About us
Startup Founder 101 brings together aspiring and experienced tech entrepreneurs to discuss, meet, and collaborate to build great new startups, and to push the local startup ecosystem forward.\
\
This group hosts numerous free events throughout the year where you can learn the best practices of starting a company from people who have been there and done that. You’ll have the opportunity to meet local founders and investors, exchange ideas with experts, get feedback on your idea, participate in startup workshops, and more.\
\
Typical startup event topics include:\
• Coming up with a strong startup idea\
• Startup legal basics\
• How to pitch your startup\
• Starting a company without quitting your day job\
• How to raise funding for your startup\
• And much more!\
\
Join the group to be invited to our next event!
Upcoming events
7
How to Choose the Right Startup Idea Before You Build
·OnlineOnlineThe hardest part of building a startup isn't execution. It's choosing the right problem to solve. Too many founders build ideas based on excitement, trends, or assumptions, only to discover there's no real demand. In this interactive workshop, Jonathan Greechan (Co-Founder and CEO at Founder Institute) shares the frameworks used to help over 10,000 founders stress-test, refine, and validate their startup ideas early. You'll learn how to think like an investor, pressure-test your concept, and identify opportunities others overlook. If you're serious about building in 2026, start here.
❯ What You'll Learn:
- How to identify real, painful problems worth solving
- How to pressure-test your startup idea before building
- A simple scoring framework to evaluate idea strength
- How to align your idea with your skills and unfair advantages
- How to gather meaningful early feedback
❯❯ RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/23360 to get your link and join us live!
❯ Featured Speaker:
- Jonathan Greechan - Co-Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute - Jonathan Greechan is the Co-Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator. Since 2009, he has grown and scaled the organization to chapters in over 200 cities and over 100 countries, producing over 8,900 portfolio companies with nearly $2BN in venture funding. In his long career in tech and marketing, Jonathan has advised thousands of startups on marketing, growth, and product strategy and has spoken at startup conferences on four continents.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- First-time founders exploring ideas
- Builders pivoting from a weak or unclear concept
- Entrepreneurs preparing to apply to accelerators
- Anyone looking to start something meaningful in 2026
❯❯ Don’t miss this live, interactive online event packed with valuable insights! RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/23360 to get your link and join us live!
16 attendees
How to Tell Stories That Win Clients and Investors with Lubna Forzley
·OnlineOnlineYou have a strong idea. But every time you explain it, people nod and move on. The problem is almost never the idea. It is the way the story is being told. Pitching persuades. Storytelling connects. Knowing which one to use, and when, is the skill that separates founders who close deals from those who keep refining their deck with no results. In this live session, Lubna Forzley, 2x TEDx Speaker and Founder of Stories, shares the exact framework she has used with executives at Coca-Cola, Google, and Microsoft. Register now and leave with a structure you can apply the same day.
❯ What You'll Learn:
- When to pitch and when to tell a story instead
- The story structure that builds trust without losing credibility
- How to use AI to build your narrative without sounding generic
- The storytelling mistakes that cost founders deals with investors
- How to craft a positioning statement that works across every channel
❯❯ RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/24741 to get your link and join us live!
❯ Featured Speaker:
- Lubna Forzley - Founder and CEO @ Stories: Lubna is a 2x TEDx Speaker, and an ICF-accredited coach who has spent 20+ years advising executives at Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and the United Nations. She has shared stages with Steve Wozniak, hosted global roundtables with world leaders, and built an AI-powered brand tool that gives founders in 15 minutes what agencies used to charge $100,000 for. She helps founders and leaders cut through the noise, own their story, and win clients and investors before they ever open a pitch deck.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- Experienced Professionals ready to start a company
- Solo founders who have an idea but struggle to explain it clearly
- AI-curious professionals who want to build their brand using AI
- Anyone preparing to pitch to investors or first customers
.
❯❯ Don’t miss this live, interactive online event packed with valuable insights! RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/24741 to get your link and join us live!11 attendees
Building Without Cash: Does Sweat Equity Still Motivate?
·OnlineOnlineAs a startup grows, so does the importance of aligning incentives across your team. Equity compensation, when structured thoughtfully, can be a powerful tool to attract key talent, motivate performance, and foster long-term commitment. In this session, we'll demystify equity incentives, explore how to design fair and scalable compensation plans, and help founders understand how to use equity as both a reward and a growth lever. Whether you're hiring your first employee or building out your leadership team, this session is essential for building a strong, aligned company culture. Meet Lagos's top experts.
❯ Guest Speakers include:
- Abolore Salami (Founder, Riby Finance)
- Ben Seun Oyajumo (Financial Innovation Lead, Export Development Canada)
- Onyinye Okonji (Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), Sycamore.NG)
❯ What You'll Learn:
-
Understand the basics of equity compensation, including stock options, vesting schedules, and dilution.
-
Learn how to align team incentives with company growth and performance milestones.
-
Explore frameworks for structuring compensation packages at different startup stages.
-
Gain insights from real-world examples of how African startups have used equity to scale sustainably.
.
❯❯ This is a live, interactive online event, so be sure to RSVP at https://fi.co/e/396793/meetup to receive the Zoom URL to join us live!19 attendees
How to Start a Unicorn as a Solo Founder, with Adeo Ressi
·OnlineOnlineThe first solo founder unicorns are being built right now, not necessarily by 22 year olds in a garage, but by experienced professionals using deep industry knowledge and the right AI toolkit.That founder could be you. You may already have the expertise and the idea. What's missing is a clear path to get started. In this free online event, Adeo Ressi, founder of 11 startups, 14 VC funds, and nearly $2B in exits, will break down how to identify the startup opportunity inside your experience, use AI tools to replace parts of a founding team, and map the first 90 days of building. You'll leave the session knowing exactly what to do on day one.
❯ What You'll Learn:
- How to identify the startup opportunity hidden inside your professional experience
- Which AI tools and AI agents are replacing co-founder functions at the earliest stage of company building
- Specific AI tools and workflows for market research, competitive analysis, and early prototyping
❯❯ RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/25335 to get your link and join us live!
❯ Featured Speaker:
- Adeo Ressi - CEO at Decile Group and and Chairman at the Founder Institute - Adeo has personally launched 14 venture capital funds and founded 11 startups, having nearly $2 billion in exits before the age of 30. He is currently CEO of Decile Group, powering the next generation of venture capital firms worldwide and parent of the VC Lab venture capital accelerator; and Chairman at the Founder Institute, a pre-seed accelerator with chapters in over 250 cities worldwide and over 8,900 portfolio companies.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- Professionals with 5 to 15+ years of experience in an industry who have been thinking about starting something but haven't made the move yet
- Solo founders who have an idea and the drive, but need a structured process to move forward without a team
- Professionals whose role is changing because of AI and who want to turn that disruption into their own company
- Ambitious professionals who are ready to bet on themselves and work harder than they ever have
❯❯ Don’t miss this live, interactive online event packed with valuable insights! RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/25335 to get your link and join us live!
2 attendees
Past events
416
