Startup Leadership Program [SLP] is a highly selective, global, world-class training program and lifelong global network for outstanding founders, leaders, and innovators.
I underwent the program in year 2014-15, while I was running my first startup Playerify. Later, I undertook the responsibility of executing the next batch of 2015-16 Bangalore Program while I was running OnlinePrasad. This year I am taking a larger role, as India Director, to ensure smooth execution and giant strides for SLP India.
In the last two years, I have seen the SLP program from a participant’s perspective, SLP Bangalore Program Leader perspective and now, a lot more closely, as India Director.
Here are the top 10 things about the SLP Program and its global alumni network and why you should join SLP 🙂
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Diversity of Founders / Startups
SLP ensures that for each chapter, which usually constitutes of about 25 founders, it admits a diverse set of participants including diversity in age, gender and Startup sector. SLP does not record age information, but the youngest Fellow was 19 and oldest was 60 when they joined.
SLP has over 400 women and a dedicated Women’s Initiatives Department.
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Diversity of Startup Stage and Sector
The stages of the startups SLP admits into the program, includes those in the idea stage, early private beta, beta, early traction to angel funded to VC backed startups. So far SLP has 42 sub-sectors including, but not limited to, Technology, Life-sciences, Fin-Tech, Manufacturing, Consumer, Food & Beverages, Clean-Tech and Social Enterprises.
The best part of such diversity of stage is the peer to peer learning, collaboration and support for each other. Often, we have joint sessions beyond the curriculum where we help each other in various aspects.
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Sessions covering all vital aspects of building a startup
The Program is usually divided into about 10-12 sessions where all critical aspects of building startup are covered.
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Transparent and Collaborative execution of Sessions
The sessions follow a predefined curriculum, derived through over 6 years of learning, but each chapter has freedom to fine tune as well as to make suitable changes to program sessions. The decision is made, first, in an informal session over lunch, where the participants along with the Program Team, discuss in detail about order of sessions, contents, mentors and execution through the year.
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Mentors who have been there and done that
The main focus of sessions is to bring the best mentors on board who can deep dive into the topic and share learning from their own execution.
The mentors are entrepreneurs, VCs, Angels or people who have walked the path themselves and thus, the sessions are very fruitful. Vikas Malpani of commonfloor, Ankur Singla of Helpchat, Shivku of Exotel, Sampad of Instamojo are few of names of founders who have mentored our fellows.
- Opportunity to participate in program anywhere in the world
Once enrolled, you can participate in sessions across any chapter throughout 27 centers in 12 countries. This helps a lot if you end up travelling during the duration of program.
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Peer Learning
The peer group shares learning with each other, helps each other in formal as well as informal mixers and sessions. Collaborative sessions are held where founders team up to work together on various aspects.
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Angel Investor, VCs Interactions
SLP usually involves renowned angels and VCs to share their learning with cohort through multiple relevant sessions such as Term sheet understanding, Pitch sessions, Finance session and more.
Each year, SLP also hosts a demo day for batch where key VCs and Angels are invited to the session to feedback about startups.
This year’s Bangalore Demo day had over 80 participants including about 40 investors covering most of VC funds and investment institutions as well as key Angel investors.
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Focus on Founder than the Startup
A lot of our fellows refine what they want to work on during the program, at times, working on new ideas. At SLP , the main focus is on founder than the startup that he/she is working on. This has much larger significance as at SLP one of main purpose is to build a global network of founders for lifetime.
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Global Network
The fellows, during the program, can attend any session anywhere in the world if they are travelling. The network of SLP spans across 12 countries and over 26 chapters covering all key cities for startups. The community is vibrant and active in sharing, learning and collaborating. Most of founders gain lot through the network when they travel to other cities.
Most of founders also gain from global visibility of startup and specially if they are looking at exploring new markets.
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Support System
The SLP has envisioned to build life time network of founders globally and thus all those who are part of it are in it for lifetime. The community supports founders through various points in startup and beyond.
And the last but the most crucial one is
SLP takes 0% EQUITY and participants pays only for covering operational expenses for this participation which is usually in range of 17K in India and in similar proportion in other places..
