Discover the eight Graduates from Founder Institute Frankfurt

Pedro Gonçalo Ferreira
hallofrankfurt
Published in
8 min readFeb 14, 2020

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Part of the Cohort team including Founders, Mentors and Directors Credits of photos: Aleksandra Sadovnikova

Since two weeks ago, the world’s largest pre-seed accelerator, Founder Institute, has eight new companies in its portfolio. Guess what? Both eight from its first local cohort in Frankfurt.

We at hallofrankfurt were indeed there on the kick-off event in October 2019 and now we are happy to follow up on the Graduation, that took place on the 4th of February 2020.

And we have some exclusive footage from startuprad.io with some of the founders to show you!

But first, some basics, the Founders joined the cohort, and worked since October last year to develop their idea together with the support of the local directors, Britta, Carolina, Eugenio, Fernanda and Pedro and a pool of experienced mentors, including names such as Alexis Rawlinson ( founder of FieldBuzz), Daniel Nowack ( founder of Daniel Nowack), David Wohde ( founder of Acomodeo), Gunjan Bhardwaj ( founder of Innoplexus), Kim Körber ( founder of Inga),Malte Weiss ( founder of Onapply), Markus Rupprecht ( founder of Traxpay), Oliver Vins ( founder of vamoo), Sebastian Wuerz ( founder of Homefully), just to mention.

When it all began, the group of almost thirty people. Then, they went through a 4-month structured program that included weekly keynotes from experts, pitching in front of peers and mentors, company-building assignments and finally the requirement of legal incorporation.

Listen to the final result of these three founders:

Read some feedback about their experience:

William King II, one of the founders in the video, gives a very detailed explanation here: “My experience from the first Founders Institute cohort in Frankfurt, Germany was a great experience filled with high highs and low lows. They tell you that being a founder will be an emotional roller coaster, and they were right! I would definitely recommend it to anyone considering building an enduring company and needs help with validating their great idea.

During the 14 week program, each week focused on a particular topic relevant to your company, i.e. product development and funding & equity. There were weekly deliverables and assignments based on that topic of focus that week. We met each week in in-person sessions, in which we as founders had to give a 1, 3, 5 minute hot-seat pitch, respectively. To be honest, I was horrible at my hot seat pitches in the beginning due to a fear of public speaking, which caused me to get low ratings. I began to practice several times and with more pitches, luckily for me, my pitched improved when I started incorporating the much-needed feedback from the FI Directors and mentors into my pitch and it helped validate my idea.
We started the program with around 30 people but only 8 graduates. The program requires a lot from you physically, mentally and emotionally, but the strong bond created amongst the other founders, directors and mentors is well worth the torment and challenges you will experience during the program. The program will challenge you and show you how much capacity you actually have in your day and how much more you still have to give. The FI Directors and mentors during the program were world-class, very honest and supportive in providing their feedback and ways to improve in the different areas of your company. At the end of the day, if you asked me was the FI program worth my time and money? I would tell you that I would pay for the program 3 times over and give up all of my free time to be a part of cohort and culture of building future founders focused on bringing their validated ideas to the world. The FI program is a tech startup version of the movie the hunger game….Only the strong and enduring will survive……”

Ronan Hardy — Credits of photos: Aleksandra Sadovnikova

Ronan Hardy, another participating Founder, shares more: “ I took the decision to join FI to strengthen my business, build a team, check what I was lacking/missing and get more exposure into the Frankfurt Startup scene. So to sum up, I needed a bit of everything, really.
Things happen for a reason I guess. I was running low on energy when I enrolled and previously thought about shutting down my one year and a half idea a couple of times the month before. I was feeling alone, frustrated, powerless, even though the company was slowly but steadily improving its situation. I went to two FI events and I had my doubts about the program. As Bismarck quoted: “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” So what could I learn that I did not already know? Story short, I enrolled after having a stronger look at the program content, the equity split seemed acceptable, I didn’t feel like letting go on my employees who needed me and their jobs, plus timing wise, it just looked like a big opportunity. I had to ask for an installment plan to pay for the program because my bank account was pretty dry at the time. So it was one of these make-it or crash situations.
Retrospectively, the program greatly delivered on what I was looking for. Sure, sometimes I smiled at mentors presenting to the letter what I read in famous startup books, but it was always a good reminder reframed by one’s genuine experience and approach. People who have been there are, sometimes, simply the pill you need to feel that everything is going to be ok. The assignments pressured me to get a more structured approach on the business idea. I used it to rethink my offer, and the way I worked. Plus, it enabled me to dive deeper on topics I had only scratched, especially on KPIs, HR, CAC, scouting social events and design a clearer strategic view, especially on sales growth and funding. The directors, mentors and the peer group offered incommensurably valuable feedback on the idea and the possible incremental improvements. It was also supporting on a psychological level when bad news happened and helped me define what to do to proceed further, to move forward. It opened new doors for cooperation by leveraging each others’ networks in order to land the appropriate and promising contacts. Cherry on top, an enormous amount of time was saved with the shared resources, especially on business templates. So yes, I am straight-up thankful for the FI journey.”

