Attention first-time CEOs: the Founder Institute has found its way to Boston. The training and mentorship program for entrepreneurs, initially launched last year in Silicon Valley, is recruiting startup entrepreneurs for its first Boston session starting June 30, according to the program’s website.

The four-month program aims to give beginner tech CEOs what they need to survive: instruction on how to build a young enterprise; mentorships with veteran entrepreneurs; introductions to funding sources such as angel investors; and a strong business network, according to the group’s website. The institute is the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Adeo Ressi, who may be best known as founder of the venture capitalist rating site TheFunded.com. For its maiden Boston session, his program has recruited mentors such as Razorfish co-founder Craig Kanarick, Ontela CEO Dan Shapiro, and Shareable Ink CEO Stephen Hau.

Boston has hosted a number of mentorship and incubator programs for greenhorn entrepreneurs, including Y Combinator and TechStars. The programs have found an audience with startup entrepreneurs who are hungry for cash and connections to get their young ventures off the ground, and they are often willing to give up a stake in their companies or pay tuition fees to participate in them. The Founder Institute seeks tuition and company stakes that reflect its desire for everyone involved in the program to benefit from the success of each participating startup. Its initial tuition is $600 and $4,500 if the startups in the program raise capital from third parties, and each company gives up a 3.5 percent stake in their firms in the form of warrants, which are pooled and shared among all the enrollees and mentors in their session.

The Founder Institute says that Boston is its 10th location. Previous locations include San Diego and Seattle, two other cities where Xconomy has sites. In San Diego, Bruce has chronicled some of the action from the Founder Institute. Greg, our Seattle editor, wrote how that city’s gaming cluster was key to bringing the institute to Seattle.

We’ll watch with interest which exiting startups find their way to the institute’s Boston program.

Comments (2) | Reprints | Share:          

This we’ve known: The venture capital business model relies on having talented entrepreneurs to run their portfolio companies. Yet many entrepreneurs love to hate VCs, and new online forums such as TheFunded.com have made this reality more clear than ever (Bob wrote about how TheFunded.com has made its ratings of VC firms and partners available to the public). Now local VCs are concerned how entrepreneurs view their industry, because some of them are taking action to show how much they value the people driving their portfolio companies.

Leading the charge is Waltham, MA-based Advanced Technology Ventures, which launched a new website that speaks loud and clear about its desire to build more bridges with entrepreneurs. In fact, the words “Exceptional Entrepreneurs” jump out on the homepage in extra-large and bold letters. Scroll down the page and you’ll find several video clips of interviews with CEOs at the firm’s portfolio companies who talk about what inspires them to be entrepreneurs.

ATV isn’t the only firm trying to do more to reach out. I noticed last month while visiting Flybridge Capital Partners’ new offices in downtown Boston that there were photos of founders of most of the companies in which the firm has invested (yes, even the ones that didn’t succeed) hanging in the lobby. It’s a different look than the tombstones marking successful financings that usually festoon the walls of VC firms.

I spoke yesterday with general partners from both firms to find out what this is all about. Bob Hower of ATV and Michael Greeley of Flybridge made clear that they take seriously how entrepreneurs regard their VC firms. Indeed, Hower told me that VCs compete to attract and maintain ties with talented entrepreneurs who may have their pick of many firms willing to fund their startups.

There was a concerted effort to make the new ATV site a better resource for and to feature entrepreneurs, Hower says, but the website isn’t enough to change some of the negative views some people have toward VCs. “I guess I wouldn’t put too much stock in just a website,” he says. “I think a lot of people have websites and say a lot of things, but at the end of the day if an entrepreneur has had a bad experience [with a VC firm] I think they need to have a good experience to change their mind.”

Hower told me that he had just come from an event at MIT where one entrepreneur referred to VCs as “lemmings and cowards.”

Flybridge’s Greeley says that he and his partners think of themselves as entrepreneurs, having founded the firm in 2001, and set out from the launch of the firm to be the first people that company founders call when seeking advice and cash. “It sounds sort of hackish to say,” he says, “but we really wanted to be on the same side of the entrepreneur.”

Comments (4) | Reprints | Share:          

Gossip and the inside dope are hard to resist—especially when they pertain to people who might hold your company’s fate in the palm of their hands. So, when you think about it, it was only a matter of time before the controversial website TheFunded opened up its venture capitalist ratings to more widespread view. The site, which has provoked a range of reactions from investors (see for example this post by venture capitalist and Xconomist Daphne Zohar and the comments that follow), was already well known for publishing entrepreneurs’ ratings of venture firms. But what you might not have known is that individual VCs were also scored. Those ratings were just kept behind the scenes, for members-only viewing. (You cannot be a member if you’re associated with a venture firm, and only members are allowed to give scores or comments.)

That all changed as of yesterday, when TheFunded opened its individual VC scores to public view, alongside its fund ratings. Investors are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with the higher the number the better.

According to its website, TheFunded now contains profiles of some 3,700 funds and 17,000 venture partners, associates, and others. But not many folks who have received more than one or two votes average over 4, from what I can tell. So even a score in the mid-threes is pretty good. (One of the criticisms of TheFunded is that a few malcontents can totally skew the data.)

Of those receiving more than 10 votes, the highest-ranking fund based solely in New England* seems to be Spark Capital of Boston, which received a 3.5 rating. The highest-rated partner at Spark is co-founder Todd Dagres, who has pulled in a 3.8 (from four votes). The only Spark partner under a 3.0 ranking is Santo Politi, another co-founder who has garnered a 2.9 based on eight votes. Bijan Sabet, who has pushed hard to get rid of non-competes, comes in at 3.5, also based on eight votes.

The lowest ranked New England fund—again of those with 10 or more votes—is North Bridge Venture Partners, with a 2.3 (it got slammed on favorable deal terms). Individuals at the firm do pretty well, though, especially Rich D’Amore who after three votes has a perfect 5.0 score.

*Kepha Partners of Waltham, MA, doesn’t appear when I screen for East Coast funds, yet when I search on it individually it shows a 4.0 rating based on 18 votes. Kepha’s absence from the East Coast list could have something to do with the warning that appears: “TheFunded.com algorithm has detected unusual review activity with this particular fund. Readers are advised to review information presented with caution.”

Comments (2) | Reprints | Share:          

Am interested to hear what people think about this website (www.thefunded.com) where entrepreneurs rank venture funds. I like the concept of shifting the power dynamic and keeping venture funds on their toes but I have a few issues with the execution. My biggest problem is that there doesn’t appear to be any objective quality-control mechanism. There’s an anonymous individual who runs it and there’s no way to check if he has issues with specific funds or if the thousands of entrepreneur-members even exist. He could also choose to selectively post comments/scores or delete others and nobody would be the wiser.

On the other hand, assuming that these are all real individual entrepreneurs and that this guy is above board, the concept is intriguing and has the potential to be powerful. I found it interesting to read some of the comments while others were so biased (to one side or the other) that their value was limited. There’s a clear delineation between the endorsements that are coming from funded companies at the urging of their backers and the comments from disgruntled entrepreneurs who were poorly treated (mostly during the pitch/diligence process). The most interesting potential comments would be those that can serve as due diligence for entrepreneurs. For example the post-term-sheet and post-funding interactions with specific funds. I didn’t see too many of those yet.

Comments (12) | Comments (4) | Reprints | Share: