Founder Institute Alumni Q&A Panel - 11 August 2020

Hey everybody, welcome to the Founder Institute webinar. My name is Jonathan Gritchen. I am a co-founder of the Founder Institute, and we're here today to have some of our great alumni from the program answer any questions that you have about the program. So I do see we already have about 40 participants, and we're definitely going to have a lot more people into the chat. This is a 100% live event, so if you are in the chat, say hello, let us know where you're tuning in from. I would expect some people from Europe here today. I would expect some people probably from Brazil, LATAM, and obviously all across the Americas as well. Omaha, Nebraska, London, Toronto. All right, two of our founders that are on the line today are from Toronto. Rome, Dublin, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Manhattan. The other person who's not from Toronto on the line here today is currently in Brooklyn, Frankfurt. Santa Monica, Kitchener, that's Toronto, I believe, or very close, not Toronto, very close to Toronto. I might have been offending somebody there, I'm not sure. But yeah, so everybody welcome on the line. And the point of this call today is to answer your questions, okay? So any questions that you have, please throw them into the chat. And a member of our team, Virginia, is in the chat right now, and her name is a founder and she's in there, and she's gonna be taking any questions that you have and feeding them to me to ask to the alumni that are on the line. So please, at any time, any questions that you have, put them into the chat. This is really supposed to be an opportunity to get the answers to your questions, so please do not be shy. And with that being said, I guess I'll go through now and start to introduce some of the speakers. So let's see, how about I'll start here with Pooja, or I guess I should probably say Dr. Pooja, right? Hey, Pooja.

Hi.

So Pooja's from Toronto. She is a graduate of the Toronto FI program and doing some really, honestly, some really noble stuff in enabling different monitoring and collision I guess, type systems in wheelchairs for disabled people. Why don't you— you could probably describe it a lot better than I can, Pushya.

Thanks. Thanks for the introduction. So just a shout out to someone who said they're in Bahrain. That is actually my birth city. So hi. I'm now in Toronto, of course, but I was born in Bahrain, lived there 12 years of my life. So very, very close to my heart. And I actually just went back after 25 years last year. Amazing the things that are happening there. So much has changed in the Middle East, so it's very exciting. But anyway, back to why I've been brought in here, I guess, is I started Braze Mobility about 4 years ago, so 2016. Before that, I had spent about 14 years, you know, doing research on smart wheelchairs. And the reason that I was really drawn to this area was actually because of the first time I walked into a long-term care facility and I saw that the majority of residents in long-term care were slumped over in these manual wheelchairs and they weren't being prescribed power wheelchairs because of a lot of safety issues. So, you know, majority of long-term care residents, for those of you who don't know, have dementia. And so that typically ends up excluding them from the use of power wheelchairs, which then really, you know, just kills their quality of life and their independence, makes them really reliable or reliant on caregivers. And so that's how I got into this whole area and got really passionate about what we can do with technology. I had a computer science background and I really wanted to apply that into healthcare, but more specifically, I kind of found my calling for assistive technology. And so that's what I started. And Braze Mobility today has essentially created the first blind spot sensors for wheelchairs that can give multimodal feedback to the driver. So the beauty of the system is it's really been designed for wheelchair users, right? So this is not robotic technology that's just been kind of slapped on a wheelchair. It's really taken the user into account right from day one, their families, therapists, pretty much all the stakeholders in the industry in order to come up with something that's, that's really usable, accessible, and affordable for a lot of our clients, which is also a big factor.

Yeah, it's a really, it's a really laudable mission. And, you know, was this something, you know, coming from a more academic background, was this your first foray, foray into, into starting a company and building a product?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I would never have labeled myself as a business anything, a business person at all, because, you know, I was, I was very passionate about the problem that I was trying to solve. To be, to be fair, I wasn't very keen on it. I wasn't very wedded to the idea of being an academic either. I think the whole time I was really just chasing after the problem. And so when I got out of undergrad, and undergrad, I just, I just wanted, you know, I just found this problem I was really passionate about. At the time there was no industry for it. And so the only way I could have actually pursued it was going the academic route. And then I went far enough down the academic route and, you know, I started getting interviews and calls from people saying, oh, when's this technology going to be available? And I was like, I have no idea. You know, I— so, so from there I started talking to the wheelchair manufacturers and then I realized it wasn't their priority. And so it really— I'd say I really became an entrepreneur out of necessity. Because it just felt like there was nobody else who was really in that position where they could make this a priority and take it on.

Interesting. Yeah, it's definitely— building a business is a good way to get shit done, personally, whether it's governments or academic or something like that. But all right, so the second speaker I want to bring on is Sean Foo. And Sean, also from Toronto, not too far away. Sean had a power outage at his— in his building this morning, so he quickly shuffled over to somebody else's building so he can join us. Thank you for that, Sean. And Sean is solving problems with regards to visas with supervisa.ai. You want to describe what you're doing, Sean?

