CAN you build a technology entrepreneur from scratch in four months flat? Yes, contends a global training program called the Founder Institute, which was started in 2009. For tuition of less than $1,000, students attend classes with one goal in mind: to create a fully operational company. In fact, they are required to incorporate before they can graduate. To be accepted, students don’t need to have a fully baked idea, but they must take a test that the institute says can predict their entrepreneurial success. They can keep their day jobs while attending class, but that does not mean the program is easy. The workload is grueling, and 60 percent of the students fail to graduate. But this for-profit institute, based in Mountain View, Calif., says it has helped start more than 500 companies. It has done so by going global, with chapters in 14 countries, in a total of 27 cities. It aims to make money partly through its equity stakes in the companies created by its graduates. Boaz Fletcher, 44, a consultant to new companies in Israel, started the Tel Aviv branch this year. “As a country, Israel is amazing at technology, but not great at building sustainable businesses, and that is one of the things the Founder Institute teaches: how to build an enduring, stable company,” he said. The branch’s first class of nine students will graduate in September. The institute is the brainchild of Adeo Ressi, 40, who has started eight companies of his own. Back in the mid-1990s, he was a co-founder of Total New York, an online regional city guide that was acquired by AOL. Mr. Ressi saw a need for nurturing entrepreneurs even before the idea stage. He set out to create a vocational school of sorts to teach the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurship, setting it apart from highly selective programs that often support start-ups before the venture capital stage. One of the best known of these “accelerators,” TechStars, accepts only 1 percent of applicants. Mr. Ressi says he wants to reduce the failure rate for new companies. For every Dropbox, the popular file storage service, there are hundreds of businesses that never make it, he said, adding: “Why is that the case? And can it be fixed?” HE came up with the idea for the institute as C.E.O. of TheFunded.com, a Web site where entrepreneurs and chief executives rate venture capital firms and investors. Through the site, he has a community of founders at his fingertips, and he was able to ask them: What would they have done differently at the beginning? From Tel Aviv to Chicago, the curriculum is partly based on answers to that question from 2,000 executives. Classes often consist of around 30 students, with a much smaller number making it to graduation. In 15 sessions, students learn about topics like revenue, costs and profits; marketing and sales; presentation and publicity; and fund-raising. There are adjustments in the curriculum to address local markets. In Singapore, for example, there is an additional session on doing business in China. Sessions are taught by chapter leaders and by seasoned entrepreneurs who can also serve as mentors. Fundamental to the institute is the belief that many aspects of entrepreneurship can be taught. Jose Luis Senent, 43, had been a car broker in Paris for 20 years, but had no previous experience with technology or start-ups. He graduated from the Paris chapter in April 2011 and now runs Autoreduc, a group-buying site for cars that he says is profitable and will expand into Spain, Belgium and Switzerland this year. “I cannot imagine starting a company without knowing what I learned at the institute — there is so much to know about marketing, business models and raising money,” Mr. Senent said. The institute connected him with mentors who challenged his ideas and set his company in the right direction, he said. Mr. Ressi says he wants to help budding founders avoid rookie mistakes — like bad Web design and off-key marketing, or creating the wrong corporate structure. Katherine Bicknell, 31, a graduate of the New York chapter and co-founder of Kindara, an app that helps women track their fertility, would still be calling her company “Moonlyght” if not for a session on naming and branding. “The Founder Institute said that you had to be able to say it, spell it, read it easily, and the dot-com had to be available,” said Ms. Bicknell, whose company is based in Boulder, Colo. So far, she and her co-founder have raised $100,000 from friends and family. The institute aims to democratize the access that up-and-coming entrepreneurs need, partly by opening up networks and opportunities to those on the outside of the tight-knit start-up world. It “helped me build my network — when I came from Turkey to the U.S. in 2008 to start my company, I didn’t know anyone,” said Eren Bali, 28, co-founder of Udemy, an online learning company that has raised $4 million from investors. “I was starting from scratch, ” said Mr. Bali, who graduated from the Silicon Valley chapter in 2009. Carlos Rozo, 38, a graduate of the chapter in Bogotá, Colombia, said the institute steered him away from a potentially fatal mistake — starting something big and complicated — and toward something more narrow that would fill a niche. He abandoned plans for a content-sharing platform in favor of Thotz.net, a provider of software that companies can use to share information among employees. Mr. Rozo says he has received $50,000 in seed funding from Wayra, which is backed by the Telefónica Group.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 28, 2012
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the person who began Founder Institute chapters in Colombia. He is Alan Colmenares, not Colemenares. An earlier version also misidentified the company that Carlos Rozo started and contained an incorrect link for that company’s Web site. It is Thotz.net, not Thotz.com.
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