Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Jennis.
Founder’s Compass has been created by four successful Houston entrepreneurs to help aspiring and early-stage founders easily access the help, guidance, and street-smart experience they need to minimize their start-up risk while maximizing their business’ potential.
Brittany Barreto, Catherine Brown, Leela Madan and Steve Jennis are each practicing founders (serial entrepreneurs in some cases) who already provide mentoring services to start-ups (through, for example, Station Houston, The Ion and TMC Innovation), each in their own specialty areas of expertise. They decided to team up and provide a one-stop-shop master class (the Compass Course) for aspiring and early-stage founders who are not yet ready to be accepted by formal Accelerator programs (such as MassChallenge, gener8tor, or Capital Factory). They identified a gap in the market between ad hoc mentoring and the semester-long Accelerator cohort model and decided to fill it, hence Founder’s Compass.
Founder’s Compass is defined by its tag line, “Founder’s for Founders.” It provides convenient, affordable and interactive courses comprised of four three-hour modules, delivered either over two full days (Fri-Sat) or four evenings over four weeks. Both formats will be available each month, starting in September 2020. Each course will be limited to 10 places to ensure interactive, personalized, intimate sessions that focus on the next practical objective of each participant. Each module will be delivered personally by one of the Founder’s Compass leadership team and each session will be virtual, to facilitate both global access and local safety in this time of COVID-19. The modules will cover concept validation and business strategy, managing risk and IP, sales and marketing techniques, and funding through the start-up investor ecosystem. The Compass Course fee is only $100 per hour, thus $1200 for all four modules.
The Compass Course is designed to be complementary with the other resources available to start-ups. Founder’s Compass partners with Accelerators, academia, investors and corporations to support and promote innovation and entrepreneurialism in all its forms. Founder’s Compass also offers corporate classes to encourage innovation; academic support to bring founders into the ‘classroom’; partnerships with investors to improve the quality of their deal pipelines.
Thus, Founder’s Compass helps aspiring and early-stage founders navigate the unpredictable seas of entrepreneurialism while minimizing their business risk and maximizing their potential… all while maintaining a tight focus on their next practical objective and actionable insights to help them get there, whatever it is, and whoever they are. We are “Founders for Founders.”
Has it been a smooth road?
Founder’s Compass is a child of COVID-19. The four founders of Founder’s Compass have never actually all met in person. Today, we are truly a virtual company designed for and in a virtual world. As such, we have brainstormed, corroborated, evolved, and refined our business ideas on-line. This has been a fantastic but demanding experience. One of the key differentiators of Founder’s Compass is the personal interaction with and coaching by experienced founders. So we’ve had to retain that level of personalization, interaction and empathy in a virtual delivery model. We think we’ve done that. We don’t rule-out adding traditional classroom sessions in the future, but for our September and October Compass Courses, at least, we will be on-line only. Thus, perfectly combining the virtual world of technology with the real human-touch of personal mentorship has been a challenging, but also a very rewarding experience.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Founder’s Compass – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We are “Founders for Founders.” We are experienced entrepreneurs who want to both give-back and pay-it-forward. We want to help the next generation of entrepreneurs identify and navigate around avoidable missteps – to lower their risk, speed their products to market, identify pivot opportunities, and save them time and money. We are proud of encouraging and enabling the next wave of start-ups, regardless of their founders’ backgrounds. We want to facilitate and help under-represented, minority, and mature founders as well as entrepreneurship and MBA students and other traditional entrepreneurs.
We seek to lower the barriers-of-entry for new founders and enhance their positive contributions to our society, economy, environment, and quality of life. What sets us apart of is our experience, willingness to give back, and our convenient, personalized, interactive and affordable Compass Courses. Don’t spend wasted hours combing through on-line literature, or wait for months for the next Accelerator cohort application window. Come to Founder’s Compass and get the street-smart, experienced, advice you need quickly, conveniently, and affordably.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Least, the humidity in the summer; best, everything else.
Pricing:
- Compass Courses: $100 per hour for four, three-hour modules. A total of $1200 per place
Contact Info:
- Website: www.founderscompass.com
- Email: Brittany@founderscompass.com
- Instagram: @founderscompass on LinkedIn
- Facebook: @founderscompass on Facebook
- Twitter: @founders compass on Twitter
- Other: @founderscompass on Instagram
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