Absolutely. Hello everyone, and I'm from Toronto. I am the CEO and co-founder of Supervisa. So Supervisa is building a visa and immigration automation software to streamline the application process, lower costs, and increase scalability to support an expanding sales volume. Or you can just simply think of us as a TurboTax software, but in immigration. So I originally from China and I came to Canada about like 15 years ago. So I have gone through every step of the visa and immigration process of ourselves. And now I've been working in the industry for about 8 years. And after going through the Founder Institute programs, we launched our MVP in April of this year. Then we started generating revenue, then we went to another accelerator and then we raised our first the check, which with a lot of help and support from Founder Institute. So that's— I have to give the credit to Founder Institute. That's where we are today.

Cool. And that was that— that first check was angel, right? Angel?

Yeah, it was angel. Yeah.

It's great for you to generate revenue with the MVP though. That's— yeah, that's not always the case. And even MVP with something like what Pooja is building is sort of irrelevant, right?

Yeah. So I mean, this company, Super Visa, is our second company. So I was previously run the traditional immigration consulting firms as well. And so what we— the reason we actually went to Founder Institute is that we wanted to find a solution, how we can leverage technology with our traditional business model and expand or increase that scalability for our business. So for a lot of people, surprising that we have the sales, even like the video very beginning. It's because we're in the business for a while. And, and, but what really helped us to accelerate is the technology part, which we learned from Founder Institute.

Awesome. All right. And last but not least, we have Courtney piping in here from, from Brooklyn, New York. And Courtney's doing The Lighthouse, and that's thelighthouse.us. And it's a— I guess you could describe it in a nutshell as sort of a personalized, like, career growth platform, right?

Yeah, that's exactly right. Thanks, Jonathan. Um, hi everyone, thanks so much for joining today. Um, so my name is Courtney Brand and I'm the founder and CEO of The Lighthouse. Um, a little bit of background on me. So prior to starting the company, my career was in management consulting and kind of as I grew my career, I've always been really driven, really career focused, and became increasingly frustrated that as I was navigating career inflection points, I was looking for advice, I was looking for insight, and I ultimately was still calling my mom and my sister for career advice and recognizing that there was a big gap there in terms of how objective the advice was and also context. And upon looking into it, found that that is the go-to solution for most people getting career advice today, is most professionals rely on their direct network, whether that's their partners, their parents, their siblings, their friends. And so what we're realizing is that careers are changing faster than ever. We are now navigating a lot more changes throughout our career, and also those changes are more extreme. And so really with The Lighthouse, the objective was how can we create a platform that makes it really easy to get connected to the right insight at the right time so that you can move one step forward in your career, whatever that happens to mean for you in the moment. Today, we work with companies that are actually sponsoring White House memberships for their employees as a way to invest in their personalized career growth.

That's interesting too. Yeah, I mean, I guess with businesses right now, especially with COVID there's going to be— need to be a lot of upskilling involved, right? And I guess they see that as a pretty big perk to offer to some of their employees, right?

Yeah, it's the number one benefit millennials want. So yes, there's a large market for it.

Awesome. All right, cool. Well, definitely 3 different types of products, 2 different cities, all sort of in the same geographic region, but that's okay. 2 different countries at least. So we have a lot of questions from the audience. I'm just going to start going through these. I'll try my best to put them in some kind of logical sequence, but They probably won't be, okay, because we have a lot of questions coming in. So yeah, I mean, I guess the first question from Avery, you know, why did you choose— sort of the motivation and the reasoning, right? Like, why did you choose the FI Accelerator? Did you enter with co-founders? I guess is the second part of that question. Anyone, feel free to pipe in there.

I guess I'll jump in then. Yeah, so last year we chose Foundry Institute, like, first of all, it was, uh, it was, uh, I would say it's an opportunity because they were in Toronto and, uh, we met them in person at a Collision, which is tech conference, and where we learned about the Foundry Institute. And then when we, after that, like, we dived into more research about the Foundry Institute programs and which, uh, find very interesting because the way the course is structured, and it's kind of like walk you through every steps of how to building a startup company. So as I was introduced myself, so this is my second business, but it's actually the first tech business or tech startup. So we find it's very valuable that the structure of the course walk you through like First, you have to build your MVP, and then you have to find your market fit, and so on and so on. So it actually saved us a lot of time, and through what the Foundry Institute can provide with their experience. Yeah, and second question will be like, yeah, I joined with a founder, like a co-founder, so I had a partner.

Okay, Puja, did either of you actually, or Courtney, did either of you join with a co-founder as well or no?

