What is the Founder Institute?

The Founder Institute was launched by serial entrepreneur Adeo Ressie and his colleague, Jonathan Greechan after they recognized that most entrepreneurs at the idea and launch stages of their startups lacked structure, feedback, and the network support needed to be successful. With this in mind, the Founder Institute was created to help pre-seed entrepreneurs and teams get traction to raise funding, recruit co-founding teams, build products, and ultimately transition from employee to entrepreneur, and more. FI helps turn ideas into fundable startups, and startups into global businesses.

The first Founder Institute program was crowdsourced by over 10,000 CEO members of TheFunded.com, and the inaugural program started in May 2009 in a small classroom at Stanford University. To date, FI has helped launch over 6,800 companies across 200+ cities and six continents, with chapters operating across 100 countries and 9 languages. In total, FI Alumni have raised over $1.75BN and are worth an estimated $30BN.

The Founder Institute is led by the following beliefs:

• Great companies start with great people.
• Great companies can be built anywhere.
• Great companies are not built alone.
• Anyone can change the world through entrepreneurship.
• Focus is one of a founder’s greatest challenges.
• Startups are much harder than you think.

How is the Founder Institute connected to lookingGLASS?

As a woman, Lana recognized that entrepreneurship might look a little different for her than for her male counterparts. According to an analysis produced by the Boston Consulting Group, if women participated equally with men as entrepreneurs, global GDP could increase by approximately 3 to 6 percent, adding $2.5 to $5 trillion to the global economy. Despite this positive gain, a surprising statistic from the Kauffman Foundation reports that in 2021 women started 39.9% of businesses, compared to 60% created by men. This is a 20% discrepancy between the number of new female to male entrepreneurs!

Further evidence also suggests that women receive financing at substantially lower rates than men. Harvard Business Review reports that female entrepreneurs receive only about 2% of all venture funding, despite owning 38% of the businesses in the country. With all of this information in mind and a strong admiration for the vision that The Founder Institute is led by, Lana turned to FI for support.

lookingGLASS Lifestyle founder and CEO, Lana Ashby Rowder joined The Founder Institute Austin Spring 2023 Cohort in February and graduated from the program in May. This rigorous sixteen-week program was detrimental to the development of the lookingGLASS team, culture, and the development of our product. The program sessions included weekly opportunities to pitch lookingGLASS Lifestyle to mentors, advisors, and investors, and provided an opportunity to get real-time feedback and advice, which was critically important to lookingGLASS. The Austin Spring 2023 Cohort started with twenty-eight companies and with eight companies ultimately graduating from the program.

Style Advice. Graduation Outfit Ideas

With graduation upon us, it’s time to celebrate our CEO and graduate, Lana Ashby Rowder, and graduate in style. But with this, the age-old question arises, “What outfit should I wear to graduation?”. 

We’ve got you covered! We’ve curated a list of some of our favorite graduation outfit ideas for a graduate and their guests.

Graduation Outfit Ideas for the Non-Dress Wearer: 

FLORAL LONG SLEEVE PLISSÉ ROMPER:
This super trendy ASOS romper contains flattering fabrication, is lightweight, comfy, and great for wearing under a graduation gown.