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Pilot Cohort
One cohort, 8 to 12 weeks, ending in a written report against measures you set.
Good whenYou want to test the method on real founders before a wider commitment.
For programmes and partners
Every founder in your cohort, working to the same senior method.
For incubators, accelerators and founder programmes. Our founder, Dineshwara Manideepu, leads the sessions. Between them, Founder OS takes each founder through the same structured method. Your team gets a cohort report it can use with its own funders and board.
01Who it is for
Built for the people who run founder programmes.
This is for you if
- You run an incubator, accelerator, university incubation centre, innovation hub, or a corporate or CSR founder programme.
- Your founders arrive at very different levels of readiness, and your mentors cannot cover every gap.
- You report progress to funders or a board, and gathering it takes your team's time.
- You want to test a new programme element on one cohort before committing to it.
Probably not yet if
- You are a founder looking for advice for your own company. Advisory for founders →
- You are looking for investors or deal flow. We do not offer either through programmes.
02Ways to work together
Begin small, then build in what works.
We suggest starting with a Pilot Cohort. The other three can follow, or stand alone.
Programme sessions
Workshops, office hours and demo-day preparation, delivered by Dineshwara within your existing programme.
Good whenYou have the structure and need senior strategy sessions inside it.
Programme design
A review of your curriculum, selection and reporting, with a redesign proposal for the next intake.
Good whenYour programme has grown, and its design has not kept up.
Deck readiness screening
Each deck in a batch reviewed against your own selection criteria, with a short report per founder and a cohort summary.
Good whenYou need consistent, documented screening before selection or demo day.
03The Pilot Cohort
One cohort, one clear test.
A fixed scope, a fixed term, and a written report at the end. If it works, it becomes part of your programme. If not, you keep the report and the founders keep their work.
How a 12-week pilot runs
Week 1: setting the measures
Dineshwara and your team agree what the pilot will report on, based on what you already report to your own funders.
Weeks 2–11: sessions and practice
Group sessions every two weeks, with founders working through the method in Founder OS in between.
Week 12: report and readout
Your team receives the cohort report, and Dineshwara takes you through it.
- Cohort size
- 8 to 15 founding teams
- Length
- 8 to 12 weeks, including a setup week, matched to your programme calendar
- Delivery
- Online by default; in-person sessions by arrangement
- Your team's time
- One programme lead, about an hour a week
- Founders' time
- One session every two weeks, plus work between sessions
- What founders keep
- Their own outputs from Founder OS: evidence logs, models and plans
04The cohort report
What your team receives at the end.
This is the page your team takes into its funder or board review.
Illustrative example. Not a real programme. The cohort and figures are invented to show the format.
Cohort summary · 12 founding teams · 10 weeks
- Group sessions delivered
- 5 of 5
- Mentoring hours delivered
- 21
- Founders active in Founder OS every two weeks
- 10 of 12
- Founders with a written 90-day plan
- 11 of 12
Readiness, week 1 → week 10Founders whose evidence is strong in each area
| Area | Week 1 | Week 10 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go-to-market | 2 | 7 | |
| Pricing | 1 | 6 | |
| Fundraising preparation | 3 | 8 | |
| Governance | 2 | 5 |
For the next cohort: move the pricing session earlier, because pricing gaps blocked go-to-market work in four teams.
"Fundraising preparation" means the documents and plan are in order. It is not a judgement on whether a company will raise, and the report never makes one.
05How buying works
Simple to propose internally.
Everything your team needs to get a pilot approved, in writing.
- 01
A first call
45 minutes with Dineshwara about your programme, cohort and calendar.
- 02
A written proposal
Scope, weeks, the measures the report will cover, and a fixed fee.
- 03
One contract
Scope, data-processing terms and the conflict commitment, in one agreement.
- 04
Invoices
Issued by DM & Associates (OPC) Private Limited, an Indian company, with full tax details.
- 05
The end of the pilot
The report is delivered and the pilot ends. Continuing needs a new agreement, and the pilot fee is credited toward it.
No lock-in, and no automatic renewal. How you budget for the pilot is your decision, under your own funder's rules.
06Founder data and conflicts
Your founders' data, and our conflicts, handled in writing.
Founder data
- We process founder data only on your written instructions, and only for your programme.
- We sign a data processing agreement on request, to GDPR and UK GDPR standards. For India, we are built to the DPDP standard ahead of its rules taking effect.
- Founder OS stores founders' work in the EU. Its AI runs on Anthropic's commercial API, which does not use customer data to train its models; that processing takes place outside the EU and is listed in our data processing agreement.
- Each founder sees their own work. Your team sees the cohort report, and a founder's individual page only with that founder's consent at enrolment.
- At the end of the contract, data is returned or deleted. Founders keep their own outputs.
- If anything goes wrong with the data, we tell you promptly.
Conflicts of interest
- Dineshwara is an active angel investor in a personal capacity. We say so plainly.
- Dineshwara does not invest in a founder from your cohort without your written agreement, and never uses information from your programme to decide.
- Screening scores decks against your criteria, and your committee makes every decision. We never tell you whether a company is fundable.
- These commitments are written into every partner contract.
07Questions
What programme teams ask before a pilot.
Do founders pay anything?
No. The programme contracts with us, and founders take part as members of your cohort.
Can our own mentors take part?
Yes. Your mentors can join sessions, and the cohort report shows where their time is best used next.
What if our cohort is smaller than eight teams?
We can run it with fewer. With very small groups we may suggest programme sessions instead, because cohort-level comparisons say less.
Can the pilot fit around our existing calendar?
Yes. Sessions are scheduled around your workshops and mentor calls, and the length is set to your intake.
Can you work with a programme outside India?
Yes. We work with programmes in Europe, the UK, India and the Middle East. Sessions run in English, scheduled in your time zone.
Propose a pilot for your next intake.
Tell us about the cohort, or talk it through with Dineshwara first.