So I do have a co-founder, but he's, he's more of an advisor. So he was actually my postdoc supervisor. And so when I started the company and it was really just kind of him saying, you know, like, I'm here, like, I'm here to support, you know, at the time it was also very beneficial to have a co-founder like him because of some of the audiences that I was pitching to. So it added to, you know, it served to kind of add that extra credibility as well and open his network up to me. But the deal kind of always was right from the start that he would come in with more of an advisory role. So I think in that sense, he's probably not a traditional co-founder that you think of. And I think, you know, in a more traditional sense, I'm probably more of a sole co-founder or sole founder. But, you know, I think that was really important early in the days. And I think I kind of more filled the co-founder gap through some of my early employees. And so very early on, and the way that I did it was, you know, a lot of people ask in terms of technical co-founders, how you know, like if it's someone that you don't already have in mind, how do you find a new technical co-founder? They can be very expensive. And then what if things don't work out? Now you're stuck with this person and there's like all of this legal stuff. So the way that I did this was especially in order to build my technical team, I generally brought people on and always paid them. So I either paid them through internships or consulting sort of project agreements, and within a couple of months you know if this person is going to work out, and it was at that point that I'd offer them kind of early employee shares in the company. And I think that worked out, that worked out really well. I mean, in terms of all of the staff that we've hired, I've kind of taken that stance of anyone that I bring on, I'm going to pay, because I don't know, you know, how much ownership they're going to have in the company and whether this is going to be like a long-term plan. You want someone, not even just co-founder, but even just anyone with company shares, you want someone that's really invested in your business. And sometimes it takes a few months to actually see whether they're really invested. So when I came into FI, I was actually already at the stage, so I was part of the growth track within FI. I don't know if everybody knows about that, but there's sort of like the general track and then If you are sort of, you know, later stage relevant relative to where you're expected to be in FI, then you get into the growth track. And so you have more assignments that are then more catered to growth than building your MVP. And so a lot of my assignments were then more focused on like getting to that next stage because we had MVP, we already had early traction, we had some revenue, but we were really trying to look at the next step to go. And I'm going to bring up one more thing that I think maybe will not be covered by some of the other speakers. I think, I think the common thing is obviously what I got as well, which was the network and the mentorship and all of that. But I think what was really interesting is the point when I joined FI, I was actually kind of at a bit of a low point because someone who had kind of filled that co-founder gap for me, who was an early employee who basically built the MVP with me, couldn't really stay on in the company anymore. From a multitude of reasons. You know, he, he was critical in terms of getting that MVP, but we were really becoming more of a sales and marketing company. And that happens in a startup where you go from being an R&D company to now you're suddenly a sales and marketing company. What do you do with your technical staff? And so, you know, he got a better opportunity. I couldn't hold him back because it was the right thing for him. And so he agreed to kind of stay, stay on in a consulting role. But I suddenly went from having this person right from day one to now not having anyone. Because, you know, I had— I didn't want to hire any more technical R&D. I needed a sales and marketing team to be built up, but I hadn't really found the right people. And so I was all alone for the first time since when— since before I started. And so when I came into FI, I think I was also at a point where I really wanted a support system, not just for mentorship, but an emotional support system as well. And so that's, that actually, I would say more than anything else, that's actually what FI did for me.

That's, that's, that's great. Yeah, it answered a lot. And, and Katya asked, you know, if I already have an MVP and initial customers, would this program be helpful? So I think Pooja kind of answered that as well. I'm glad we were able to be an emotional support system. I, I do think that's something that a lot of people really devalue, right? Because there's sort of a macho culture around entrepreneurship, right? It's like, just get it done, like hashtag hustle, like that kind of stuff, right? But having that support system is really important because there's massive amounts of ups and downs. Courtney, what about you? Did you come in to FI solo or with the team?

Yeah, I came into FI as a solo founder. Still to this day, I'm a solo founder. Now we have a team. And similar to Pooja's point, I think that especially in the early days, getting different perspectives and ideating with people, whether it's other founders or the advisors that they supply you with, or even your program lead, is super valuable to just bring in different perspectives to make your product and solution better and further identify what it actually is. The reason we chose FI is because there's very few accelerator programs that exist at that stage of the startup lifecycle. So the Techstars and the YCs of the world ultimately come later. And FI was unique in that it was really for companies like— for some of the founders that came in, we came in with low revenue, but some revenue. But some of the founders came in with purely an idea, and it was really a place to just figure out what that idea was.

Yeah, and on the co-founder front as well, because there's been a couple of questions on the co-founders, like You know, was the program effective to meet co-founders? You know, did FI help in finding other team members were some questions here. And did that— did FI like play a role through the FI network? Did any of you find some of those initial team members?

I didn't find team members, but I found founder friends and founder friends end up becoming your unofficial advisors because they're going through the same things as you are. So I made founder relationships, friendships, advisors, whatever you want to call them, that have lasted to this day. And I think that was the most valuable part.

Okay. What about advisors? Did any of you get advisors from the FI Network?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to this day, Sunil and Ryan are I talked to Ryan, we have ongoing meetings since I finished FI. Every 2 weeks I meet with him and that's been really critical because just having like that daily or the kind of a regular touchpoint, it's like someone now that like knows everything that's going on. And I think one thing that I really struggled— so I have a lot of different mentors to do different things, right? So I have mentors in my industry who have really expertise on like, you know, how do you get products reimbursed and, you know, how do you get clinical advocacy and things like that. And then, and so you have like all of these little things that you're trying to fill. And for me, some of the FI advisors are kind of like my high-level umbrella advisors, right? So they're not necessarily people with industry expertise, but they have like the high levels. If I have like a general question about Hey, I'm at this stage and I have some challenges with distribution. Like, you know, I work with distributors that have like 700 or 800 reps across the country. Like, how do you scale educating that many reps across the country when your product is not a priority and they have hundreds of products in their catalog? You know, those are fairly general questions that are not very specific to my industry. Like, those are questions that kind of go across various industries. And so those are the types of things that some of these advisors are great with. And then the fact that they're so connected with me and we have such regular touchpoints means that they really know what's going on. Whereas a lot of my advisors, I don't talk to every 2 weeks. I might talk to, you know, every 3 or 4 months, in which like every quarter our business looks completely different. So I think just having those regular touchpoints. But I think the biggest thing I would really say is FI is what you make out of it. You really have to figure out what it is you want from it and then get it out. Get that out from it. Because it is set up to do a lot of different things and not everything there is going to be relevant for you. So it is really about seeking out, depending on the stage you're at, what it is that you need, talking to the mentors about it, and then getting them to help you set up, get set up with that network that you need to succeed. So it's very much, I think, like, I think also just being aware and understanding what you want to get out of it, I'd say, is the first step. And then it's there and there's a lot that it can offer and you just take what you need out of it.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with Pooja. Like, I think so in terms of like a mentorship, or even like, did you find a co-founder in the program? I will say, Founder Institute is providing a larger networking to support you. So you really have to know what you need in terms of like, what do you need? What do you need to ask? What problem you need from a Founder Institute? Instead of just sitting there, oh, I have this problem, I have a million problems, but come to help me. That's not the way Founder Institute works. It's like, you have to know the problem you have and go to talk to them. For example, Sonia is always there, but, and if you need any problem, and if you have any problem, if you want to talk to anybody, just tell them and they will try to connect you with them to solve that problem instead of like to tell you what exactly you need to do because everyone, every business is gonna be different.

