I joined Founder’s Space at the start of September 2014 as a Founder of SportsLab Inc.
On my first day, I took the BART into San Francisco from the East Bay and made the walk down to the excellent location in SOMA, the heart of the San Francisco startup scene. On my walk in SOMA, I bumped into a long-time friend and fellow entrepreneur that I hadn’t seen in a while. It is too easy to run into entrepreneurs here!
The first instructor that I met was Steve Austin. I could tell after listening to Steve for a few minutes that he was a seasoned Silicon Valley veteran. Steve had a No BS attitude, and I loved hearing about his successes and failures. In a later session, Steve mentioned that many of the MBA professors that have a doctorate in entrepreneurship have not been out in the field of battle. I wholeheartedly agree with Steve on this and believe that his mentorship has been invaluable.
A few days later I had the chance to meet instructor Scott Gray. Similar to Steve, I could tell Scott was a seasoned veteran. Scott brought a very positive attitude to the entrepreneurs in the room and his sessions were always very interactive. Scott would always have one of the entrepreneurs on stage while making them comfortable with getting a 360 degree assessment of their pitch. In the one-on-one sessions with Scott, he would always leave us with one or two golden tweaks to put into our pitch deck.
There were many great guest mentoring sessions between meeting with Steve and Scott. There are sessions that stand out in my mind that gave plenty of great legal advice, marketing and growth hacking know-how, product development insight, and even inspirational meditation!
Overall, Founders Space has led a great period of growth in my career as an entrepreneur. I give it an A+!
Nick Maxwell
CTO & Cofounder
SportsLab Inc, San Francisco
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