Reflecting on my time at Entrepreneur First

My time at Entrepreneur First

I was a member of the EF Core cohort from April until July 2024. With this little blog post, I want to share my experience and give some insights into the program.

How did this happen?

James Richards approached me on LinkedIn around the time Aleph Alpha raised a major round in 2023.

We had a nice initial chat where he asked some questions around my work, motivations and personal situation. James has a very passionate and intense approach, so to be completely honest, I was a bit confused in the beginning. He encouraged me to apply, which I did.

The interview process that followed was suprisingly smooth. After another chat with James, I spoke with Nick and another EF team member that I do not remember at this point. For those considering EF, the interviews at EF are manageable if you can sell yourself and have a good personal narrative. The latter, I found, is particularly crucial.

To be totally transparent, when I received the offer from EF I completely ignored it for a good month. I actually can't tell you why because it is an amazing opportunity, and I knew that. It took some nudging from James and a call with Lorenzo for me to finally accept the offer.

If you are on the fence about EF, I'd recommend asking them about the people who are already commited to your cohort. James sent me some anonymized profiles and ultimately that convinced me. I knew I just wanted to be in a room with these people and work on stuff. In the upcoming weeks, James invited me to a social in London while I was skiing in the Alps, which was really nice and actually made me excited.

Why did I do it?

To be frank, there is no good reason not to do EF. You will learn a lot about company building, meet some really cool people, and you are actually getting paid (if not much) for it. It is a pretty sweet deal and definitely something that I would not want to miss.

There are also some reasons not to do it. Personally, I did not like the pressure cooker format and I think it is a bit outdated. The constant McKinsey-style pushback could be demotivating at times. I believe a more positive, American-style "great, but let's make it even greater" approach might be more effective and less counterproductive in many scenarios.

What did I do at EF?

The program kicked off with an intense weekend event where I met most of my fellow participants. This probably also was the point at which I realized how intense this will be. Everyone in the room is incredibly smart and not boring. On my flight back from London to Frankfurt, my brain was fried (on this note, I would also like to thank Lufthansa for adding extra stress by canceling my flight and making me go from Heathrow to Gatwick with only 1.5 hours until takeoff).

This is also when the first co-founder pairs started working together and I realized that it was getting serious.

I will not go into too much detail on what I worked on with who, but I met some pretty incredible people doing so. During my time at EF, I spent most of my time doing customer development. This basically means that you try to validate your business idea by talking to people that you source via your personal network, LinkedIn or any other possible source. It is a pretty boring thing to do, but it is also a necessity. Otherwise, the risk of building something that nobody needs is way too high.

The other thing I did at EF was learn to understand co-founder relationships. This is very interesting and over the course of the different relationships I had at EF, I learned a lot about myself. For example, I need a co-founder that encourages me to have fun and is a positive pusher. I also learned that the only thing that will tell you if you are having a dependable relationship with your co-founder is full transparency and honesty towards yourself as well as your co-founder.

What was my experience like?

To be honest, I fucked it up a bit. I made two major mistakes that did not allow me to fully profit from the experience:

• I came unrested

  • I did not take a break before I joined EF. Even around kick-off weekend, I was still working a lot. My biggest mistake. EF (and company building in general) is very tiring. Not just in terms of hours worked, but also emotionally. I definitely underestimated this. It drains you, especially if you are building a company for the first time. Starting at 80% energy might be manageable for a day or two, but it takes a toll over three months.

• I came unprepared

  • You will get the most out of your experience at EF if you come prepared. By that, I mean that you know what you want in a co-founder, you roughly know what you want to work on and in a best-case scenario, you have already worked on some ideas. This will give you a massive headstart and make things way easier for you while navigating "Love Island for Big Brains".

Still, I had a great time and learned a ton. If you're seeking a co-founder or are new to founding a company, I highly recommend considering EF. Even for those with established networks or previous founding experience, EF can be a great option, though not the only one.

What are you doing right now?

Ultimately, I did not get the investment. In the beginning, I was a bit disappointed because of all the hard work that I put in and apparently no tangible outcome (yet). At the same time, this was also a great time to reflect on what matters to me right now. I came to the conclusion that I have to take care of some health matters for now (back pain is a bitch). In parallel, I am continuing to work on a project together with Thom.

Finally, I would like to thank Lara and everyone else who supported me on this journey and wish all the teams that will have demo day soon a successful launch!

P.S. If you have any questions about EF, feel free to send me a DM on LinkedIn or Twitter.