Yeah, for sure. And just, I'm just gonna add something quick and I think it's, Puja, you kind of touched upon this too. We always get a ton of questions here like, are you gonna help me find a co-founder? That kind of stuff, right? Like a co-founder is not like, oh, I need like a personal assistant or something like that, right? It's not like a job description thing. The best way to find a co-founder, honestly, is to just start building the thing, right? To just start getting as far as you possibly can. And, you know, like in Pooja's case, for example, right? Like hiring some people for smaller level things and seeing if they're really bought in and this kind of stuff, right? So yeah, don't be that person going to the meetups and stuff that's like, oh, I'm just looking for a co-founder before I get started. Like, that'll assure that you'll never find a co-founder and you'll never get started. Right. Okay, so let's see. Ari was asking, looking back, what's one thing you wish you would have done differently? And I guess that's, that's within the, the FI program, I'll assume, Ari. That's, that's sort of a harder question. Someone want to— Courtney, you want to start with that one?

Let me think about that question.

Okay, I could, if anyone else wants to jump in, that is a pretty introspective question. I could throw another one there in the meantime. So let's see, Eric and Celeste were asking like how Fully Form developed, were your ideas before you joined the program? I mean, so I think Pooja answered that. Sean, at what point did you come in? You were, you were, you were already running like the consultancy Right? And you were trying to productize it essentially?

Yeah. So in terms of the new idea or the new, um, business, like we literally just come into Founder Institute with that idea. Like we just wanted to build a technology with our traditional business.

Okay. Um, Courtney, when you came in, at what stage? Similar, right?

Iterated a ton. I mean, I think that that is like, That is something you just have to get really comfortable with. I think when we started with FI, it was— well, I know that it was a B2C model, so we were selling directly to individuals. Now we sell to companies, so that's a major shift. Yeah, I'm sure there are probably dozens of other differences between what our business looked like then and what it looks like now, if not more. So don't— yeah, the process I think FI is good for figuring out what your solution, what problem you're— well, we came in with a really clear idea of like, we knew the problem we were solving for, but how to solve it, especially if you're taking a slightly different approach or more innovative approach, that takes time and that takes market feedback and that takes customers responding to you. So that's an ongoing process. You're going into FI with a fully baked company. You probably should be instead focusing on scaling that rather than like you're at a different stage. So don't let having your business not fully figured out be something that holds you back from joining something like FI. FI is actually— the process is going to help you get more clarity on what that actually is. And you're going to be doing it in the right way, which a lot of people, the way they do that is they create like pitch deck after pitch deck after pitch deck trying to figure it out. But actually the real way to figure out what your business is, is to build a little bit, launch it, see what— how that goes, build a little bit more, iterate, launch version 2. Like, and FI will teach you kind of those structures that you will then apply to your business, that we apply to our business even today, of testing and iterating and changing.

Yeah, and there are two different tracks. Uh, Pooja mentioned this as well. Um, the Launch track is for the people that are going to come in really more at the idea stage, and that's going to focus a lot more on that constant iteration, right? Like, should you even build this kind of thing, right? Um, and if the answer is no, that's fine too, right? But, uh, um, and the growth track is going to focus you more on kind of pushing the company forward and building out the team and getting to revenue and that kind of stuff. So, um, I will go back to that one thing you regret question. If anyone wants to jump in on that, that has an answer, um, feel free. Don't all jump in at once.

