Founders Club 14: A Global Cohort Graduates with Bold Ideas and Strong Teams
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From day one, the Founders Club has been Startup Wise Guys’ flagship venture builder, created for senior professionals in career transition who are hungry to become tech entrepreneurs. Each cohort brings something new, and Cohort 14 has proven to be one of the most globally diverse, technically balanced, and practically focused batches yet.
Spanning 13 nationalities and comprising 30 seasoned professionals, including CTOs, CMOs, CFOs, and CEOs, this cohort showed up ready to explore bold B2B ideas, build meaningful teams, and develop real businesses. And now, after 12 weeks of structured venture building, they’ve graduated.
What Made FC14 Unique?
Each Founders Club edition builds on the legacy of the last. But FC14 brought some powerful new elements into the mix:
🔹 Alumni-to-Cohort Connection
We kicked off the program with a fireside chat featuring an alum from FC9, creating a direct bridge between past and present participants. This session allowed new founders to ask raw, practical questions about the journey ahead, from someone who’s walked the same path.
🔹 Product Sprint Powered by Platma
For the first time, we partnered with Platma, a Startup Wise Guys portfolio company, to support MVP development during the Product Sprint. Their no-code platform gave participants a rapid way to validate ideas and get real feedback, helping them iterate faster and smarter.
🔹 Standout Contributions from Founders
Some participants left a strong impression throughout the program. Michael from OneApply brought consistent energy and curiosity to every session. “Being part of the Startup Wise Guys Founders Club has been a game-changer for our startup, OneApply. The program gave us access to a powerful network of mentors and founders who truly understand what it takes to build something meaningful. The sessions were no-fluff, high-impact, and helped sharpen both our product and go-to-market strategy. What stood out most was the honest feedback and genuine support: it felt like having an extended founding team. Thanks to this experience, OneApply is better positioned to transform how talent is discovered and hired across Europe” he shared.
Olena from SalesDep AI also stood out with her precision and growth mindset. “The Founders Club program was incredibly valuable not only because of the lectures on how to build a startup the right way, but especially thanks to the 1:1 mentoring sessions. Having the opportunity to ask our specific questions and receive qualified insights from professionals in their fields made a real difference. Some of the most impactful sessions for us were around sales strategy, internal team structure, team building, and, of course, pitch deck creation and pitch training workshops.”
The Numbers Behind the Journey
Founders Club 14 brought together 30 participants from 13 nationalities, spanning from Canada to India, the UK to Ukraine. The cohort featured a balance of 12 CTOs and 18 business-side founders (CEOs, CMOs, and CFOs), with around 80% entering the program with a business idea, many of which were refined, pivoted, or validated through market feedback.
Throughout the journey, participants engaged in dozens of 1:1s, peer sessions, and mentor check-ins. Together, they built AI-driven B2B tools and SaaS platforms addressing real industry pain points while focusing on forming strong, complementary co-founding teams, the bedrock of any successful startup.
The program offered deep dives into customer personas and value propositions, intense sprint weeks led by Karlis Jonass, hands-on sessions covering pitching, valuation, and fundraising, and weekly mentoring from top operators like Gilles De Clerck, Eoin McGuinness, and Rita Katona.
Looking Ahead
As we close this chapter, the work is just beginning for FC14’s founders. Several teams are already preparing for pre-seed fundraising, while others continue refining their MVPs with mentor support.
Whether they raise capital in the coming months or pivot their ideas, they now have the mindset, network, and structure to keep moving forward.
As I often say:
“It’s not just about building startups. It’s about becoming the kind of founder who can keep building and selling, again and again.”
Congratulations to the amazing founders of Founders Club 14. We can’t wait to see what you build next.
🚀 Applications for Founders Club 16 are now open. If you’re ready to go from idea to co-founder to company, apply here.
