Retreat: Achieving Conviction in Product and Business Direction
If you’re thinking about a pivot or new product direction, talk to us first. If you're stuck in a pivot, talk to us now.
We’re curating a small, carefully selected group of founders to join us for a two-day, intensive retreat focused on one thing: helping you build products that customers will definitely buy.
DDG’s approach was developed over a decade through Georgia Tech’s Flashpoint Accelerator. Flashpoint has helped over 90 companies of all sizes, from idea-only startups to Fortune 500 companies, find the right opportunities and develop products that customers will definitely buy, generating over $2 billion in company value.
Richard Rashid, founder of Microsoft Research, says our approach “provides unique insight into the process of innovation.. and a new way to think about successful products and services as well as strategies for disrupting the status quo.”
Elizabeth Cutler, cofounder of SoulCycle, says ”This will help you unlock your blockers and inspire you to look meaningfully at how changing behavior creates results.”
Join Us for a two-day retreat on achieving conviction in product and business direction.
This retreat is a unique opportunity to spend two days working with Merrick Furst, a 3x founder with two successful exits, to transform how you think about your customers, and develop and position your products.
Over these two days, you’ll go far beyond theory. You’ll work directly with Merrick to:
Develop a deeper, unbiased understanding of your customers
Identify authentic demand in large, addressable markets
Gain conviction in your product and business direction
Break through the uncertainty behind pivots or stalled growth
This retreat is especially valuable if you’re:
Considering a pivot or new product direction
Currently stuck in a pivot
Unsure whether real customer demand exists for what you’re building
This retreat uses participant-supported pricing. The minimum contribution is $250, and the suggested contribution is $1,000. Founders contribute at the level that makes sense for their stage and circumstances. We want to keep the retreat accessible to exceptional founders at different stages, while maintaining a highly curated, high-touch environment. Founders who contribute at higher levels will receive priority for future DDG programs, retreats, and small-group sessions with Merrick and the team.
If you already have more demand than you can handle, you can safely skip this. But if not, this may be one of the highest-leverage investments you can make in your company.
What’s included:
Program focused on Deliberate Innovation™, a structured methodology that helps founders identify and meet unmet authentic demands in large addressable markets.
A focused module on Sales Theory—how to actually achieve a transaction
Two days at the Ralston White Retreat in Mill Valley, surrounded by natural beauty
A private wine reception and dinner with fellow founders and investors
All meals included
Speakers:
Dr. Merrick Furst is a 3x founder and the Director of the Center for Deliberate Innovation at Georgia Tech. He founded Flashpoint@GT, a first-of-its-kind startup engineering studio that developed formative leaders and exceptional technology startups. He also started the InVenture Prize which helps top teams transition from idea to prototype and launch their startups. Merrick was the president of the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley, and before that was a professor and dean at Carnegie Mellon.
Dr. Daniel Sabbah was the CTO and General Manager, Next Generation Platform, at IBM Corp. He was responsible for creating IBM's Cloud platform and aligning IBM's direction for Cloud and Mobility. He holds an MA and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Rochester and and MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His doctoral thesis was in Computer Vision using a precursor of today’s NNs called Connectionism.