Yeah. Um, so, and I also see like a quick edit about like what's What would you do differently, I think, as a founder and in the company in general? But I think both questions. But so this is, this is, I don't know how this is going to sound, but I almost wish that I had done FI earlier. So, so one of the, one of the biggest challenges that I faced is like I went through so many networks like FI, right? Like I went through, and I got different support from everyone. And I think that's the one thing that I did do well was I did reach out, like I'm affiliated with like Ontario Brain Institute, with Ontario Biosciences Innovation Organization, with Techno, sorry, Impact Center, which is like at U of T, and with like, they have a few other accelerators that they're part of, and I'm part of everything, right? And then I was part of Pure Sounders, I'm like wearing their shirt right now, or their sweater. But like, I got connected to everybody. And that was largely also because when I came in, I was just very paranoid that I didn't know anything about starting a company. And I just didn't know anything about creating a business. And so I knew that if I was going to keep trying to reinvent the wheel, I would burn out really fast. And so I think one of the key things to really know, understand as a founder, is just talk to somebody else about your problems before you try to solve it yourself, because there's a really good chance that somebody else someone else has already solved it. And so one of the big things that I found and that accelerated a lot of my efforts at the beginning, where otherwise I think things would have taken a really long time, was getting those consults early on. So let me give you one very small example of something that could maybe have saved us, that ended up saving us probably thousands of dollars. So something as simple as going in for a free consult to like the regulatory body that does sort of your electromagnetic interference and those sorts of things. So there's a company called TÜV SÜD that does that, right? We didn't even have a product before I had a chat with them. And they mentioned to me that if we were to have any sort of radio wireless technology in our product, that we should get something that was pre-approved. So if we were using like a Bluetooth module, make sure that you use a pre-approved Bluetooth module because that will make the whole process a lot easier. And we built that in right from our first prototype. And so, you know, for a very long time, like we sold betas for almost 2 years, right? Like things that like I wouldn't even really consider as commercial. But because we had all of these consults and we built everything according to commercial specs, our customers have no idea that those were beta products. You know, they use them as regular commercial products. And to me, that was all presales. In fact, according to me, we didn't actually launch until January or February of this year. But we've been generating revenue for 2 years now because we just kept selling early, early prototypes and making money off our prototypes.

Right.

I have an answer for that question that's FI-specific. I think, like Pooja, I recognize that a big value of FI was on a weekly basis, they're bringing in an advisor to present to you on a topic that they have firsthand experience with. And I was always really good at making sure that I established a relationship with that person by asking them a question and then following up and scheduling a phone call. What I wish I would have done more of in addition to that is also doing that kind of follow-up and that kind of relationship building with FI alums while I was in the program. I think while you're in the program, there's this unique I don't know, it's kind of like when you're in college and you can call alumni who went to that school. There's this unique positioning where they're more likely to take your call. And I think in addition to learning from advisors who are coming in and speaking, also learning from other FI founders is something that I would have probably done more of.

People that are in the struggle at that moment.

Yeah, they're like 6 months ahead of you. Yeah.

There aren't too many novel problems out there. Somebody has probably tried to figure it out at some point. And, you know, usually in figuring out how to solve a problem, you fail multiple times, right? So if they can help you fail maybe 1 or 2 less times in route to solving that problem, that can really help. A couple other questions here. There are a couple questions on time per week. So what would you guys— and maybe we'll split this up, right? Because some people are saying, oh, if somebody has a full-time job Right? I mean, the general guideline that we put on the site is about 20 to 30 hours per week on average. What did you guys experience going through it?

I can—

Oh yeah, go ahead.

Actually, Sean hasn't spoken in a while, so I'll let Sean start.

Sure.

Yeah. So when we joined the Founder Institute, I was fully— I was like full-time working on this company. So Like I would say 30 hours is the minimum to us. So there are like weekly sessions and networking assignments that you have to do. And if you want to do well and then make sure you meet all the deadline for the assignments, it's not like a homework, you have to do it, but it's just for your benefits. That's the way the curriculum is built. And you have like, the program is very intense. And I mean, building a startup is even more intense. So I like just work hard on that parts.

I'll say.

Yeah, I was also full-time, so I think that's on the lower end of what I spent. That said, it wasn't all spent on FI work. It's spent on growing your business and FI facilitates some of that. So that's very much how it's designed, which is great. I did have a couple cohort members who were working full-time jobs, and I think that the great thing about FI is they were able to do both. They were definitely a lot more stressed. And it was harder for them to get things done, but they still got it done, right? You just work on the weekends and you work after hours. What I will say is that that makes a lot of sense if you're trying to keep your job, if you're still trying to figure out if this is something worth building, and also if you're trying to figure out, do you want to even be a founder? Those are two questions you should answer before you quit your job.

Yeah, 100% agree.

And I find it very interesting. I don't know if I, uh, it's correct to say this, like when we started our cohab, I think we had more than 50, uh, founders in the cohab and we graduated with like less than 30. And so I find it's very interesting. People will quit and people will, um, change their mind through the programs. And I think that that's a validation for yourself as well because the program is very intense. So even your, um, we had friends like in the cohab, but their father, they had a family, they have kids, they have a full-time job and they're still doing the program full-time, and that's— and they'll be able to graduate. And then that's just how he showed— how he, um, um, how can I rephrase this— is like a true entrepreneur, I will say. And some other people, like, they might quit and they only have like one full-time course, which is the Founding Institute, and they will not be able to keep the pace. And I think you should quit, right? Because even in the future, you, you're building, um, your business is going to be extremely harder.

