The GoLeanMean program provides a wealth of benefits. First and foremost, you get us -- a small team of done-it-before, tech entrepreneurs who sit with you every day and think about your business. Our vision is to enable your vision.
For at least the first month, we will will sit with you almost every day and talk with you about your business. Our goal: validate your assumptions quickly, iterate like mean bastards, measure everything, and fail/win at warp speed.
We only take 3-5 new startups per semester. This allows us to work alongside you and teach you the nitty gritty of customer development, the acquisition funnel, smoke screens, MVPs, split testing, analytics, and more.
The popular accelerator format is to spend 90 days and get you to demo stage. Not us. With our rapid learning approach, we think outside the demo. We think about traction. Any investor will admit they'll more readily invest in a startup that has customer traction than they will in one that has a slick prototype. We will build your funnel with you in a way that investors understand: add x funding and out pops y customers.
For the length of the 90-day program, we offer you, and up to three other members of your team, free office space. Our downtown office (at the world-famous Brewery) comes with high-speed internet, kitchen, three crash rooms for those long nights, an indoor basketball court, and an 18 foot indoor tree with a programming nook to jack-in and tune-out. Our upcoming Santa Monica office will, whilst being a bit more sparse, provide the requisite amenities.
We provide you with enough working capital to focus all your energy on the 90-day program. The amount, while varying based on team size & location, runs in the neighborhood of $10,000 - $20,000.
The venture firm, Foresight Ventures, has partnered with us and is a strong advocate for LeanMean methodology. They've already funded our first two pilot startups and have agreed to meet all future graduates of the LeanMean program. In addition, any graduate with traction, will be presented to a select group of Northern and Southern California investors ranging from seed to venture (based on your stage & traction).
Since we have worked so closely with you during the 90-day program, we understand your business intimately. And, assuming you have traction, we will gladly accompany you for your initial investor meeting(s). Our team has raised over $100M to date, so we know all about the trials and tribulations of fund raising.
The LeanMean team *loves* product. We have over 40 years tech product management experience and we will provide you leadership on UX, UI, and overall direction. This can cut both ways: sometimes we will advise you to stop wasting time on pretty/petty things that don't matter. At other times, we will urge you for additional polish. We aren't just sideline advisors, either. We provide you constant product feedback at each phase of its development. Heck, we even help with copy.
Although our program doesn't lean on mentors as heavily as others (because we teach you the science behind business building) we are very proud of our mentor program. Our outside team ranges in expertise from general business, finance, customer development, sales, marketing, product, technical, and leadership. Most of our mentors are SoCal proven tech entrepreneurs who can meet with you in person during the program.