Everything you need to start a successful startup

By investing a small amount of time and money at the beginning of your startup journey we believe you can massively increase your chances of success. We’ve observed that there are common behaviours shared by successful startup founders – behaviours that have directly and consistently led to success of their companies.

We’ve also seen plenty of mistakes made by first-time startup founders that have caused their startup to fail. A lot of these mistakes are predictable, and avoidable, as long as you know what they are. The whole point of the Founders Course is to help you create a successful company by emulating the behaviours of successful startup founders, and avoiding all the pitfalls that cause more than 90% of startups to fail.

It's a lot more cost effective to do this course now than to spend tens of thousands of dollars building the wrong product, or to try and fix a fundamental mistake that you’ve baked into your company.

This course is for anyone who’s at the early stages of building a company with global ambitions. It is for new and first-time startup founders and anyone who has an idea for a startup but is struggling to know what to do next. It doesn't matter whether you’re building a software company, a hardware company, if you have a physical product or a service, there’ll be valuable learnings.

It will also be useful for owners of existing businesses that aren’t startups, but who want to learn to think like a startup. Likewise, you’ll get a lot out of the Founders Course no matter what stage you’re at. If you have an untested startup idea it will help you figure out whether your idea is any good and how to get started on execution. If you’ve already launched a product, the course will help you acquire more customers and avoid common execution mistakes. Even if you’re full-time in your startup and are generating revenues, the course will give you valuable insights on how to grow faster, raise money from investors and focus on what matters most.

If you’re stuck in a corporate job, or just fed up selling time to make a living, and have an idea for a startup, the Founders Course could be just what you need to get from idea to execution.

The course is based on the real-world experience of Startup Onramp’s founder, Colin Kinner, who has worked with more than 300 startups over the last twenty years - as an early stage investor, running startup accelerators and incubators, leading Silicon Valley immersion programs, and as a mentor, advisor and board member for some of Australia's most exciting startups.

The course also features deep dive discussions with a diverse group of successful startup founders, early stage investors and subject matter experts, who share their deep experiences on specific topics.

By signing up for the Startup Onramp Founders Course you receive:

•30 video modules (8 hours of content)

•20 deep dives with startup founders, investors and subject matter experts

•Online discussion with facilitator-led Q&A

•A comprehensive set of guides, templates and readings

•1 year's free subscription to LawPath, providing you with unlimited access to legal guides and startup-friendly legal documents

Yes, we offer individual coaching to a small number of founders. Get started with the course first, and if you think you’d benefit from one-on-one coaching you can find out more here.

Yes! We offer discounted pricing for teams of two or more to make it easy for the whole team to do the course together.

You can do the course even if you don’t have a startup idea, or if you’re unsure about your current idea. It’s surprisingly easy to come up with startup ideas, and in the course you’ll learn how to quickly evaluate ideas and make sure you’re working on something that could be the basis for a successful business.

Most startup ideas change over time, so don’t be too stressed if your idea is still embryonic, you have doubts about its potential, or you have more than one idea.

Did you know that YouTube started out as a video dating site, and Flickr started out as an online role-playing game?

You can sign up for the Founders Course at any time. The course is available on a continuous basis so there’s no need to wait for the next cohort to start.

A lot of what we cover in the course is reflected in books by global thought leaders such as Eric Ries, Steve Blank, Ash Maurya, Paul Graham, David Bland and Cindy Alvarez.

The Founders Course distils the learnings from these and many others – so you don’t have to go and read a stack of books.

We’ve also overlaid a lot of practical, real-world experience that you won’t get from reading books. We’re passionate about helping startup founders to be successful by learning from the experiences of others – which is why the course features a diverse group of successful startup founders, early stage investors and subject matter experts who share their deep experiences on specific topics.

You don't know what you don't know - so Googling isn't going to work if you don't know what to Google! This course covers everything you need to know, logically and sequentially, so you can work through the process in structured way.

There are some good videos out there, but also a lot of advice that’s just plain wrong, or that’s only relevant if you’re somewhere like Silicon Valley. The Founders Course is based on years of experience in teaching startup founders the core skills needed to succeed.

The Founders Course provides a unique mix of broad experience (from our work with hundreds of startup founders, reflected in the core course content) and deep insights into specific topics (provided by deep dive discussions with experienced founders, investors and subject matter experts).

Startup Onramp was created for the sole purpose of teaching startup skills to startup founders. It’s what we do, we live and breathe this stuff every day, and we couldn’t be more passionate about it. We’ve worked with over 200 startups in our face-to-face programs, and are constantly refining our teaching methods and resources.

Unlike other courses, the Founders Course gets into the nuts and bolts. We don’t believe in interviewing celebrity entrepreneurs for “inspiration”. We’d rather get into depth on topics that you actually need to know about, and provide you with step by step guides that you can follow.

Paying for something means you're more likely to complete it - unlike all those free email courses you've signed up for and never done anything with. You're more likely to launch and succeed if you invest in yourself.

The online support forum gives you feedback on tasks as you work through the course, plus expert help with anything you’re stuck on. Having this accountability really helps with keeping yourself on track.

The course includes an online discussion forum where you can get expert feedback on tasks you're working on in the course, and answers to any questions as you go along.

You can complete the Founders Course in anything from a weekend to a few months. Our advice is to do it at a pace that allows you to put the learnings into action as we go along. For most people this will be between two and six weeks, assuming you can commit at least a couple of hours each week.

The Founders Course is for anyone, regardless of technical skills.

If you're building a tech company (or a company that relies on tech) you will need to bring tech skills into the business at some point. If a lack of technical expertise is holding you back, the Founders Course will help you formulate strategies to identify and work with developers and potential technical co-founders, and lots of practical tips for non-technical founders.

The course is open to individuals or teams. Each team member needs to sign up separately.

The Founders Course is valuable for startup founders anywhere in the world. It contains insights that apply regardless of what country you’re in, or whether you’re in a regional town or a major city. The course was developed in Australia, so will of course have extra value for Australian founders as we discuss challenges and opportunities in the Australian ecosystem.

Yes! We are partnering with startup hubs and organisations that support startup ecosystems to provide packages of places in the Founders Course. Contact us for more information.