Yeah, I think so. My take on this is I think this is a hard question in terms of how much work you put in, because I think, again, this goes back to like, FI is kind of what you want it to be. And the assignments are kind of like— and maybe this is going to be unpopular with FI, but the way that I could just talk about my attitude going through it. Right. So my attitude going through it was This program is set up to help me. And so I need to take advantage in a way that's going to benefit me and my company. And if there's areas in assignments that I don't think is going to benefit my company, I'm not going to spend time in those areas. And I think as a founder, like, that's your call, right? So for example, there were assignments where I would spend hours working on a few questions that I thought were critical to where I was. And then other questions where I'd be like, you know what, this is a good question. I'm going to come back to this. And that's all my response was, you know. And then I did go back to it. In fact, some of those questions I go back to now. And, you know, I've been done for 6 months. So I think it's— I can kind of share some of the experiences in my color, like in my group. A lot of my color— in fact, I think 3 or 4 members quit. And one of the things that I found was there was a lot of stress that they took on in terms of finishing the whole assignment up to, I guess, a certain standard that they wanted. I'm not quite sure what it was, but there was a lot of stress. And even in terms of meeting, like kind of focusing on those details of how many times a week do we need to meet and how many hours, and just people really getting anal about some of those rules where literally at the end of the day, none of that stuff mattered. It was just, did you get your shit done? Did you get the important questions answered? Are you building a better business because of the stuff that you're thinking about? And are you improving your pitch deck? Because so much of your score is ultimately the pitch and whether you nail it in front of the mentors. And so a lot of the assignments are to help you with that.

Right.

And they're to help you with actually building your business. So one of my biggest things, and I actually gave this feedback directly to Ryan, because I felt like somewhere in all the rules and like, you know, the guidelines, it was lost that it was just a guideline and it wasn't like hard and fast rules. It's just like, hey, this is how we— and that's kind of how I felt like if I was presenting it is, this is what we recommend you do, but you need to do what's best for you and your company.

Yeah, for sure. We make you do a lot because as a founder, that's what you need to do, right? Like, one of our things is like, perfection is the enemy of progress, okay? You know, like some stuff you just have to push forward. You have to juggle a lot of different things and not kind of get too hung up on the details. And you are right, Puja, you know, definitely we have a lot more flexibility with that stuff for people that are in the growth track. Right? In the Launch Track, there's a lot of stuff that is much more, you know, that we're gonna be much more tighter on for people to validate because we know how important that is to go through those exercises in the validation process of whether the business is worth building. And also just as importantly, maybe even more important, whether you want to build this business, right? With the time that you have and all that kind of stuff. So let's see here. Vikram was asking a couple questions about fundraising here. So I believe Courtney, you have been— you are totally bootstrapped, is that correct? Or am I—

No, bootstrapped, then raised friends and family round, then raised an angel round, and now we're looking at our seed round.

Oh, all right. So I'm completely wrong on that. Sorry. Sean, you, you, you you raised angel, is that correct?

Yeah.

Okay. And Pooja, I believe you've gotten funds from a variety of different sources, grants and—

Yeah, yeah. We've raised almost $700K in non-dilutive. And so it's been a combination of grants, pitch competitions, a lot of grants. I mean, Canada is one thing that's really good for is is R&D grants and just a lot of those opportunities. And as an academic with my experience with grant writing, that was one thing that, you know, I didn't expect to translate over was, hey, I can write grants and I can get money from the government. Yeah. So that worked out really well, but we are now seriously thinking about raising, raising a seed. So that's, that's something that's, that, that we're hoping to do in the fall. And so I did go through a little bit of the Funding Lab, which I think for for those who don't know on the call, is also part of FI. And so once you get out of FI, there's— or graduate from FI, I guess, there's the next opportunity to actually really focus on fundraising. So I wouldn't say fundraising is a big focus of the, of the FI program, but it's all— it's a huge focus of the, of the Funding Lab program. So I think FI was kind of like, yeah, you do a lot of pitches and you get used to like getting your decks and stuff. But then if you really want to raise, you go into Funding Lab.

What's up?

Yeah, and I can say something on that. I think this is probably— this is not the norm, but this is a cool story that I just remembered as we were speaking, is that we had— we raised our friends and family round right after graduating from FI. And I think in my case, it took a lot of the validation that we did while we were in FI to be like, yes, I feel comfortable accepting checks from people that are literally writing from their own personal bank accounts, which was a big deal in my perspective. I've never done that before. And actually, even before accepting, I knew it was something I had to do because I was running out of my own savings to bootstrap the company, which we'd done for a year. But in addition to that, at the end of FI, you present and there's usually a graduation ceremony and you do a 3-minute pitch or 5-minute pitch. French, and actually at that event, it's open to the public, a woman came, came up to me after the event, loved the concept, totally resonated with her, and she actually ended up writing our first check. And that to me was— and it didn't happen on the spot, right? Like we had probably 2 coffees, maybe a coffee, maybe a lunch, then a phone call, like, and I sent her a ton of material in addition, like it doesn't happen right away, but the fact that a perfect stranger was willing to invest in the company, the concept, and me, made— gave me a ton of confidence. And okay, there's, you know, this isn't just a friend or family writing a check. So wanted to share that because I think that it's a very clear, like, clear line link between FI and getting our first check.

That was the next question I was going to ask too, that was part of the funding thing. So Pooja, I'm not sure, you came in as like a grant writing ninja already, right? So I'm not sure, did FI help for you to get any of that funding?

