Introducing the INVANTI Fall ’21 Founder Studio Cohort
By: Maria Gibbs
Tags: Impact Investing, Entrepreneurship, Founders, Midwest, Startup

Last week we kicked off our Fall ’21 cohort of the INVANTI Founder Studio. We have invited 18 people to join us, from across the country, for the next three months to explore problems they are connected to, identify opportunities for new companies, and develop and test solutions and business models. Our goal at the end of the three months is to help them transition to building a company full-time and connect them to pilot customers in the South Bend Region. We will also be making $20k investments from our fund into a select group from the cohort.

You can read more about the individuals in the cohort here. (Note: some members have chosen to keep their participation private for the time being.)

A Quick View of the Cohort

14 states represented

61% identify as Black, African American, Latinx, or Asian

72% identify as women

Over ⅓ are moms

Over ⅓ are from the Midwest

Over half have worked for a mission-driven organization

Over half have worked for or with early-stage tech startups

100% have started something in their past

What are their backgrounds?

The number one question we get is, “Where do these people come from? What are their backgrounds?” The simple answer is that they come from every type of background, both personally and professionally. We don’t believe you have to have started a startup previously to be successful, but we do think you need to have the experience of starting something. You don’t need to be an expert, but we do think you need to have a connection to the problems you want to work on. This thesis led us to attracting a wide range of interesting backgrounds in this cohort, including:

Founding team member of a startup accelerator

Career community engagement professional

Policy advisor to technology startups

Director of workforce development initiatives

Founder of a creative agency

Immigration lawyer and head of operations at a legal tech startup

Small business owner

Food/hospitality industry professional

Web designer and developer

Podcast host

Climate advocacy policymaker

It is these backgrounds that create an opportunity for us to unlock insights and find leverage points that can become interesting and impactful companies.

What do they want to explore?

Our process starts with cohort members defining problems they are connected to, either professionally or personally, and then uncovering leverage points that translate into an opportunity to start a company. This particular cohort has wide ranging interests, but almost all of them are rooted in making the everyday experience easier for people to access what they needed to thrive. We have people interested in the very real, physical experience of the day-to-day: housing insecurity, climate-informed neighborhood revitalization, and the circular economy. We have people interested in making it easier to earn a living: supporting the business of creatives, increasing Latino representation in tech, reducing barriers to meaningful employment, and helping small businesses leverage technology. We have people interested in what it means to have a modern-day family: solving problems for working parents, helping parents coordinate childcare, and improving the immigration experience. We don’t yet know how these broad topics will translate into products and services, but that is the ride that we have all signed up for and what our process will unlock over the next three months!

What they’re saying

“I’m excited to direct all of my entrepreneurial energy and focus my creativity.” “I’m looking forward to exploring a passion of mine in an environment that supports experimentation, creativity and accountability.” “I’m excited to partner with a small group of founders with shared values to arrive at an idea worth pursuing for the next leg of my career.” “My mom suffered through kitchen-table issues as a single parent since I was just 6 months old, always with positivity and love…I’m excited for the discipline, process, focus..to work on doing the right things.”

The bet we’re making

Just the existence of this new cohort shows the power of those bets. A week in, there is already an energy amongst them, and a magnetism between them, to take this entrepreneurial journey together. Will everyone and every idea succeed? Obviously not. But we also won’t get anywhere by not taking the bet. Putting this group together has validated that the people, talent, and desire to go after these problems in an entrepreneurial way exists. It is now our job to create the environment to let them take a swing at it.

And we have learned a lot over the past four years about how to do that well. The part-time, remote nature of this particular cohort has opened up access to high-caliber talent who are serious about starting a company for the next phases of their career, but are not in position to quit their jobs without knowing there is an opportunity on the other side. Investment from our fund will give them the option to transition full-time and focus on building and selling the first version of their product. These tweaks to our model gives us one of our most exciting pools of entrepreneurial talent yet, and we are excited to see what they decide to build.