Anastasia Crew, co-founder of Founders Embassy, explains how they built a lean, bootstrapped accelerator for international founders at the post-seed, pre-Series A stage. They used local ambassadors and selection committees to find their first cohort, ran a custom two-week program in San Francisco, and learned that data, passion, and a challenging but supportive community matter most.
Chapters
And so, you quit your job, you're full in. What did you guys surround yourself with, or what resources, you talked about advisors, did you go and collect to get this embassy off the ground?
I think even before we left, we wanted to make sure that we had that buffer, not financially, but we have that support from our community. That we can do it. We can do it on our own. So we've been bootstrapping and we're pretty much still bootstrapping up until today. But we didn't go and get a fancy office at the coworking space. We were trying to be as lean as possible because removing that overhead that's unnecessary, we can take meetings anywhere. We were taking meetings in coffee shops. We were Working with a lot of partners as coworking spaces or community spaces that would let us use their space. I think avoiding unnecessary expenses and be very lean and mean in the very beginning is very important.
Lean and mean, I like it. Talk about that first cohort. How did you find these entrepreneurs from all over the world? How were you building yourself as a brand to bring in these companies and to get them to notice what the two of you were building? Totally.
Um, I don't know how you guys are familiar with Founders Embassy, but basically Founders Embassy is an equity-free accelerator that focused exclusively on international and immigrant founders. So we bring classes of international founders to San Francisco for 2 weeks and put them through very intense bootcamp-style program. So in terms of the criteria, it's not like we take everybody. We have very specific criteria. So, of course, you have to be either an international founder based abroad or an immigrant founder based in the US. You have to have a solid business that's working. So we don't work with companies that are in ideation stage. So you have to be post-seed, pre-Series A, which means that you have to secure funding back home in your local market before you're ready to come here. And that's kind of a known fact. Um, in general, the US VCs don't really, um, rush into investing in the company if they don't secure the seed level from their home country. Um, and, um, in terms of the criteria, so we work with a lot of— we call them ambassadors— that are based in major hubs across the world, they help us source the companies. So they're either local VCs, a local coworking space, community space, local accelerators, or just simple individuals who serve as advisors to startups. And it's in their best interest to send their startup into Silicon Valley when they're ready. So it's an application-based process. Companies apply, and we have— if you meet the basic criteria, we schedule interview with you, whether it's a phone interview or— obviously we can't do face-to-face, so sometimes it's a video interview. And then if we think that you meet the criteria, we send you to a selection committee. So for each class, we form a selection committee that comprises of the local-based VCs and entrepreneurs who have kind of done there and been there and understand the local ecosystem. So they help us understand some industries are better, some verticals better, and also help us form the next class to make sure there's a lot of synergy in between companies. So it wasn't easy to get that word out and to build that brand awareness, and it's still— we're still working on it, right? We're still a very young company, even though a lot of people and a lot of our advisors locally here know what we've done in the past. But building an international brand, it's very hard. You have to prove yourself, especially without having a first class completed. Our first class was in June. A lot of companies wanted to see, oh, can we talk to your alumni? Can we see how the program exactly looks like? Right? And at that time, we couldn't offer them anything but we think it's gonna be like that and what you're gonna get. And so it wasn't easy, but we got the companies that we could provide whatever they were looking for. And a lot of companies are coming from different reasons. Some of them are coming from the fundraising angle. They want to secure funding. Others coming to potentially looking to expand into US. And we have a lot of resources. We connect them with our immigration and legal systems so they can move after going through the program down here, maybe move part of their team down here. Or maybe their CEO will spend some of the time, because it's usually a requirement from the VC. Others are looking for partnerships, or just come in and learn here, and take all their knowledge back home and apply it to their companies. For example, we had an amazing company in our summer that, I don't know how many of you are familiar with Chariot here. It's basically a transportation company That kind of Uber, but a group transportation that was bought by Ford. So we had a company from Mexico City that were doing pretty much exactly the same thing, but it didn't really make sense for them to move down here because they're already— there's a competitor here, right? But they were growing in Latin America. So, um, so a lot of companies coming from different reasons, and what we do, and our biggest differentiator is that we build a custom program. So it's not a one-size-fits-all. The summer class that went through the program, the program for our fall class that's coming in on November 1st will be completely different. So we do a lot of work one-on-one with each company to make sure that we meet the needs that they have. So that's, that's, it put a lot of work and pressure on us, but I think if we do it otherwise, it's not valuable.
And so talk about maybe that time before that first cohort got there. I'm sure there's days where it was going amazing and things seemed super easy, And then there were days, I'm sure, where the roof felt like it was on fire. So talk about maybe those harder times and how the two of you got through those to be able to see that first cohort come through.
Well, first of all, of course, as you can imagine, our applications are free, right? Anybody can apply. There's no cost associated with that. So we've got a lot of applicants. But then we start talking to people and they're like, oh yes, I'm interested, I would like to come. But then the company may be amazing and then we would maybe select them and they would be like, oh, things changed, I can't come. So that was one of the frustrating moments that we faced leading to our first class. And I understand why some companies were not confident to come in something that didn't exist before. But that was something that was challenging for us to look back and see why it's not as easy as we thought it was gonna be. It's so straightforward. We know we can provide value. But I think just believing in your idea and showing that value to your customers, essentially the startups are our customers, and proving them that that's exactly what they need and showing them that data, Because the words are the words, right? But if you prove it with data, that's completely different. And then I think it doesn't matter what kind of business you do, the data and numbers tell a bigger story. And that's, I think, if you are a startup and you look into fundraising, I think being passionate about your idea is one thing and it's very important. And I think it's one of the most important parts because If you hear the stories when companies fail, usually the number one fact is either their lack of confidence, the founders, lack of funds, or lack of passion, right? So if you're not passionate about the idea yourself, nobody else will. Nobody else will believe in your idea if you don't. So I think that's very important. But also, just pushing through and having that grit.
Mm-hmm.
So we didn't lose the confidence in us. We knew what we can offer, and we were just pushing through, and we just had to find those founders that really think that they would need us and believe in what we offer. And that's how we made it through. And a lot of advisors and mentors around us were true believers in what we did. And I think it's very important to surround yourself with a community that's supportive. Supportive but also challenging, right? That, that can challenge you and your idea. But at the same time, you don't have to, you know, take everybody's feedback and apply to your program. Never do that. You have to take everybody's feedback with a grain of salt, but at the same time, be open to feedback because the more opinions you hear, the better. But it's completely up to you whether you want to apply them.
Yeah, I think that's, that's so important, especially at an accelerator. Everyone has feedback and opinion to give, and it's your job as the founder to soak it in and appreciate it, but you, at the end of the day, know what's best for your company. Absolutely.