Yeah, I think, I mean, more in terms of those intros to— I think it's really what's going to happen now, because a lot of the people that I'm talking to now are obviously people that have been introduced to me like directly by Sunil or Ryan. So that's kind of a lot of their network. You know, a lot of the other programs that I've looked at is again, because it's like kind of Sunil's connections. And so I think a lot of that is going to pay off, but I mean, the pitching never stops, right? And so doing that kind of hot seat pitching to mentors, like, all of that is still training for the ongoing pitching and raising, because even if it's grant, even if it's like, you know, non-dilutive, there's still a pitch involved. There's still all those same elements of being able to demonstrate traction and knowing what metrics to present and and what actually gets people excited, and how to present that information. I mean, you've got like 60 seconds in the FI Hot Seat pitch to convey your traction, your problem-solution traction, and like, you know, why, and really wow these people with 60 seconds, right? And if you can get good at doing that, then it gets a lot easier to do an investor pitch for 20 minutes.

Yeah. You never stop pitching, whether it's investors, team members, whomever. What about you, Sean? Did FI play a role in your first check?

Yeah, I think so. It's very crucial to me because when I came to FI, literally I had no idea, or like I had zero knowledge about like how to build a startup, a company. If I can tell you an example, it's like, I don't even understand what's MVP. So I had to learn what's MVP at FI. Like when everyone is talking about like, oh, we're gonna build an MVP, What is validation? I had zero clue what that word even like meant to me.

Right.

So that's just to show you what my level when I joined the FI and then have to pitching, pitching, pitching every single week that built my confidence, built the idea how to do the pitch and not just to the investors. You also pitch to your sales team. You also pitch to your clients. You pitch to different people. And those are the most valuable things that I think I learned from FI and I trained from FI. And yeah, like I've never done public speaking in my entire life, even like before the first pitch, um, during the class at FI. And I think I was like pitching to, um, close to like 40 people. I was like shaking at first. And FI has this rules, like, um, uh, no 3 points, like a maximum points is like 5 and they don't give out a 3. So either you get a 1, 2, or 4 and 5, and I got 4. And like one mentor was giving me like 1, and the other 2 was like giving me 4 and a 4. So it builds the confidence and you get to practice a lot over there. Yeah.

Okay. And so we're going to wrap things up soon. There were a couple— before I get to the last question here, there are a couple questions about like IP. Like, were you afraid of somebody stealing your idea once you were in the program? How does F5 protect, that kind of thing. Anyone have some insight on that? Hi, welcome everybody to the Steiner Institute webinar. Thank you for joining. I know we got— No worries. I like hearing my own voice. Not really, but Courtney, yeah, you were going to say?

I think Pooja might have an interesting take on this because she is a product, but I can say from— this is going to be something that you just have to drop, like the fear of people stealing your idea. Your idea is only gonna get better the more people you talk to about it and the more you get it out there into the market. And being protective over that will only hold you back. And even— there are gonna be so many moments, like I went through a phase where I would, if a friend sent me a link, I'd be convinced that it was Lighthouse version, you know, 2.0. And then I completely dropped that because you just have to really, you have to know your competition, you have to know what the market looks looks like, but you just really need to focus on what you're building and making that better and better and better and really solving the problem and not getting distracted by what's happening. And the IP thing, I personally think it's like a question, just get rid of it. Like if you need a patent, get the patent. If you need to protect your IP, like get involved lawyers early on. So many law firms have programs for early-stage companies where you have deferred payment. So we use WilmerHale. I highly recommend them. Get a lawyer early on if you're really worried about this question, but once your legal paperwork is in place, let go of it because it will only hold you back.

Sean or Pooja, did you guys have that fear or?

Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree with Courtney. I mean, especially as an academic, like academics have this tendency to feel like their ideas are everything and like someone's going to make millions off their ideas. And it's like, ultimately, like even our product, I'd say at the end of the day is maybe 5% of our business. You know, like 95% of it is sales and marketing and like customer support and customer satisfaction. And so I think it's very easy. So So obviously there are some exceptions, right? Like there are certain sectors where your IP is truly everything. Like if you're doing like a licensing play or, you know, there's certain areas where yes, your IP can be everything. But I think that's the other— that is the other point, important point as well, is when you're trying to create a business, understand what your competitive advantage is, right? If your competitive advantage is not IP, don't worry about your IP. If your competitive advantage is going to be your IP, then like Courtney says, get lawyers involved from day one. Most, most times, like, you still do need to talk to people about your ideas. And so consider signing an NDA. You know, a lot of people like we signed an NDA with almost everybody at the beginning. And then we kind of relax on that a lot more because I think a lot of people don't understand, even for product, if you want to get a patent, you don't patent just an idea, right? You have to patent the execution of the idea. So if your idea is so simple that somebody else can just listen to it and just do it, it's probably not a patentable idea to begin with. And so there has to be something that's really novel and sophisticated or like, you know, I'm not saying like difficult because sometimes simple ideas are also great ideas. But there has to be something there that's like this, this really key insight, right? And if you— if that key insight is just easy for anybody to get, then it's probably not the core value of your business. So don't spend too much time sweating about, about that stuff. Sign an NDA if you're really worried about it and get a lawyer engaged. But early on, I'd more encourage you to think about what is your competitive advantage.

