Meet the E2F Startup Bootcamp

Helping startup employees kick-start their own founder journey

My colleague Vlad and I have a few things in common.

We both love eating delicious French food (the more cheese, the better), we regularly speak at technical conferences and for the better part of two years we’ve worked together here at Sqreen.

We also share a goal to one day found our own companies.

Which is why we decided to build an internal bootcamp training program for startup employees who want to build their own companies.

But… why?

It’s no secret that many startup employees share an entrepreneurial spirit — heck it’s often something startups actively hire for.

But while the potential upside is huge, startup employees sacrifice a fair amount of things in order to work for a startup — personal life, opportunity cost, and sometimes, delaying building their own company.

But what if it didn’t have to be a tradeoff?

Working as an employee in an early stage startup can be a clear competitive advantage for those who harbour their own entrepreneurial dreams — if you know how to best exploit it.

Equity, access, reputation — what else?

Often early employees have equity grants that can buy them time in the initial phases of their own company; they may benefit from access to networks of talent and investors; and if their current company is successful, their reputation will also receive a healthy boost.

Beyond that, the potential for learning the ropes in an early stage startup for would-be founders often goes unrealised. It’s easy to understand why — startup founders and employees are often stretched extremely thin in the early days, and purposeful mentoring and structured learning programs rarely emerge until Series B or beyond.

And sure, there are plenty of excellent blog posts out there, interviews with CEOs and advice from VCs, 1:1 executive coaching programs — but what we feel is missing is the tl;dr.

Introducing, the Employee to Founder (E2F) Startup Bootcamp!

What we’re building is a structured, down-to-earth, skills-based learning program that leverages the incredible wealth of knowledge employees already have surrounding them at their startup day job.

But, startup founders, we need your help!

We are trying to identify the key skills startup founders need to succeed. We’ll use these to build a meaningful training program to help turn startup employees into founders.

As founders, you’re already on this journey! We need your help to identify which skills have served you well, and which you wish you’d had earlier.

The Typeform takes less than 4 minutes (go on, time us!) and in addition to our eternal admiration, we’ll also send you some Sqreen swag to say thanks.

But Alison, won’t this program mean I lose my star employees?

Though somewhat counter-intuitive, the E2F startup bootcamp is actually an excellent employee retention program, and therefore a great way to attract candidates (a subject I know a little something about ;)).

At Sqreen, many candidates express a desire to build a startup one day. Being transparent on the fact that joining us is not in conflict with that, but rather a great step towards that goal helps us to attract incredible talent.

One thing to keep in mind is that your team have career goals and dreams outside of what fits neatly into your plans as a company — whether or not you know about them. As a founder, you can choose to ignore those dreams and hope they go away, or you can find out about them, take interest in them — and actively help your team to reach them.

What’s next?

If you’re a startup founder, you already know what to do. If you’re a startup employee who’d love to see this program implemented in your company, or someone who is just generally interested in the program and would like to be kept up to date, sign up here and we’ll keep you posted!