions that were kind of more complex and how they were able to work with FI? Anybody want to answer that one?

I think that that can be a pretty subjective question and thus a subjective answer. That being said, I think that FI can work with any type of company. Yeah, I think in terms of complexity, I would have no, no concerns. I mean, I think our Our cohort and cohorts we've seen in Austin have had everything from 3D printing to SaaS companies to marketplaces to like fashion tech. Like, it truly is all over the place, and there's always new companies, different technologies, and completely different sectors that I'm hearing about. So I think you can, I think you can kind of follow whatever path you're wanting to go down, and it wouldn't be too complex.

Perfect.

Yeah, I think that's—

Can I just follow up to that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Sorry, yeah, I agree with Bri. I also wanted to say that on the complexity, Founder Institute, I mean, it sounds very cliché, but you really get in, you get out of it like what you put in. And so I think that your sort of mentors are there for you. And if you're like, hey, I'm looking for someone who is really good at this, like they will go through the F5 Rolodex and like figure out who they can kind of like tee up for you to speak to, whether it be in the sessions, whether it be in the office hours. So that's specific to your company, then have that in mind when you're going through the sessions, right? The other thing I would say though is that when it comes to pitching and talking to people, you will talk to people who don't know what your company is about or what your industry is. So on the flip side, it's also very, very helpful for you to learn the language of how to break down effectively and without sort of spoiling the magic of your company to people who have no idea what the industry is. So I think in that sense, it kind of you kind of do get that exercise. I think it's really valuable in learning how to do that because that's a big part of fundraising and being sort of in the VC startup space in general.

Yeah, perfect. Another question here is kind of a general entrepreneurship question from Diego asking, I would like to know if you had some support groups, friends, or partners specifically at the early stage, and if so, did FI, the FI network help you with establishing that support group? Anybody want to jump in and answer that one?

Yeah, I can jump in. So support group, I didn't really have any, right? So I came from, again, a technical background. I know a lot of scientists, a lot of software engineers, and entrepreneurship is this thing they make fun of, right? They're like, oh, Eric's leaving to go do his entrepreneurial thing. Let's all say good luck. So there wasn't, you know, you have that support but lack of support, right? And that was actually one of my goals with FI was to build a network, right? I know that, you know, when I went to pitch competitions or part of Utah where you had Silicon Slopes, I love the energy and all the ideas, creativity, ambition that was there. And I was like, I want to be around more of these people, right? And you will meet those people at FI. And I'm still actually friends with a couple of them that didn't make it through the whole program, but they're local here in Salt Lake. And, you know, I went and hung out with them the other day and checked up on how their company was doing. And so I do think, you know, you will make friends and create some good network connections out of the program.

Awesome, thanks Eric.

I will piggyback on that, totally agree. It is amazing for getting support. Also, like, yes, a support system is so important for entrepreneurship. I don't think that it's possible to survive the journey of entrepreneurship without support. So I feel like Founder Institute not only helped me connect with other founders who are at a similar stage of their business as I was, which was really, really helpful, but I also met people who have invested in us. I've met several members of our advisory board who are really, really like integral members of our business through Founder Institute, and I have met so much of my Austin network that has been kind of the foundation of how I've built my business. So just wanted to kind of share my experience with you guys.

Awesome, thank you, Bri. There's a couple of questions in here that are about co-founders, a little bit related. Another question from, from Nithi asking, did you have your own team when you first enrolled in FI, or when did you form your team? And another question from Anastasia about co-founders Did you have experience with looking for finding a co-founder and how did FI help? Anybody can jump in and answer that one based on your own experience with just finding a co-founder and where FI was in that process. Solo founders or—

