When Martin Martinez surveys the Austin startup ecosystem, he sees powerful resources for ideation, startup incubation and later-stage acceleration. But, he said, there aren't many options for emerging founders who have already gone through short seminars and may not yet have the business fundamentals to dive into an accelerator like Techstars.
“There are some things that just aren’t being taught yet in the ecosystem that should be,” he said.
That's where the Founder Institute might fill a void.
The accelerator program, founded in Silicon Valley and now spread across 60 countries, is in the preliminary stages of establishing an Austin chapter. The program focuses on providing very early stage startups with business fundamentals, including assistance with market research, legal paperwork and planning.
The local effort is being led by Martinez, the managing director, and fellow directors Barbary Brunner, CEO of the Austin Technology Council, and Paul O'Brien, founder of MediaTech Ventures. They have signed on 21 mentors, thus far, including COLLiDE agency founder Alan Miller; Patrick Kelly, vice president of wireless IP at AMD; Russell Williamson, founder and CPO at Thomas & Darden; and Nada Lulic, head of talent at Zenoss.
Founder Institute will have its second Austin event -- a startup bootcamp and panel discussion -- on Tuesday evening at Galvanize.
There have been prior attempts to open a Founder Institute chapter in Austin. But Martinez, who founded A-Player Management, said this effort is well ahead of schedule in meeting requirements of the Silicon Valley-based program.
"Finding the right team was the hardest and most challenging part," Martinez told me.
Each Founder Institute chapter takes on a mix of experienced mentors based on the existing and emerging sectors in the city. The program doesn't really draw hard lines of what types of companies they'll accept. It ranges from packaged goods to B2B technologies.
"We don’t want a CRM for dogs," Martinez joked. "We want people to swing for the fences.”
Thus far, the Austin crew has been closely eying the convergence of technology with more traditional creative sectors -- music, art and film. That ties in with O'Brien's emerging MediaTech Ventures project and Austin's DNA as a live music city with a huge tech scene.
Martinez said tech companies are increasingly looking to musicians, artists and media professionals to help grow their companies. And tech is also taking notes from the grassroots and gorilla marketing that artists and musicians have been successful with.
He hopes creatives will see the Founder Institute as a resource that could help them launch a creative business by equipping them with tested business fundamentals before they start seeking funding.
"VCs are a lot more confident in companies that have those initial steps complete," he said.
