Entrepreneur First
Entrepreneur First is a startup accelerator for talented people who want to start a company but don’t have a team or idea. I was a member of LD17 (its 17th London cohort) in 2021 where I went on to co-found Simple Construction Software with someone I met on the cohort.
My time on Entrepreneur First was absolutely awesome. The first 8 weeks of the cohort were probably the wildest and most dynamic 8 weeks of my life until that point. There, I met Andrius, a Lithuanian fintech veteran who’d already done EF nearly a decade prior. The company he founded there had deployed their anti-fraud product in a bunch of household name banks, raised a Series A successfully, and got Andrius and his co-founder in the 30 Under 30.
Andrius already had a clear vision for what he wanted to build in the construction sector. I spoke to a lot of awesome people and eventually decided Andrius and I would make the best team based on his clear bias to action and wealth of past experience.
The next 12 weeks were a whirlwind, and we ended up passing investment committee with the highest possible recommendation from all investment committee panelists.
The math of success at EF
Without a doubt, the best thing about EF is the people. I think the caliber of people on EF cohorts is incredibly high and almost all of them are worth betting on. Several people who didn’t found a company successfully on the cohort went on to do so subsequently and raise millions of dollars.
One thing that really struck me about EF is it made me recognise just how harsh the top-of-funnel for starting a tech company is. From the point of application, the acceptance rate for the program is around 10%, and of those, around a third will end up with a funded company at the end that passes investment committee. Of that third, around 50% will be able to close on their seed round successfully. Of those that raise seed, something like 20-40% (depending on who you ask, low sample sizes here) will raise further capital.
My memory is foggy, but for our cohort, I think those numbers look something like:
- ~ 700 applicants
- ~70 cohort members
- ~24 funded founders of ~12 startups (including me!)
- ~5 seed rounds for ~10 founders (I failed here)
- The math says ~1-2 series A rounds will emerge from this.
Startups are brutal, but I’ll be damned if they’re not one hell of a ride.
EF helped me have a great time, learn an absolute ton, and successfully kick off my venture. I’m not sure I could ask for more. I’d recommend it in a heartbeat.
Some of my favourite moments
Excited before heading out for the first day of the EF program.
The exceptionally tall guy in the middle is Andrius, my commercial co-founder for Simple Construction. He’s even taller in person.