Yeah, mentors do sign NDAs in the program too. But honestly, like, I, you know, it's more of a gesture. Like, again, it's 99.9% of the people that are worried about IP in my opinion, really shouldn't be, right? Most ideas are not unique and it's all in the execution. What do you think, Sean?

Yeah, I totally agree, Buxia and Courtney, what you said. So if you're not like building a deep, deep, deep tech or biotech, like deep tech knowledge, then you really shouldn't worry about IP. First of all, you're building a business and your business will change and your business idea will change, your business model will change, your technology will change, everything will change. If you just patent it and you're just going to patent like every step, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. So what you really should focusing on is like finding that differentiation, what your business is about. And I will personally, I talk to every single one about my business model, about everything, and you learn from each other. And so the, like the business model we had when we started AFI and compared to today, it's, it's already, I would say like 1000% changed. Right, and that's through the learning experience of talking to different people, and you learn from different industry. So like I said, like, think of us as a TurboTax but immigration. That's a tax software, but we can actually apply into immigration.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think this is sort of what Courtney was saying as well. It's like the, the value that you miss by not sharing the idea with everybody to get the feedback is significantly more than the, you know, than the value of, you know, this idea that somebody's going to steal your idea, right? All right, so the last question, and thanks guys again for joining today. This was great. Thanks for everybody in the chat. You will get a video recording of this if you did register to the event as well. Please check out the websites. We have supervisa.ai. TheLighthouse.us and BrazeMobility.com. They're all building some pretty awesome companies. But the last question that I have here is, you know, a lot of people on the line are either enrolled in an FI program that's starting soon, has not started yet, or have been accepted to the program. There's probably some people that have just applied in here as well, but a lot of people that have been accepted to the program, um, that, that may be enrolling. What is a piece of advice for them as they go into the program to get the most out of it?

So I will share my— sorry, yeah, so I'll share my experience. When I decided to join Founder Institute program, I just told myself, you know what, it's only 3 to 4 months, right? And just gone through, like, work hard and work hard through the 3, 4, like, 3 to 4 months to find out whether you really— whether the business is right for you the program is right for you, you are not wasting any time over there. And if you're not going through the program, you might just sitting at home and struggling and thinking, how am I going to build my business? Should I do this? Should I do that? Just do it instead of thinking it. So I will say execution.

Okay. Very, very startup. Uh, just do it. JFDI, right? Um, So yeah, Courtney.

I'd say focus on the people, and that includes your program lead, the FI team, advisors they bring in, and the founders in your cohort and the grads. I think I'm like Pooja, I'm a big believer of learning through others. And so that is the network you get access to with FI, and you get access to that network after FI too, but a lot of the relationships that you're really going to develop are going to happen during the program. So focus on that. And with the homework, I like the way that Pooja phrased it. Think about, is this going to help me grow, move my business forward, and focus on it if that's the case. And then maybe spend less time on the questions or the topics that won't help you that day. That's okay. This is almost the first test of, I'm the founder, I'm the CEO, I'm I'm in control of where this company goes. And so it's up to you to decide what's relevant and what's not.

Yeah. So I'd say I think a lot of— they've already covered a lot of the points. So I think the main thing is really to get used to talking about your problems. Right. Because I think before I was— before I became an entrepreneur, and I think just normally in society, we're generally like told to kind of shy away from talking about failure, talking about problems, asking for help. Just get over it. Like, you need to ask for help at every stage of the startup. You need to ask, and people will help. Like, there's so many people, especially the entrepreneurship ecosystem, I've always found is just so willing to give back, right? Like, look at all of us here. I mean, it didn't take— it didn't take much to convince us to get on this call to provide our input. Insights. And so it's sort of a community of giving and passing it forward. And so people are very, very happy to sit down with you and chat with you. If you have concerns, like I know some questions came up around, oh, well, what about like equity with FI and whatever? Bring up your concerns, like talk to the FI organizers, tell them what your concerns are. Of course I had concerns and I had conversations and I told them what those concerns were. And we worked together to figure all of those things out. So just get used to being vocal and just expressing what it is that you need, what it is that you want, what you need help with, where you're struggling. Just get idea with the— comfortable with the idea of failing, right? Because you're going to be failing every single day as an entrepreneur. So if there's one thing you need to get comfortable with, I think one thing is failing. And the second thing is asking for help.

That's great advice. And by the way, that does not change over the course of your lifetime, even 5, 10, 10 years in, you're still going to be failing every day and you still are going to ask for help. And yes, I think the entrepreneurship community in general, just because everybody has kind of went through that same struggle, is definitely one of the more helpful communities I've seen in especially professional communities, right? Because in a lot of other communities, people may see it as sort of dog-eat-dog kind of thing, whereas in entrepreneurship, there's plenty of room for everybody to kind of play and be successful, right? So people really are willing to give a— give a helping hand because they know the struggle that you've gone through. All right. Well, thank you guys so much once again. Please do check out their websites. We'll put them in the follow-up email as well. They're doing some really cool stuff. Shawn, Pooja, and Courtney, thank you so much again for taking your time. I know you are busy people and I don't want to take up too much more of your time. So, thanks. And yeah, thanks everyone for joining. Thanks, guys. Our pleasure.

Thank you for having us here.

All right, take care, everyone. Take care. Have a good day. Bye.