My day at FounderFuel
By Francis Moran.
FounderFuel participants enjoy a pizza lunch
When I first learned of FounderFuel, the Montreal-based accelerator program developed by the folks at Real Ventures, I asked if I could be part of their mentor program. I was pretty up front about what I was looking for; we had been writing a fair bit about accelerators and I wanted the chance to see the process from the inside even if, like sausages, you should never look too closely at how some things are made. Because Real Ventures focuses its investments on companies in web, mobile and digital media, none of which are really my sandbox, I didn’t think I’d be the most useful mentor they recruited so I was pretty chuffed when they let me in with the first cohort and delighted that they asked me back for the second. The truth is, many of the companies in the first and, now, especially the second cohort are working in areas where my experience has some relevance and I’ve enjoyed the work with these teams of young entrepreneurs.
I stepped up that contribution a bit yesterday when I put on a class looking at the basics involved in developing a marketing strategy. It was the shallowest of dives into the planning process as I tried to skim over in an hour what it usually takes me several weeks of work to bring a client through. Still, attendance at the session was pretty good, the questions were excellent, and it was only the necessity of catching my train home that obliged me to put a halt to the one-on-one consultations I had with several of the teams that could have gone on for some time.
