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Accelerator Coming to Atlanta SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Nov 15, 2013, 6:00am EST UPDATED: Nov 15, 2013, 12:00am EST Accelerator coming to Atlanta Joann Vitelli Keep your day job: Prem Bhatia and Praveen Ghanta, co-directors of Founder Institute’s Atlanta chapter. Urvaksh Karkaria Staff Writer- Atlanta Business Chronicle Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn A West Coast-based accelerator program geared toward helping corporate worker bees flex their entrepreneurial muscle will open a Southeast outpost in Atlanta. The Founder Institute, which bills itself as the world’s largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program, is a relatively low-risk way for wantrepreneurs to gauge whether their startup idea has legs, or if they have the chops to step out on their own. The program targets working professionals who have an idea, and are looking to see if it’s worth quitting their job over. “There’s a startup renaissance occurring around the country,” said Adeo Ressi, entrepreneur and founder of the institute. “We manage the process from employee to founder.” During the four-month, part-time program, potential entrepreneurs launch a company through educational courses and business-building assignments, guided by a network of more than 2,500 mentors. Founder Institute sees opportunity in Atlanta’s cluster of Fortune 500 companies and the surge in its startup culture. Atlanta has achieved a critical mass of activity and ventures around the startup ecosystem, including incubators, accelerator programs and co-working spaces. “In Atlanta, you’re seeing multiple interesting things happening at the same time, whereas in other markets, you’ll see one thing followed by another thing — it’s more linear and gradual,” said Ressi, a college roommate of billionaire Elon Musk, who helped build PayPal and Tesla Motors Inc. Several startup initiatives are unfolding, the most high-profile being Atlanta Tech Village — a 100,000 square foot technology company hub in Buckhead. In Midtown Atlanta, the Advanced Technology Development Center plans to expand around the Georgia Tech campus. Scoutmob co-founder Michael Tavani, meanwhile, is planning a design and business-to-consumer incubator. Accelerator programs — FlashPointe and Atlanta Ventures Accelerator — are seeding the next generation of Atlanta’s tech startups. “We look for cities that have a combination of different important components of the startup ecosystem, such as population size,” Ressi said. “Is it a large enough city, where you have enough people that are interested in technology and entrepreneurship to create companies? What is the level of technical expertise and talent?” As a big-company hub, Atlanta offers a deep pool of potential entrepreneurs that Founder Institute seeks to tap. “You have folks in midlevel positions at Coke or Home Depot [who] have a [startup] idea, or don’t feel like their career path is fulfilling some of the entrepreneurial objectives that they have,” said Praveen Ghanta, co-director of Founder Institute’s Atlanta chapter. The program helps those would-be founders with customer discovery and fundraising, Ghanta said. The Founder Institute program fills an unmet need in Atlanta’s startup ecosystem, said David Cummings, serial entrepreneur and founder of Atlanta Tech Village. “There is a need for programs geared around working professionals who want to get their business off the ground, without leaving the comfort of their day jobs,” Cummings said. “It’s going to result in more startups, which are going to create more jobs locally.” Unlike typical incubator and accelerators, which serve as finishing schools for startups, Founder Institute sees itself as a farm team feeding talent to local and national incubator programs. Institute graduates account for 10 percent to 25 percent of the most popular funding incubator classes, such as Techstars or Y Combinator, Ressi said. “We mine diamonds, while most incubator programs make jewelry,” he said. Founder Institute’s decision to open shop in Atlanta shines a global spotlight on the city’s startup community — the program is held in more than 50 cities, across six continents. It increases the visibility of Atlanta into their alumni network as a great place to do a startup, said Jen Bonnett, entrepreneur-in-residence at ATDC. The Institute’s global alumni network of founders may be its biggest value-add. Atlanta graduates can call upon counterparts in Silicon Valley or Taiwan, who would likely take their calls, Bonnett said. “I can pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, I’m coming to Taiwan and I need to know about this,’ ” she said. “That person would take my call and answer my questions.” The Founder Institute’s network of international mentors is also good for Atlanta’s startup system. “Getting mentors from outside of our ecosystem to get involved with mentoring companies in our ecosystem — that’s very powerful,” Bonnett said. Since launching in 2009, Founder Institute has kick-started more than 1,000 mobile, consumer and enterprise software startups. About 45 percent of those graduates have gone on to raise angel investment. The first Atlanta class is expected to include about 20 to 25 startups and launch in December. About 80 percent of the mentor network will be Atlanta-based. “We’re building businesses in Atlanta, so we want to bring the best minds in Atlanta, as well as some outside perspective,” Ressi said. Given the very early stage nature, the program’s dropout rates are high. About 50 percent to 65 percent of enrolled participants leave the program to go back to their day jobs. “A lot of folks will realize that, maybe, they don’t want to do a startup as part of this process,” Ghanta said. Unlike some accelerators, Founder Institute charges fees up front, in addition to taking equity in the startups it helps build. Founders accepted into the program pay a fee of about $900 to cover location fees, mentor travel and other expenses. Each participant also pools 3.5 per-cent equity in their startups into a class fund. If graduate companies get acquired or IPO, the resulting cash or stock is shared among the founders, mentors and the Institute. Applying to the Founder Institute is like applying to graduate school, said Prem Bhatia, co- director of the Atlanta chapter. About 15 percent of people who start the application process are accepted into each class. “Not everyone that’s willing to pay is able to get in,” Bhatia said. .
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