Christopher Pike — Credits of photos: Aleksandra Sadovnikova

Last but not the least, Christopher Pike, with Numinous Blue, informs us, “Numinous Blue has just launched a mobile and web platform that helps users save time and have better experiences, when planning their next vacation, through centralization of information, inspiration and the help of data-driven automation. … We also recently graduated from Founder Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, which validated the idea, the business model, as well as the team behind the offering over several months. Having been one of 8 companies, out of 29 initially, which “survived” this process, was a great accomplishment and will serve as a stepping stone for what is to come next, the first round of external investment, after having been bootstrapped for almost one year.”

The complete portfolio includes:

Guided Doing — The world needs better explanations. With Guided Doing, the new tool for step-by-step explanations, you can quickly explain the things that are important to you, you can adapt your existing explanations at any time and thus supplement them with news, help your employees and fellow human beings with your knowledge quickly.

Mary and Jarvis UG — The All-You-Can-Ask Home Help Service Relieving You from Domestic Activities;

Numinous Blue — built a platform that allows you to quickly find the best experiences around the world, together with all the information you need, in one single place. All you have to do, is tell them what you enjoy doing when traveling. Based on your preferences, their design then makes it easy and fun to like or dismiss experiences, conveniently building the base for your travel itinerary.

āmasian Event & Business UG — the European branch of Shu & Shan Elite Matchmaking International, an upscale and offline matchmaking service for selective marriage-minded singles;

Supplino — Domestic or International Product Supply. — Whether your product is consumer goods, hardware, electronics, industrial products or something else entirely, they have you covered. Whether you want to do it yourself or need full end-to-end supply support, they are there to help. Ask them.

TribeLync — TribeLync is a Social Connection Platform (SCP) service used to connect people with shared interests, passions and hobbies develop valuable relationships in real life (IRL) based on the levels of mutual interest.

LeadZen — The Simple Art of Casual Selling -You and your friends have good conversation about great products all the time. LeadZen ensures you also participate in the profits your conversations generate;

Manycent — a Fintech saving app to create savings from every cashless purchase.

Networking time at FPS Partnerschaftsgesellschaft von Rechtsanwältenduring FI Graduation — Credits of photos: Aleksandra Sadovnikova

What´s next for these projects?

In my opinion as one of the local directors (Pedro Ferreira) : “The game is not even at half time. Some projects still lack an MVP, some are just entering the markets but need to grow. Our job as FI is not done and we will keep being available and following up to ensure their accomplishments, through regional partnerships, as well as, facilitating contacts, knowledge, and experience on scaling up and raising money to further conquers.”

And what about Founder Institute in Frankfurt? What to expect as next steps?

The team will be setting up the next Cohort, right now pointing to the end of August. Meanwhile, there will be active and continuous engagement in the regional ecosystem to keep supporting the Founders of the first Cohort, but as well to recruit the new batch of Founders. So stay tuned!

And there are a few changes, as Eugenio Grapa, points out, “the Frankfurt Founder Institute team is innovating, we are continuing our effective 14 week program and but also plan to improve the local fit, with a FinTech/PropTech or Blockchain vertical program. We’ve begun to reach out to specific Mentors and we are actively looking to add a domain expert as a vertical program Director. Check out the check out the FI site [https://fi.co/join]! Over the next few days we’ll be publishing events and the schedule for the 2020 Founder program.”

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