FounderSoup — a collaboration between Stanford, the venture capital (VC) firm Andreesen-Horowitz and FounderSoup president Michael Dorsey MBA ’10, M.S. ‘11 — is a new organization aiming to bring talented innovators and entrepreneurs together to change the now standard startup cycle into a more collaborative process.

 

FounderSoup seeks to reverse the typical VC funding cycle, “turning this process on its head,” according to the group’s website. FounderSoup seeks to bring together the technical talent necessary for putting ideas into practice instead of following the traditional founding route of a company.

 

The idea for a simplified founder search started when Dorsey began to receive inquiries from entrepreneurs looking for technical talent to round out their teams. This simple idea grew into FounderSoup, which had its first event of the year last Thursday at the Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school).

 

More than 170 Stanford students were in attendance, eager to hear pitches and network after the event. Fifty founders submitted their ideas for review, and 20 were given the opportunity to make a 90-second pitch to the group.

 

Aside from giving founders the stage to present their ideas, FounderSoup also provided “pitch practice sessions” to help perfect founders’ presentations through constructive feedback.

 

–Roberto Vargas