Startup School Kick-off #11: This weekend, the 45 participants of the new batch started into the 10-week program with a kick-off event at the Founders Home.
- The Founders Foundation’s Startup School supports talents who are interested in launching a company with laying the groundwork for their own B2B tech startup.
- The no-cost, 10-week program ends with the Final Pitch Day during which the teams that have formed during the program pitch their ideas in front of a selected jury.
- The team with the most convincing pitch receives a scholarship for the Founders Foundation Lab program.
- During the program, the participants receive mentoring sessions from top experts like Dr. Jan Brinckmann, Program Director Startup School and professor at the ESADE Barcelona, and Kristina Walcker-Mayer, co-founder nuri.
- In this batch, 45 talented founders from the region and beyond participate in the program – 25% of participants are women; which is above the average of 16% across German federal states.
Bielefeld, 10 October 2021 – On Friday, 08 October, 45 talented founders started Startup School with a Kick-off event. This is the 11th run of the Founders Foundation Startup School, this time headed by Program Manager Elias Weike. The Founders Foundation Startup School has produced several successful startups like Valuedesk, Echometer or Sales2B.
45 talented founders from the region and beyond have qualified for this batch, 25% of these are women. That is a higher percentage than the average across German federal states that is currently at around 16%.
For the kick-off event at Startup School, the Program Director Dr. Jan Brinkmann (professor for entrepreneurship at the ESADE Barcelona) himself was present to give the participants an overview about the next week’s schedule, during which he himself will also share his valuable experience. While last year’s program was limited to an online format due to the pandemic, this year’s Startup School can once more take place in the Founders Home thanks to a sophisticated hygience concept.
On Friday during his talk, Dr. Jan Brinckmann spontaneously called in e-commerce specialist Stephan Schambach via videocall who answered all the participant’s questions. After the first impulses on building founder teams, the talents, inspired by the atmosphere, immediately started to network and exchange first ideas.
On Saturday, Dr. Jan Brinckmann held the first workshop on the topics business opportunities & entrepreneurial mindset. After the workshop, the participants had the chance to enjoy the last rays of the sun on the Founders Home rooftop terrace. and think about their first impressions.
The next 10 weeks have much in store for the talents such as workshops with many top experts like Graham Norton, professor for computer science at Magdeburg University or innovation consultant Kristina Walcker Mayer, co-founder, CEO and CPO of nuri (bitwala).
To date, 350 participants have completed Startup School. 60% of these are still active in the startup scene, even two years after their participation. Many of those have established themselves successfully on the market, have raised their first capital and/or have joined more of the free education programs of the Founders Foundation.
The goal of the program is getting talents together, expanding ideas, and developing business models. For that purpose, three topic complexes are designed to anwer all questions on product development, team composition, and financing. Additionally, the program features a lot of input on how to acquire customers.
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ABOUT THE FOUNDERS FOUNDATION:
We from the Founders Foundation train the next generation of successful founders, right in the heart of the German “Mittelstand” – the family businesses, the salt-of-the-earth type companies that form the foundation of the economy. We are pioneering the training of founders using our own holistic Founders Foundation Education Model. The region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe is our shining example; here, we prepare the soil for entrepreneurial activities by bringing New and Old Business together. In this context, we launched the tech conference “Hinterland of Things”. As a non-profit organization, the core of all our efforts is a success- and impactful cultivation of tomorrow’s founders.
You want to know more about Startup School?
This is where you'll find all the information about the program and where you can request to be put on the waiting list for the next batch!
