Why is it important?
A key aspect of a startup is the team and its ability to execute on a vision.
Even if most people know that, there are still many entrepreneurs who launch companies knowing that their team is not solid enough and who fail because of that.
However, to find a great team, you need to find yourself in an appropriate environment where you have the right mix of social and work experiences with enough people sharing your vision and interests.
The opportunities to be in such an environment are very rare. Even schools and universities, which are the closest thing to such an environment, are not always good enough for the creation of startup teams.
We believe that with Startup Dream Team, we will be able to create one of these perfect environments where complementary teams can get created naturally.
So what is Startup Dream Team?
Startup Dream Team is a 9-week summer program, for 45 interns and aspiring entrepreneurs taking place in San Francisco, from June 14th to August 18th, 2013.
The goal is to create a highly favorable environment for the creation of startup teams as well as a teamwork-based framework, which enables participants to discover others with similar interests and complementary skills.
How does it work?
During the summer, the 45 selected participants who have found an internship by their own means will live in the same place and enjoy:
- 66 days of living, working, having fun and building a lifetime network with 45 entrepreneurially-minded students
- 2 weekend-long startup workshops. At the beginning and at the end of the program:
- June 14th to June 16th: Discover the startup environment and other fellows of the program
- August 16th to August 18th: Show your progress and your understanding of group dynamics
- 5 talks from famous entrepreneurs and/or VC. These talks may take place:
- 8 weekly brainstorming sessions. Fellows will be able to pitch in front of their peers and mentors:
- Anyone can give feedback, enabling to take advantage of everybody else's ideas and skills
- One or several mentors will attend these sessions
The rest of the time, Startup Dream Team staff members will always be available to answer questions of the participants, make sure they are always aware of the best happenings in the Bay area, give them additional resources and answer specific requests (e.g. if there’s someone they specifically want to meet).
What are we going to do with the money?
To make this program a success, we need the best and brightest talents. And money shouldn't be an issue preventing people from applying to the program.
Therefore, the money from the campaign will enable to lower as much a possible the accommodation rent for every participants of the program and also to make sure that every qualified applicants can afford the program costs (Rent, food and other living costs).
Want to help us or apply to the program?
Applications are now open on www.startupdreamteam.com.
So, on top of contributing to our campaign, a great way to support us is to encourage people you think might be relevant for the program to apply, by sharing with them the following link www.startupdreamteam.com/apply
And of course, if you think this program is for you, apply now.
The story behind Silicon Students and Startup Dream Team:
Startup Dream Team is brought to you by Silicon Students, that I (Pierre-Simon) started as a business school student in Paris, France, because I was very frustrated of:
- not having enough exposure around my passions, tech and entrepreneurship at school
- not meeting enough like-minded students. Whether from my school or from the various engineering and design schools that Paris has
Which was a real shame when we know how important it is to be surrounded by talented and complementary like-minded people in order to come up with projects and build a startup team.
Therefore, with fellow students Florian, Alexandre, Edouard and Nicolas, we started to organize cross-school events for aspiring entrepreneurs and build a community in France.
Then, in summer 2011, I started a one-year internship in Silicon Valley, where I met like-minded students, from the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Finland, Singapore, etc and I realized three things:
- They were exactly the type of students with whom I'd always wanted to hang out more and build great projects
- As entrepreneur-minded students we all had more or less the same problems when it came to meet other like-minded students and foster entrepreneurship in our own local environment
- Silicon Valley gathers a great number of students from all around the World, making it a great place to start an international community
The consequences were:
- The community we started to build with Silicon Students needed to be international.
Since then, Silicon Students is focusing it's efforts in elaborating programs, events and growing the online and offline community at a global scale with the goal to lead to more venture creation by young people driven by team dynamics, ambition and the willingness to have an international reach.
- There needed to be a program increasing dramatically the amount of interactions between these students who come from all around the world to do an internship in Silicon Valley.
The following summer, Startup Dream Team was born.
Our actions are driven by the will to give students what we would have loved to experience.
Spread the World
Now that you know everything, you can contribute to the campaign, like it and tweet about it.
Any of the actions above would tremendously help us to make this program a success.