The Founder Institute: An Incubator of Persons Rather Than Companies

By William Carleton // November 2, 2009 in Bootstrapping, Founders

I went to an informational session held on the Seattle campus of the University of Washington this evening for the Founder Institute's upcoming Winter 2009 Seattle Area training program. I'm guessing I was the only attorney there, but, hell, I was invited (perhaps because I am a paying member of the affiliated organization, TheFunded.com). And I'm curious about how the organization is expanding outside of the Bay Area.

There were about 70 people there. (Re-sensitized to the issue of under-representation of women in the field from having attended the TechFlash Women in Tech event last week, I noted that only about 10 of the attendees were women.) The Founding Member of the TheFunded.com, Adeo Ressi, kept the audience engaged and repeatedly asked individuals to identify their passion. My impression is that all of the attendees were entrepreneurs or pre-entrepreneurs; most seemed keenly receptive to the concept of a four-month training program put on by founders, exclusively for founders.

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A distinguishing feature of the Founder Institute's mission, I think, is a single-minded focus on the founder. Whereas other incubators or programs might be said to assist startups, or entrepreneurs with respect to their evolving companies, Ressi's passion looks to be advocacy of the founder, his or her interests, his or her control of what he or she has set out to do. (A terrific interview of Ressi by John Cook, published today on TechFlash, can be found here; see especially John's last question in the piece.) Having seen Ressi in action, I can better appreciate the thesis behind the Class F Common Stock concept I have critiqued previously on this blog.

Here are my tweeted notes from the session:

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