Startup Institute - CLOSED

Startup Institute is a great experience for professionals to build/refine the skills, mindset and networks necessary to get a job in an early-stage or high-growth company and succeed in a new career. The amazing team has developed an amazing culture of... Read More collaboration, patience, and trust. You will develop your technical skills, and meet industry leaders alongside a group of highly talented people like yourself. Expect to leave the program as a better version of yourself in 8 weeks.

I was making a transition from chemical engineering to marketing. I knew nothing about marketing....except that it involved testing or experimentation. And so I had faith that I would find the same joy in marketing as I'd found in engineering. The Startup... Read More Institute helped me understand how to build a connection between the two. It taught me about specific tools but more so helped me to frame marketing problems like I had framed problems as an engineer. This impressed employers and landed me three job offers before the program was finished. It also pushed me to dig deep and realize what I am most passionate about. Startup Institute is not about skill building. Skills are continuously built all throughout life. It's about planning a career that's themed around your passion. That career can be at one company or many. Regardless, Startup Institute gives you a foundation to go for exactly what you want and know that you'll end up there sooner than later.

Pros:
- there is huge diversity in your classmates (finance bros who quit their $$$$ jobs, stay at home moms rejoining the workforce, recent college grads, etc), but you become a family by the end of the program
- the staff are amazing....great people... Read More to know, in general, and great people to help guide you through your career move
- you get to meet, hang out with, and learn from a huge diversity of people in the startup community (and can help you understand what the positions you're applying for actually entail)

Cons:
One of two of the labs in the technical marketing track felt a bit unstructured, but the staff solicits feedback and makes small adjustments to improve the program on a weekly basis

Overall: I had many doubts coming into the program (e.g. is it worth the money, will this actually help me get a job, could I learn this stuff on my own, etc.), but I am so glad that I took the leap and joined the program. The program is so crazy, I haven't learned as much as I wanted to in the space of 8 weeks, but I feel that I have built a solid foundation and collected resources to continue learning and filling in my knowledge gaps. The learning goes way beyond acquiring new skills though... this component is HUGE - you learn a lot about yourself, the way you work with others, what the startup community and job search looks like from the inside, networking, learning how to be a better learner and teammate, etc.

I'm only days away from completing the Startup Institute in New York, and I have to say I've been blown away by the entire experience. I entered because it seemed like a better decision than jumping into a job I didn't care about after graduating college,... Read More and have been pleasantly surprised every step of the way. From the incredibly passionate and caring staff to the phenomenal mentors they brought in to teach me all about web development, from the partner company I build a real world production ready product with to the behind the scenes tours of facebook and spotify, I would sincerely recommend SI to anyone trying to get a job they care deeply about. The best thing about my time here though has to be the people. I've grown so ridiculously close with everyone in my cohort, more than I would have ever guessed, and I'm excited to stay connected with all these amazing individuals for years to come. The program is just designed to bring you close and help you develop the people skills you didn't even know you were missing.

I, like many others at the StartUp Institute, left the corporate world for an opportunity to join a startup. From the first hand experience working in at a startup to learning from industry leaders, everyday at the StartUp Institute was a new and exciting... Read More experience. I experienced some ups and downs over the 8 weeks, but like a true startup, it is not about how you start but how you finish.

I came to SI in hopes of propelling a major career switch. I'd been underemployed and under-stimulated for over a year since leaving my former profession, and though I was proactively looking and applying for opportunities, I'd experienced little luck.... Read More

More than anything, SI gets you in the door. SI introduced me to the movers and shakers in my city, and to a tight community of alumni who were willing and eager to share advice, make intros, and promote my candidacy. My LinkedIn connections grew by about 200 people throughout the 8 weeks, and all of these were people who I had personally connected and conversed with- through networking events, fireside chats, practitioner-led instruction, and coffee-meetings, all supported by sessions that improved professionalism and refined networking skills. The remarkable thing is that quitting my job to join SI seemed like a huge risk at the time, but now- having completed the program- I feel incredibly secure. I know that any of my classmates from my 40-person cohort and SI staff can vouch for me, and would go to bat for me whenever I need it. Beyond that, my network extends to SI alumni and partner companies who believe in the quality of the program and its graduates. If I ever decide to move to Berlin, the first thing I will do tap into my SI network there. SI has a one-for-all-and-all-for-one collective mentality.

In addition to building my network, SI helped me to think purposefully and reflectively on where I've been, my goals for the future, and the steps in accomplishing those. As another reviewer wrote, the soft skills work was a highlight of the program. The mentorship and guidance was incredibly personalized. I do agree with the assertion that hard skills are not the primary focus. If you are really looking for technical skills, this isn't the program for you. I developed enough of a toolset and vocabulary to now move forward with self-directed learning.

To me, Startup Institute was less about learning hard skills than about working on soft skills that are key to thriving in Startups. SI's emphasis on EQ (emotional intelligence) wasn't something I was looking for when I started, but it has had the most... Read More impact on my daily life as a product designer at a rapidly growing startup. And I know the entire SI experience played a big part in the job I landed, a role that has exceeded my expectations.

Advice: You have to come in open-minded and ready to work your butt off. I came in with my mind set on learning a certain thing, but I ended up adjusting my path based on guidance from the staff and my peers. Similarly, I started SI thinking, "It can't be tougher than grad school was." Yes, it was. Eight weeks flies by and you won't believe how much you've done in that short time. But, luckily that intensity prepared me for the even more intense experience of working at a dynamic tech startup.

I have to disagree with the existing review. I, as a beginning developer (minimal formal education and minimal self teaching around CS) was able to absorb an incredible amount of information. Admittedly, it wasn't so much around actual software development... Read More practices, I mostly gained a lot of knowledge as to how to learn the things I needed to know, how to think through problems that engineers face like an engineer thinks through them.

I landed a sweet-ass job with an incredible company making mobile apps (something that is not taught at Startup Institute) as soon as the program was finished.

Moreover, the leadership at SI is incredible and MORE than willing to help get people into jobs they love. As a student, your success is their success, as an alum my continuing education and continued success and happiness at my job add to the successes of SI. The students' goals and Startup Institute goals are one in the same: teach people how to operate as a startup employee (in any of the four tracks), help those people land sick jobs that they are stoked about, celebrate success, repeat.

As a career-switcher in my mid-late 20's, I have only amazing things to say about this program and owe a great deal to the cofounders, staff and all of the startup employees who volunteer their time to come in and teach.

Holler.

P.S. Lots of devs are introverts, employers know this. If you're introverted, rock on, employers want employees that get their shit done, not employees who only jive with the rest of the team.

Startup is a great place to grow your network with amazing people that can help you through life. It is affordable ( only $3200) when I went.

However, if you are introverted and not a good networker you will find it difficult to get hired since you are... Read More on your own (with very little help from Startup Institute) when it comes to finding a job. They do a good job of opening the door, but it 's essentially up to you.

I graduated from the dev track and the curriculum was ok, but would have been better if they actually had a Rails person there.

I would recommend it to people who already have the kind of resume to get hired as a software engineer. This will open up a lot of opportunities if you are interested in Startups. However, if you have no professional programming experience I would not recommend it if your goal is to get hired immediately after the program ends since companies typically look for experience.

That being said, I would definitely recommend it if you are in Sales and Biz Dev because a lot of the people in those tracks were hired by the time the program ended.

Pros: Inexpensive, Huge expansion of your current network, lots of exposure to StartUps, and once in you are always part of the community and welcome.

Cons: The only con is it's really hard to get hired if you are an introvert and put yourself out there and if you are a dev without Comp Science degree and no prior experience.