I can go ahead. Yeah, so I am, I was a solo, or I still am a solo founder. Founder. It sounds like a couple of us might, might be solo founders. So I really thought it would be really awesome to have a co-founder, and I thought they were out there, but I don't know, I never met them. And then I kept building the business because I didn't find them. So I do know so many stories of Founder Institute helping with people find their, their co-founders and their business partners. That wasn't my experience. Granted, that's not something I was specifically looking for at the time. I was open to it, but it just didn't come to fruition. And then members of our team, that has definitely been a gradual process that really started after I graduated from Founder Institute. So yeah, that was my experience.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, to kind of address it, like, I guess just from the Founder Institute sort of perspective, yeah, we're not— we don't intentionally like try to be co-founder matchmakers. So that's not really part of it. Sometimes people do happily find each other within their cohort and become co-founders. One of them pivots away from whatever their initial idea was and settles more towards what another person's idea was. That definitely does happen. We hold regular networking events. Some of them are explicitly designed to be public co-founder networking events. I think we have another one already on the books either later this month in September or in October. It is something we We try to facilitate, but it's not necessarily like a part of the program to make sure, you know, you come out of there with a co-founder, but you know, it does happen sometimes. So at any rate, there's a question in here. I wanted to ask the question of what was the most challenging part of the program for each of you? Anastasia is asking in here, what was the best part of the FI program or where did they add the most value? So maybe the answers are similar, you know, best part versus the most challenging part, but if all of the panelists kind of want to speak to, the challenges or the most value. That would be great to hear from each of you. So Marlee, if you want to go first and tell us, you know, most challenging or best part of the program itself.

Yeah, I think most challenging element, maybe just like the sort of emotional roller coaster. If people are unfamiliar with the format of FI, week where you do have a lot of deliverables, but then also pitching and talking to people who are investors, talking to the actual local leaders themselves. And, you know, like it is in the real world when it comes to startups, you get, "I love this, you're amazing," and you get, "I have no idea what the heck you're talking about." And, you know, it kind of evens out as you continue to go through it because you refine, you know, what you're doing. But I think that was difficult. In the beginning, but difficult in a way that like those things typically are, right? Not more or less difficult than sort of any other accelerator or any other program. And I think when it comes to value, I think Dustin, you kind of mentioned like you just meet people in the program, and Eric said this too, that you just relate to, right? Even if you have no idea what their industry is or what they're building, or no expertise, you just relate to what they're doing and what their mentality is, what they want, the goals that they have. And I think that sort of in response to what was difficult, the sessions with my little sort of team pod really helped me a lot throughout the experience. And I actually had one person that I was with in every single rotation of the pod, and he and I are kind of like war buddies right now. He actually was in the army. He was like, I feel like we went to the army together. So I was like, wow, you know? So yeah, I think it's— But again, that's how it is realistically with or without FI. And so I think having the support system kind of gets built in and again, you build it yourself, but that just definitely helped me a lot. I would say, I don't say the long hours because I was already a college student, so I was already up for 25 hours a day anyway. So like, you know, take that how you will when it comes to how much work you have to put in.

Perfect. Thanks, Marlee. How about you, Eric? Most challenging and/or most valuable parts of the program curriculum during the Uh, those 14 weeks.

Yeah. So for everyone listening, you're going to get pushed, right? This program is going to push your boundaries, challenge you. And the hardest part for me was it made me do things I was avoiding, right? It was saying like, you need to talk to 10 more customers. Cool. I talked to 10 next week, talk to 10 more. It's like, I don't want to talk to 10 more. I talked to 10 last week. It doesn't matter if you don't talk to 10, you're out, right? It's like, okay, fine. I'll talk to 10. And so it's constantly pushing you to, and it's for a good reason, right? It's not just to make you do things that you don't want to do. And I'll tell you about, you know, there's, there's this time period where you enter where you are tired, you're getting pushed to do your big pitch that's coming up for mentor idea review. You are tasked with getting everything all done with your deliverables, right? If it's not done, you're going to get like reprimanded for it. And then after all that's done, they hit you with an epic sprint. So you're just like, cool. I don't even get like a chance to take a breath, right? It's just like, it's constant nonstop work. Um, and my Epic Sprint was financial modeling, which originally when I was tasked with that, I thought it was the dumbest thing in the world. It's like, who cares about financial modeling? It's all like fake numbers and we're just making assumptions. And, you know, you're making me like come up with this whole thing. And I did it and it turned out to be actually the best thing I could have done for my business. Right. It actually revealed really big flaws in my current business model. And to the point where now when I give advice, I say two things to startups. One is do your market research, and two, do a financial model, and that'll tell you if you're on the right track or not. And that was because FI forced me to, right? If it wasn't for that, I would have pushed that off until who knows when, probably until, yeah, until someone else demanded it and, you know, made me do it.