In case, you are interested in exploring what I have explored, you can find out more on
https://startupleadership.com/
P.S. The application for the year 2016-17 are open until July 31st.
Feel free to share your perspective, questions or any doubts on the program in comments below and I will do my best to answer 🙂
-Prashant Pansare
Twitter : @PrashantPansare
This has been earlier published on Linkedin
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Related reading: SLP: 3 Reasons, 3 Excuses
SLP: A 6 month journey
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Sahil Jain
How long does the program last and what is tge schedule of the same.
Prashant Pansare
Hi Sahil,
Every batch starts in Sep and has about 11-12 sessions on Saturday until Feb/March. This is followed by Demo Day
The schedule gets finalized when we select the batch of 25-30 for each center. the dates and session contents, mentors are decided in collaboration with the participants.
The sessions are roughly divided into what is required to be learned by the participants for execution of startup. Over last executions, we have derived a rough sketch of sessions and that forms the basis for each batch to get started.
Prashant Pansare
clarification : We have 6 Chapters in India where the SLP program is executed
Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai , Delhi
and Once you are part of program, you can choose to join any sessions in any city if you are travelling.
asha chaudhry
hey prashant,
quick suggestion: pls edit your post and add all this info – might get missed in the comments by others!
see you saturday!!
Chandrasekar Ramakrishnan
Is it Okay for an aspiring Startup entrepreneur to join this program? Or is it mandatory for a person to run the business already? Where does this generally happen in Bangalore?
Prashant Pansare
Yes. Go ahead and apply. Even if you are at idea stage and are willing to work towards it.
In Bangalore, this takes place at Fox and Mandal Office on prime rose road. Near Trinity Circle.
Location Link : Bangalore Location
Prashant Pansare
Hey Asha,
Thanks for the tip , i have edited, will add as more points come up 🙂
Gunjan
Some questions I had regarding this.
1) At what stage were you (or other fellows) in your startup when you joined SLP and how did it benefit you?
2) Are there networking events between fellows and mentors even after the SLP is over?
3) Does the course follow a certain curriculum or can it be customised as per requirement in each chapter?
4) Are the selections also based on sector, experience (in a startup) and gender?
Prashant Pansare
Hi Gunjan,
Here are my answers in order
1. I was running my first startup when it was live and I was fundraising, scaling. For me, it helped directly to reach to investors, seek feedback and improve my product with fellow participants. More than that it helped me to improve my understanding on several aspects of building startup. I was, surprisingly, unaware of nuances in several verticals.
2. Yes. We usually go out for beer mixer and there are interactions beyond classes depending on availability of mentor.
3. Over period of last years of execution, we have derived a guidelines and topics and have a rough sketch of sessions. However, when the program starts, the participants get to say in what topics , order and even details of what to learn. Even the dates of execution are decided in consultation with participants.
5. No , we are agnostic to all these. We encourage women to apply as a global policy to onboard more women entrepreneurs as well. We have had 10th drop out to Phd folks to VCs to idea stage founders as participants. Sector wise, we try our level best to get a diverse set of founders together as this leads to maximum learning among the peer group.
asha chaudhry
hey prashant,
i’m gonna add these two links on your post on SLP as related reading written by perzen and hardik. might help others 🙂
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/slp-3-reasons-and-3-excuses
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/a-6-month-journey-startup-leadership-program
Chirag Jain
I was at your Bangalore Event last week and loved the interaction I had with the speakers especially Ritesh(Petto) & Manoj(Giftxoxo) and your PL Vikas. I really liked the fact that the program focusses on the founders and is peer managed by the cohort with the previous year fellows helping us. That is a great way to add to your network. Also liked the fact that learning happens by actual doing & candid interactions with speakers.
However I have one question while I write my application. I may be traveling to Mumbai on some weekends. Is it possible to attend the classes while I am in Mumbai? Is the structure similar across chapters?
Prashant Pansare
Hi Chirag,
Thanks 🙂
Yes, if Fellows travel to cities/countries where we have SLP presence, you can attend sessions there. We have most of the startup cities covered across the globe and a lot of our folks end up joining other sessions too.
Overall similar structure is followed across all chapters but dates will be based on local holidays and preference of the teams there.