Silicon Valley’s Founder Institute Seeks Recruits for Second Montreal Cohort

Silicon Valley-based The Founder Institute is seeking applicants for its second Montreal cohort.

The early bird deadline is January 25. The benefit of beating the early bird deadline is that the $50 predictive admissions test fee is waived and you’ll be eligible to receive a Founder Institute Fellowship.

Probably the greatest draw for applicants to the Founder Institute program is the truly impressive lineup of mentors who will provide active support throughout the course of the program.

In Montreal’s case, it starts with Busbud founder LP Maurice and co-founder of Founder Institute’s Montreal chapter Sergio Escobar.

The list of mentors also includes Stephane Marceau of wearable tech firm OMsignal, Martin-Luc Archambault of Wajam, Marcus Daniels from Highline, Dan Robichaud of PasswordBox (recently acquired by Intel Security), Luc Filiatreault of OpenText, Greg Isenberg of 5By, Ethan Song and Hicham Ratnani of Frank & Oak, Dax Da Silva of Lightspeed Retail, Caithrin Rintoul of Provender and Chris Arsenault of iNovia Capital.

The guiding principle of the Founder Institute, aside from “globalizing Silicon Valley”, is that applicants participate in a program while holding on to their day job, with the ultimate goal of creating a new job for themselves in the form of a company.

The drop-out rate is high. At the outset, only about 30% of applicants are selected to participate in the program by the predictive admissions test. Then, less than 40% of participants end up finishing the program.

Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. And that’s a good thing.

As LP Maurice said at an orientation session last year for the Founder Institute’s inaugural recruiting session at McGill University, “I don’t think entrepreneurs are born. I think that’s bullshit. And I’ve heard it from the mouth of super successful entrepreneurs. There’s no entrepreneurial DNA. You’re not born to be a lawyer. You’re not born to be an accountant. You’re born a human, and then you become an accountant or a lawyer. Same thing for entrepreneurship.”

Montreal was the first Canadian city selected by the international start-up accelerator. Since then, a cohort has passed through their Toronto location.

The first Montreal cohort graduated 12 people, from the 45 who were admitted and over 400 who applied.

There’ll be an information session at Notman House on Wednesday, February 4.