Awesome. How about you, Bri? Most challenging and/or most valuable parts of your experience with Founder Institute?

Wow, there were definitely a lot of challenging moments, like both Eric and Marlee said. I do remember one point in the program where I was really exhausted. I'd been working insane hours for a long time, and I got hit with, you know, a sprint or a special assignment or whatever it's called. And I honestly can't even remember exactly what the focus was. I think it was on competition. But it was a breaking point for me. And I remember going through the process and thinking, like, after all of this that I've gone through, I just don't know if I have it in me to continue. I don't know if I have it in me to be even able to finish this amount of work, you know, in one week and show up and pitch the next week. And it really is those experiences that do prime you for what is to come after. Because I was able to get through those moments. You are tested so much in your commitment to what you're doing. And there have absolutely been those moments afterwards where, you know, you have to, you have to have a serious level of commitment to what you're doing and have a level of resilience that you're able, able to develop. So I think Founder Institute is so valuable for that. I think that was probably one of my most challenging experiences was being close to quitting. And then one of the best, I did love pitching at graduation. I will say I love pitching. I love to have a captive audience. And I thought that was a really fun experience. You spend so much time through the program working on your pitch. So to be able to finally show it off and do your big delivery and, you know, wear a badass jumpsuit is all great. But I think for me, the real value in the program was in, helping me dream bigger than I had before. As a woman, as a woman entrepreneur, um, I think the message that I get most often is to be smaller and to take up less space. And through Founder Institute and the network that I was able to build through it, that was really my journey of learning, you know, how to dream bigger and how to really think about massive, big, scalable ideas and go after funding and really not have any limit to what my vision was or what I was capable of doing. So yeah, it was definitely a great experience that I clearly recommend.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Bree, for that answer. And yeah, to double-click on like the first thing that you said, yeah, sometimes we call that like building your adversity muscle. And I think that, yeah, hearing that is always, you know, great for us to hear that, you know, by going through this kind of hard experience during the program, for example, and you felt like it prepared you for what comes after. So yeah, that's really cool to hear. Another question from Anastasia here is a question we always hear a lot about, which is like finding investors. So how did FI help you either, you know, find investors, whether that was through the network, or maybe prepare you for how to go out and for fundraising afterwards, for those of you who that applies to? And I know, Eric, that you've raised some funding, so Uh, this question's for anybody. Feel free to jump in and just talk about, um, how, how that helped you connect with or prepare to connect with investors.

I can talk to that. So, um, all the mentors probably are investors, right? So every mentor you interact with is a potential investor. Uh, did FI help me get an investor? Yes and no. What they did help me do is they made sure that I had a rock-solid pitch.

Right?

So right off the bat with the first mentor idea review, you do your pitch and you get feedback on it. And I actually got a pretty good score. And right there I was like, "Oh, I must be good at pitching. I must be a natural at this." And I just started talking to investors right off the bat thinking that no one knows who I am and cold emailing, no one's going to get back to me. And little did I know, everyone got back to me and I was actually pitching in front of investors. I learned later as we went through the program of like all the kind of mistakes I made, you know, and of course, right?

Fail.

