Founder Braintrust Series
Backstory
Pixar's founder, Ed Catmull, ran a room called the Braintrust: a space where a director would share an unfinished film and get candid feedback. The assumption was that all their films suck at first and it was their job to fix them together. The key feature was that the director retained complete agency over what feedback they decide to absorb or discard. That freedom overcame their defensiveness and inspired maximal truth-seeking.
What is the Founder Braintrust?
The same Braintrust culture, but for scientists and engineers currently sat at their lab bench or laptop thinking they might've landed on the next big thing. Something that could solve disease, food scarcity, energy abundance, and other grand challenges. We believe solutions are inevitable, and that we'll invent them sooner if we enabled ambitious people to build faster.
The Founder Braintrust is a series running at at a new college every three weeks of the academic year. We're too impatient to wait until October, so we're kicking off our inaugural event at Trinity on the 21st of July.
Guests who set ambitious goals and move quickly on them post-event will be given fast-track access to the next event of the series.
Who should apply?
Cambridge students, researchers, and recent graduates.
Both early-stage founders testing their assumptions, and scientists/engineer who have new ideas, but might not yet call themselves founders.
Those who believe they are capable of more and want to move faster on testing their ideas.
Those who are wanting to give more than they take. That means being generous with support and candid feedback.
What should you expect?
Meet people others across concept, prototype, and early customer discovery stages
Join the open mic stand-up covering:
Problem area you care about
How you found the problem and your unique insight
What you are doing to test your assumptions
Open mics are followed by questions and informal feedback
Receive written feedback from every attendee the following day
Set yourself goals that cover the next 3-weeks of work
Food and drink generously provided by Trinity College
Delivered by: Founders at the University of Cambridge
Hosted by: Trinity College, Cambridge
Please note: capacity is extremely limited. We will review applications on a rolling basis until the Friday 17th of July application deadline. Entry is by acceptance only, and only those approved via Luma will be admitted on the day.