Should you apply to STATION F? Here’s my view of the Founders Program.
Station F hosts several programs managed by various groups like Microsoft, L’Oréal, etc. But there is one program, the Founders Program, that is managed by Station F. No other brand, no strings attached, no equity, just passion.
Let me show you in.
Who are “we”?
We are AlgoDeep, and we are an early-stage startup. “Early-stage” is an important piece of information in this article as the Founders Program is designed for and only available to early-stage startups!
We build a solution that accelerates the design, development and operationalization of artificial intelligence algorithms, and that can be deployed on premise or in the cloud.
We applied to the founders program when we released a first version of our product.
It all started with the “you’re in!” moment
After having explained our tech & business, and taken an online interview, we waited about 4–5 weeks to get an answer from the program selection committee.
The selection is pretty tight as only 6% of the thousands and thousands of applications are actually accepted by the selection board.
Knowing there is a selection makes you eager to get in, like wanting to enter a club or a restaurant that has a huge line in front of it (helloooo La Felicità).
So this is how I personally felt when I received *the* email titled “Welcome to the Founders Program”:
For us startups
Guilds are big sharing families
In the Founders Program, startups are organized in guilds. Those are groups of non-competing startups. The goal of this is to share our startup problems, wins, and hacks. At the end of the day, there is often another startup that has encountered the same issue as you have, before you; better benefit from its feedback! During monthly guild meetings, we discover great tools, sales tricks and investment mechanisms that other startups use and we share our best practices on several topics.
We learn during the events
Amazing events are organized by the staff, for the program members:
From “friendly free beer” meetups, to having founders & C-level of famous companies giving inspiring talks about how they started, how they sell, how they grew their team, to complimentary access to conferences where you could find your next partners or customers, there’s always an event that will be of great help.
And talks literally *have* to be of great help, the staff selects the speakers and contents to make sure they are on point and that they have something we can learn, something immediately actionable. No BS!
As an example, Brian Chesky, CEO & co-founder of Airbnb, spent a few hours with us as part of an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session to answer our questions and transmit his experience through his words.
One other event in particular was an eye-opener: a masterclass on how to generate B2B leads (or should I say demand) by Guilhem Bertholet from Invox.
I prepared it and was able to ask all the questions I had, live.
And this, my friends, when you start a business from scratch and on a tight budget, is plain gold.
We are far more visible than anywhere else
The whole place has a great amount of — good — hype around it: we surf on a wave of visibility and our startup gets a huge “INNOVATOR” stamp on it. Our prospects and clients are delighted to come for meetings at Station F, they often take selfies, post them on social networks mentioning us, and we reap the communication benefit. Eventually, we get to build a less formal meeting atmosphere (better for discussing contracts). Win - win.
Visibility is also boosted via the media: it is often that the press makes requests to Station F to find interviewees for their documentaries, say, about startups working on AI with a focus on industry adoption. We get contacted, or alerted through Slack, we reply, we roll.
We get top-notch VC intros & access to a large community of funds
A lot of startups (not all, don’t get me wrong) need money at some point on their journey. The Founders Program managers know how we evolve, our domain, our successes and difficulties, and our potential fit with VC funds. Some fund managers spend some time in Station F during what they call the “office hours”, the VCs that are external to the community sometimes come spend one or two days at Station F and we are asked if we want to be introduced to them. Those are great opportunities to be placed “on top of the heap”, get remembered easily and start a collaboration.
We can get advice from selection board members
Remember the selection board that chose us among the lucky 6%? Well it is composed of about 100 high-profile entrepreneurs from 21 different countries with a total of 5 billions € raised!
And you know what’s best? Well, we get to meet with the members we want at our request! This also holds a humongous value.
Fast, concise communication
Last but not least, the Slack channels ranging from #random to #beta-users-needed are our main way of communicating between startups : tips, questions, or lost&found. This is also how we contact the staff (more on them later on).
For our employees & interns
The atmosphere
Ok, first off: let’s talk about the building. “La Halle Freyssinet” (a 1920’s freight rail center) was re-established in 2015. Today it is an exceptional piece of historical architecture infused with high-tech. All our first-comer applicants are impressed by the huge volumes and the impression of being “where it all happens”. After a few weeks, they may forget about the volumes but the energetic atmosphere remains.
They live too far from work? Station F has their back!
For our collaborators willing to live close to work, in a shared apartment, there is a new co-living initiative that allows them to get a great room for cheaper than anything else on the housing market, 10 minutes from Station F!
This is also a win-win: they move in a brand new apartment, save money on rent, get a better place to live, and they spend more time at work, or just chillaxing, instead of commuting for hours everyday. For us Founders, this means a more stable, more focused and more active team.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the perks
Perks are Station F exclusive offers & deals on pretty much anything surrounding the life of startups: free AirBnB credits, tens of thousands of € in cloud credits, heavy discounts on tech tools, gym subscriptions, restaurants, transports, etc.
As of today, there are 137 perks available. There is no way you are not using at least one perk when you’re here. This is… Thank you… $thank$ $you$.
The staff
Where should I begin. The staff *is* Station F. They organize visits, events, intros, they make sure we’re safe, happy, not too cold, not too warm, with enough light, you get me.
I read one article saying Station F wasn’t that good because printers didn’t work very well and Wifi not available 100% of the time. Well that’s also where the staff shines. They are working their 🤐 off to improve the quality of the wifi that failed me twice when I just arrived and never since them, maybe I am lucky. The second time, I really pushed my brain to its limits thinking of a solution: plugged an ethernet cable, problem solved.
As for the printers, we printed maybe 3 times since July. Worked well. In color.
Wrap-up
This first text of mine is not about tech, next one will most likely be. I just wanted to give credit back to those that thrive to make us, French and International startups, progress and really focus on what matters most: our growth. Thank you Founders Program, greatly appreciated.