Fail fast. But what they did prepare me for, though, was pitching. And now that I've been in a lot of pitch competitions, pitched in front of a lot of different investors, I'll tell you that if you actually stick with the program, you're ahead of the curve, right? I've watched so many other companies pitch and their pitch deck is a mess, right? It's missing all the relevant information. They don't even know how to talk about their financial model. They don't even know what their go-to-market strategy is. And you, your own, can say like, This is a bad pitch. And so the fact that you have that ability now to say like, what's a good and bad pitch already sets you ahead of the curve. And that's really what's valuable, right? It's not that because you're in front of investors, so what, right? It's your chance. You have to sell it to them. And if you can't sell to them, then, you know, I can give you every single investor around, but if you can't sell it to them, then you're not gonna get an investment. So that's actually more important is to actually have the ability to sell it. And then the connections will follow, right? You'll be able to, you'll be able to find who you want to talk to and they'll find you as well.

Perfect. Yeah, thank you, Eric. Any other panelists? Bree, do you want to jump in and answer that one too?

Yeah, I definitely echo a lot of what Eric said. I wouldn't say that Founder Institute gave me connections to investors that we currently have, but I did feel ahead of the curve in our— just our pitching abilities coming out of the program. The fact that we have super strong pitch decks, And you've also gotten so much feedback already that you know what you're going in with isn't shit, and that should give you some baseline level of confidence with investors. So I definitely think that the program is beneficial in that it does help give you the tools to ultimately be successful at fundraising.

Perfect. All right.

Yeah, if I could just add something in, Dustin, I think I echo what they said, but I also want to say that Like those office hours, there are people who are not giving presentations in the sessions who do have office hours available, like 2, 3 times the people. Run through the list and just book a time with a random person that you don't know and say, look, here's my pitch, and they'll break it down for you. And everyone, like Eric and Bri were saying, has sort of different metrics when it comes to what a good pitch is. But what I will say is that if you have Maybe you're uncomfortable with pitching or not really sure how the investment process works. It's a really great time to ask all those questions to people who practically do that in their lives and sort of not waste your maybe sort of baby questions on like a real investor who might, who may or may not invest in you because you sort of took this chance. Like truly use those resources and ask people questions. And I think also when it comes to investing, I think of it kind of like the college process. It's like, you really, really want to go to the school so badly, but at the end of the day, the school really wants to find the best students. So you also have to remember that they're looking for you, they're looking for really good CEOs, they're looking for good companies. And so keep that confidence with you and keep asking, hey, do you know anybody else who's interested in this space, who's interested in that space? Like they want to connect you. It's their job to know people and to know founders. So don't be too anxious about that either. Like keep that with you as you go through that investing process.

Yeah, that's really cool because yeah, before COVID when everything was in person, it really wasn't that way. But yeah, we have that office hours tool now that it sounds like, yeah, you were able to make use of it Marley, to connect with mentors who were not there for your specific session and got value through those one-to-one interactions. So that's really cool to hear. We have some questions in here that some people are double-clicking on, I guess, in the Q&A, which is basically about how much your ideas changed in the program. So Chow asked, did your business idea change in the program? And another person asked, did you come into FI with an idea and continue with it, or did it completely change? By the time you graduated? Do any, any of you want to answer that one?

I can kick that one off because my idea changed a lot. Like I mentioned earlier, I came in with what ultimately was a terrible idea around coworking. Did change my entire perspective on coworking in general, but I mean, it was such a good experience, because through that I realized it's a shitty business model. Um, so yeah, my idea changed. My idea changed in terms of how I was executing it. We're an online marketplace where, you know, we create— we're a shopping destination for women-owned brands. So that's different. Um, but what did remain the same was kind of what I was solving for and my passion, which in both cases, different applications, was around uplifting and investing in women and community. So I do think it's possible to kind of go in again with the passion, with a spark, with an area of interest, and ultimately go through the program to refine it and determine what the best execution is.

