Last night we graduated twelve new companies from the Founder Institute in New York City. I couldn't be more proud of all the founders that graduated last night. Some of the new graduates recently published their thoughts and opinions on the program now that they have been through it. I wanted to share with you a few quotes from the thoughts they had. I am including links to the full posts below each quote so you can read those as well.

Thank you to all our mentors and congratulations again to the Summer 2015 New York Founder Institute Graduates! 

Mise en place - Vicente DeReyes

"Initially, I wondered how an incubator program would help us achieve our mission of bringing the communal spirit back to dinner.  "Is the program designed more for tech heavy startups like emerging app companies or B2B service technologies?  Would our mission resonate with the program’s curriculum?”  These are a few of the questions I asked myself before joining.  As I write this post on graduation day, I look back at the past three months in awe of how much progress we have achieved.

Week after week, milestones were continually set and the bar constantly raised.  Have a B2B service? Go get LOI’s.  Have a B2C service? Create a landing page and get 500 signups.  Think your customers want “X”? Well go ask 200 of them and find out for yourself.  After many sleepless nights, countless pitches to mentors, and the reality-check of graduating with only 12 of my fellow companies out of an original class of 36, today is graduation day." 

- Vicente DeReyes: Link to full article

Viozel - Roddi Simpson

"The training in lean startup methodology has been exceptional. Support has been excellently balanced. We were given the tools and enough space to figure it out ourselves but help was at hand if needed, challenges are given to strengthen weaknesses and it is all done in an environment of support between fellow founders that are literally (and I mean the literally!) invested in each other's success." 

- Roddi Simpson: Link to full article

Bigger Dreams - Stefan Klotzbuecher

"Each one of us pitched our ideas about seven to nine times from start to graduation. While I sucked big at the beginning, you see everyone raising the bar and getting better, so you don’t want to be left behind. I invested a good amount of time in getting my pitch right, incorporating feedback and new insights along the way. I haven’t presented this much in a row before and think it is not only a helpful exercise, it’s also important as a founder, as you basically sell something (including yourself) all the time to someone (customers, investors, mentors, friends, employees)."

- Stefan Klotzbuecher: Link to full article

Virtzy - Isak Mirzak

"For three months, influential mentors not only provided us with advice and their own experiences of being entrepreneurs, but also gave us invaluable feedback about our ideas and helped direct and guide us the right way to accomplishing our goals.

We've also developed great friendships with other founders that will continue beyond graduation. I want to commend other founders for their resilience, hard work, unrelenting passion and amazing support! This journey would have not been the same without my fellow team mates." 

- Isak Mirzak: Link to full article

Ward eSports - Jose Lincuna

"One of the greatest challenges of your life..." "...You will meet some of the smartest and passionate people in your life." 

- Jose Lincuna: Link to full article