Human Side of Entrepreneurship: Lessons from 8K Startups + Open Mic Session
✨ Entrepreneurship is often framed as a story of vision, execution, and growth — but behind every founder is a human being juggling uncertainty, pressure, and emotion. This session explores the “Human Side” of Entrepreneurship, Startups, and Venture Capital — the parts we rarely talk about: boredom, burnout, identity, and the quest for clarity.
🤝 At Founder Institute, as the name suggests we work with founders and support them even in a individual “human level” even way earlier than thinking about product market fit, incorporations or any other startups terms. By working over 8,000 portfolio startups or approximately 12K founders (with 30% graduation rate, meaning 3x this number who has joined our programs) operating in more than 200 cities across 100 countries, supported by a global network of 35,000+ mentors.
👀This experience over time helped us to develop a guide line for founders to stay mentally fit while leading through chaos, developing self-awareness, reflection, and discipline as their real competitive edge. We are happy to give a glimpse of how we support our attendees on “human/founder/individual level community support” at this session.
Agenda:
Opening (10 min): Story-driven introduction — why we need to humanize entrepreneurship.
Main Talk (25 min): Thematic storytelling through the seven pillars above.
Confession Open Mic Session (20 min): Open floor — participants share one “human” moment in their journey.
Networking (7 PM to 9 PM with free beers and soft drinks)
Key Themes & Segments:
1. Common founder personal challenges and issues:
2. The Hidden Cost of Ambition: Modern times hustle culture
3. How we and our partners support at FI
4. The Power of Boredom — Space to Reflect
5. Self-Awareness — The Founder’s Superpower
6. Fighting Depression — Naming the Darkness
7. Body Health, Founder Health
8. Family, Connection & Community as Therapy
9. Self-Discipline — Freedom Through Structure
📌 Moderator & Speaker :
Erdinc Ekinci - Co-Founder & CEO at Openfor.co, Inc., Managing Director at Founder Institute Japan/Korea/Taiwan
Who Should Attend?
Founders, startup leaders, and investors
Mentors, coaches, and ecosystem builders
Corporate innovators and CVC professionals
Anyone balancing ambition with personal well-being
What You Will Learn:
A framework to recognize and manage emotional blind spots.
Practical reflection tools to restore focus and resilience.
Permission to slow down — without losing ambition.
A reminder that mental clarity is capital — the foundation for sustainable success.
About the Ecosystem Organizer
Founder Institute: Founder Institute, which originated in Silicon Valley, is a founder and idea stage accelerator, and with its Founder Capital, backs the best performing FI alumni as early as the angel stage. FI has over 8K+ startup portfolio (Including leading e-learning platform Udemy, IPO in Nasdaq $3,8B) across 200 cities in 100 countries around the world.) We are also the largest mentor network in the world, with over 35,000 mentors, and our alumni have already raised over $2 billion in US dollars and have recently exceeded the 10K mark of investors network as the FI-Venture-Network.
Openfor.co: A “Global Partnership Accelerator” originated in Silicon Valley that combined with an online platform and marketplace for learning, building, launching, monetizing, and growing partner ecosystems and a collaborative community around you for achieving effective marketing, sales, community building, GTM, fundraising, and many more.
Co-Capital: Pre-seed & Seed stage new firm that focuses on hands-on GTM, sales, and partnership support, focusing on English-speaking Asian founders who have global ambitions from day ONE. Domiciled in the USA, with regional appearances in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Utilizes partnerships with the GTM expert network and the venture partner network across 20 major hubs and a network of 35 other VC networks who are willing to co-back our founders!
Venture Cafe Tokyo: A global community where various innovators, including entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and students, gather, connect, and create innovation in society through a variety of programs.