Awesome. Thank you, Bree. There's a question in here, I might butcher your name, Amina Boudi, and the question is, I kind of want to ask this one to you, Marlee, given that you were a student like studying business sort of in concert or around the same time as you participated in FI. The question is, do you need previous knowledge in business before joining the Founder Institute? And I guess to kind of tailor that a little bit to you, how did your learning more in the pedagogical classroom part of business compare and contrast that to your experience in the accelerator program? How were they the same? How did it prepare you or how is it different?

Yeah, for sure. It's a great question. And I'll even sort of add another element to this. I was also like a venture fellow out of VC in New York while I was doing FI. So really like logging onto one Zoom, doing founder education, logging onto another Zoom, doing like what are safe notes, you know, like how to oversubscribe around, blah, blah, blah. So really both sides of the coin there. I think I would say no, you don't need prior business knowledge. I think what you need is sort of a business orientation, maybe sort of a better way to describe it in the sense of, I think you just need to be confident and you need to be a problem solver, like whatever that looks like for you and for your business. I think also what's kind of nice about startups is that there's such a variety of backgrounds when it does come to founders, within the FI network and just in the world broadly. And I think that you— FI is not school. Like you are building your business on the spot. It's not theory. Like it's everything is practice. So it almost doesn't matter what background you have because you've never built your business before. And that's all you're doing. Like you're not taking exams about theory and about, you know, quotients and blah, blah, blah. So I would say that, yeah, I just think you have to bring the intellectual curiosity that you have. That you sort of point in any direction in your daily life and bring it to your business. And then the last thing I'll say is that we're all consumers of something in this world. And yet we're also all CEOs trying to figure out what do consumers want. Like even if you do have a certain background identity, when you flip the coin, you really have to kind of learn still like how to approach things. So I think even people who did have like, I had people in my cohort who had MBAs, people who had come from working in management levels in different businesses. And it's just a whole other ballgame and you just have to learn. We've never done this before. So yeah, I would think don't let it stop you. That's sort of the follow-up to your question. Don't let it stop you if you don't have a background in that. And then yeah, I think people love, especially VCs, they love people who are just scrappy, like get it done sort of by any means necessary. There's no path. I think that's really admirable, honestly.

Yeah, I really like the way you answered that question. I think that was a great answer. Thank you, Marlee. Okay, Heidi asked, she said it's so great to hear about all of your journeys, given where your startup is now, kind of where you see your trajectory in your career as an entrepreneur and as a founder. I added this into Heidi's question, she said, are you going to work on your startup for the next 1, 2, 5, 10 years kind of projecting out into the future and yeah, maybe tailoring sort of what you've learned over the past couple of years coming out of the Founder Institute. What do each of our panelists kind of think about the future of your career as an entrepreneur with your current startup or where you're going to go? Anybody want to prognosticate about their own futures? That's great. I'll kick off.

I'll kick off. Well, I definitely see myself working on my business for the foreseeable future. We are just on the verge of closing our first pre-seed round right now. Thank you. Thank you. So we are really at the, like, at the precipice of the next stage of growth, which is super exciting. So yeah, I mean, the way I see it is like we're still at ground zero. We're still at the very beginning. I mean, even after the program, like, you're still in the infancy of your business. So yeah, I would say no limit right now. Projecting into the future, knock on wood.

Knock on wood. Perfect. Thank you, Bree. Anybody else want to kind of talk to, I guess, your experience and learning? We say we're like, the Founder Institute is called that because we're kind of building founders as opposed to building companies. So I don't know if anybody else, how you want to think about it. Yeah.

So I mean, personally, for me, anything I build, I'm in love with. And so I want to like hold it and keep it. And the last thing I want to do is sell it to someone who will just rip it apart and do things I didn't want to be done with it. Right. So my intention with Credo was to always take it public, right. To take it all the way if I can. And that's my goal now. And it's going to be my goal as far as I can take it. Right. So I've never had the intention of making a quick buck. I think there's a lot of easier things to do in life if you just want to do it for monetary purposes versus building a company that you're putting everything you have into. So yeah, for me, it's as far as I can take it, and I would love to take this company public one day.

