Co-Founder Social Contracts 🤝 NY Tech Week Invite 📅 New Podcast Episode 🎙️
Lots of big announcements for founders today!
Hi founders & funders, what’s one action you can take to protect your (or your portco’s) co-founder relationship? Maybe it’s formalizing your co-founder agreement, sharing lessons with other founders, or listening to another team’s story.
I’ve summarized three potential actions below, keep scrolling for details:
🤝 Do you and your co-founders have a clear partnership agreement? Apply to be one of five early stage founding teams selected to participate in a subsidized Co-Founder Partnership Agreement Program in collaboration with Stanford, Columbia, and Oregon. Details below, APPLY before May 3rd to be selected!
📅 Join our second annual “Founder Secrets” Lunch at NY Tech Week on June 5th, co-hosted by Wefunder and featured by a16z. Limited to 20 spots. RSVP here (and mention my newsletter!)
🎙️ New Podcast Episode! Meet the AI/ML professor-student duo who founded Voxel51 and successfully raised over $12M to date. We talk about deciding when to fundraise (one of their bigger conflicts), pivoting their business model, and swapping titles 5 years in! Catch their story on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, or read the blog post.
Know any founders or investors who would want these updates? Forward to them!
🤝 Formalize Your Co-Founder Agreement
Apply to be one of five teams selected for a Stanford-designed Partnership Agreement Program.
We’re partnering with Stanford, Columbia, and University of Oregon to offer a subsidized "Co-Founder Partnership Agreement Program" for early stage founding teams with 2-4 co-founders to research entrepreneurial team health.
The 12-week program includes: (1) six facilitated hour-long team sessions every other week, (2) two 30-minute 1:1 sessions per founder, (3) a (non-legally binding) Partnership Agreement for your team, and (4) two 15-min surveys.
It’s offered for $2,500 (usually $5K, but subsidized by our research sponsors) - there may be grant opportunities available, so apply even if you have budget constraints!
The (no commitment) application is HERE, please apply before May 3rd. Additional details can be found here; email annie@confidante.info with questions.
📅 You’re Invited to NYTechWeek!
RSVP to join our second annual Founder Secrets Lunch on June 5th, co-hosted by Wefunder and featured by a16z.
NY Tech Week is happening first week of June, and I’m excited to be co-hosting our second annual Founder Secrets small group lunch with Wefunder. We’ll be hand-selecting 20 special guests to join this exclusive lunch experience, optimizing for representation across the entrepreneurial ecosystem (founders, investors, Pre-Seed thru Series C). RSVP here (and mention that you saw it in my newsletter!)
🎙️ New Episode! Professor-Student Duo Take on AI
Meet the AI/ML professor-student duo from the University of Michigan, who teamed up to launch Voxel 51.
Over the past 7 years, Jason and Brian have grown Voxel51 to a company with 25+ team members, over 2 million downloads, and have secured over $12M to date led by Drive Capital. I had the honor of diving deep into the relational-side of their founding journey in this week’s episode where we talked about:
The transition from academia to entrepreneurship
Starting a company with two technical co-founders
Shedding the “faculty” and “student” roles
Changing who is CEO 5 years in
Making a major business model pivot
Conflict: when is the right time to fundraise?
Catch their story on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube! Full blog post can be found here.
Know someone starting a company with a professor? Forward along!
Are you a founder, investor, or ecosystem partner curious about founding team dynamics?