Awesome.

I'm just going to add something in the mix here. So I, when I first started Founder Institute, I was like, damn, people say this is a good idea and that's awesome, but I don't want to do this forever. And I kind of like, this is sort of a little bit of confession time. I was like, okay, this is great to take a lot of work and that's awesome. But do I want this job? You know, I'm like a senior in college. I'm like, what job do I want next year? I think of all those things. And I was like, hmm, I don't know if this is what I want to do. Not because I didn't love what I was doing, but just I was like, there are other things that I'd planned for myself in life. Right? And then, you know, you're a week in, you're like doing your pitch, talking about Susan, you're like, never mind, like, this is it. Like, this is my life. I am my company, my company is me. Like, there is no turning back. But I think, so I am echoing Eric and Bri, you know, we'll all be sort of at the NASDAQ together or something, you know, in the next 10 years, opening the bell, IPOing our company potentially. But I also think that the founder experience is just starting and this likely will not be your last business that you work on, whether it's as a direct executive, from like an advisor standpoint. So also like sort of this, again, as Dustin said, this is the beginning, breathe into that. Like you don't have to feel anxious about like, I'm stuck to this forever. Like do what you want. Many CEOs no longer, many co-founders are no longer CEOs. They're just on the board, but they're not even on the board anymore. Like it's really okay. So yeah, I, for people who out there who are maybe thinking that, like that is also something to know and to note.

Yeah, perfect. Thank you, Marlee. I definitely think that that makes a lot of sense. I want to be cognizant of everybody's time, try to wrap up here as we head towards the top of the hour. And so the question that I usually like to ask as we wrap up and want to pose it to everybody each in turn, It's sort of, you know, what tips would you give for somebody relatively early stage, I guess, to build a successful startup? And then two, you know, to be successful in the Founder Institute program itself. So, Marly, do you want to answer that one first? And then we'll go to Eric and end with Bree. Yeah, what, again, tips for building a successful company and then tips for being successful in the Founder Institute program?

I guess I'll flip it. So first, for successful in Founder Institute program, which potentially actually speaks to being a good business person, is just sort of knowing what people want from you and not in the sort of you're always giving of yourself. As we were talking about before, this is a program, right? And even though it is building you up to make your company, figure out what's going to make you the most successful within this. Within this program itself. And potentially, like, there were things that I was doing that didn't really even apply to me as a founder or me and my company after FI, but they were super helpful for me to go through, get that experience, like go through certain sprints. So I would say just kind of don't be too caught up in the fact that some things might not apply specifically to your company. Go through the process overall, it is very, very helpful. And it will contribute to your growth as a founder overall. And then I think as a company standpoint, just be a good listener. Good leaders are very good listeners and they take advice, they take criticism well, right? Don't be defensive, just listen, right? And process. And you don't have to agree with everything. Lord knows I haven't agreed with anything, everything that I've heard from people. But I think learn what your style is, like how your communication styles are, because that's a big part of business and also learn what your leadership styles are. Even if you just have one freelance intern and you don't have anyone salaried on your company, who you are and how you lead is a big part of how people believe in you as a founder from an investment standpoint, but also success of your company from a top-down standpoint. I think that's something I really would love to emphasize is know how you lead, right? And everyone is a bad manager. Everyone sucks. Figure out why you suck. And then be better at that, you know. So it's like a little, I guess, last piece that I would say. If you don't have a team when you're in FI, think about that even if you're just a solo founder, even if it's just you and your co-founder, and sort of keep building on that as you keep going.

Yeah, thank you, Marlee. I really like that answer about thinking about your leadership style and realizing, yeah, everybody's like— nobody's a perfect manager, certainly when they start. Yeah, I think that's really good advice. How about, how about you, Eric? Advice for success as an early-stage founder and success in the Founder Institute program itself?

Yeah, so Marly said it really well, nailed it on the head. What I would like to add is, you know, the Founders Institute is just a guide, right? It's not, yeah, like Marly said before, it's not school, you're not getting a grade, it's all purely to assist you in building your company in the best way possible. And so that really comes from you. Whatever you put into it is what you're gonna get out of it. You know, you can game the system and say like, oh, no one checked my last year deliverables. I'm not gonna do this next few ones. Sure. Do that. But it's just hurting you. Right. Cause at some point you're gonna need to do that. Uh, and might as well do it now. Um, and that really kind of leads to what is a successful business is, and, you know, grit, perseverance. Sure. Those are required to make sure that you can keep pushing through. But it's also, yeah, like taking advice, taking a step back, really thinking about, you know, what are my blind spots here? What are like the spots that I'm kind of ignoring that's already been kind of flashing at me this whole time, but I'm not taking it seriously and acknowledge it, right? Because those are probably signals that your gut intuition is already telling you like, we're off course. This is not— this is a big problem, right? Well, we just found out this new thing. And, you know, I think a lot of early founders get stuck with competitors. They just keep studying their competitions like, oh, they're doing this, they're doing this. And it's like a whole feature game, right? If I do this faster than them, then I'll win. No, like you gotta, you gotta just focus on your lane and you just need to keep paving forward, right? What your competitors are doing shouldn't have any influence or effect on you. Um, and you should be doing something completely that's focused because, you know, this is the right path forward. And by the time you accomplish it, your competitors are going to notice you and be like, where did this person come out of nowhere all of a sudden? And how did they figure all this out?

Right.

So I think that's really what people get stuck on is that early validation of like, this is the right idea, or looking for that moonshot idea. This is the next biggest thing. This is the next Facebook. This is the next Coinbase. This is the next such a huge idea. And to be honest, a lot of those ideas were already done before in the past. None of these new companies that are successful now, it's not like it was completely on their own. Someone actually tried it and failed in the past. And what they did was they just took what they failed re, you know, combined it, found more clarity, and then probably timing was also a factor, right? But then they got to work. And that's really what you should be working on is how can you take what's failed, if it has failed, and how can you remodel it and get to work?

Awesome. Thank you, Eric. I really like that kind of focusing less on the features and less on the competitors and more on the solutions. You know, your, your That's really great advice. How about you, Bri? Last but not least, kind of the general advice for somebody, early-stage entrepreneur, to be successful in their startup, and then for somebody entering the Founder Institute program, successful in the program itself?

Yeah, I mean, Eric and Marley covered so much of what my advice would be. Staying open, I think, is super important. Don't come in married to one idea or one way of executing it. Totally agree with what Eric said. Most of these big unicorn businesses are not new ideas. So stay open. Don't stay married to any one concept, you know, at the beginning of the program. And I would also say use the people around you, get as much feedback as you can, not total shit feedback, but feedback from smart people, feedback from mentors, from the program leaders. You know, try to keep— try to find people who can even become potential advisors, like was the case with us. There are so many amazing people who make up the FI programs, and for us, that was definitely one of our biggest assets during the program and afterwards. So yeah, I think really using that feedback, Staying open to criticism is a very big part of the program. And knowing that when you are receiving criticism, it's not because you're stupid or people don't like your idea. It's because they want to help you and we're here to get better together. And then, you know, stay, you know, be resilient. Don't give up. It is a tough program, but if you can make your way through it, you are going to be a better founder coming out of it.

For sure. Yeah, that's really great advice, Bri. I definitely agree 100% with like the openness to receiving feedback and criticism, and that's definitely a big part of maximizing the value that you get if you engage with the mentors throughout the program. So yeah, really, really great advice. I want to thank each of our panelists who are here with us tonight: Marlee Lake, Eric Lowe, and Bri Cookshank. Thank you to everybody who joined us live on the webinar here. Everybody will get a copy of the video of this webinar in an email over the next couple days. And yeah, just thank you all for your advice, for our founders who joined, and please stay healthy and take care.