Solution Dojo

This phase will involve roughly 12 teams which have identified and demonstrated the greatest value potential. Another 5 day intensive will be held in Owerri with another cycle of remote mentorship. The output from this stage with be a Minimum Viable Product validated with customers.

16 week programme
12 founders
Week 1 – In person

Chris Burry, USMAC CEO
Ken Singer or David Law from UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology
Steve Adelman, USMAC Lead Mentor

Weeks 2-12 primarily are delivered remotely
- Remote instruction from USMAC Instructors
- Remote mentoring / coaching from USMAC mentors
- With significant on-site support from Matt Ifesieh

Programme Information

Founder Dojo Imo is a 4-phase program designed to scout, train, and launch Nigeria’s next generation of globally competitive startups.”

As a founder you will learn how to discover opportunities, validate them, and bring solutions to market.

Key Program Features

No tuition fees

Learn from founders who have exited $1B+ businesses

1-on-1 mentorship and live training

Register your interest now

How We Teach

3-day Founder Mindset Bootcamp

Founder Dojo bootcamp offers intensive 3-day bootcamp for aspiring founders to learn if a high-scale startup is for you and to be part of an amazing cohort of emerging founders in Nigeria. Up to 100 aspiring startup founders will gather for the intensive at the Imo Digital City Limited campus. Participants will get concentrated information about what makes a startup potentially world-class and go through live exercises giving a flavor for the challenges and excitement of the high-growth entrepreneur’s life.

3 days of intense founder development, ideation, and team discovery
100 founders > 40 founders advance to the next stage
Held at Imo Digital City Campus

Opportunity Dojo

The purpose of the Opportunity Dojo is that many new founders come up with “clever ideas” and end up working on ideas without the greatest value and potential.

The dojo will go deep into what makes an opportunity something with world-class potential, the tools for evaluating opportunities and validating them with the target customer segment. It is a core set of knowledge and skill that founders can use throughout their lives.

The Opportunity Dojo includes a 5-day residential intensive in Owerri, followed by extensive remote training and coaching to ensure through adoption of lessons learned. At the end of this phase successful participants will have identified several high-value opportunities and validated them to determine which offers the greatest potential for the founder and emerging team.

7 week programme
40 founders
Week 1: 5-day residential + remote coaching to find truly valuable problems
- Chris Burry, USMAC CEO
- Ken Singer or David Law from UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology
- Steve Adelman, USMAC Lead Mentor
Weeks 2-6 primarily are delivered remotely
- Remote instruction from USMAC Instructors
- Remote mentoring / coaching from USMAC mentors
- with significant on-site support from Matt Ifesieh

Sales Dojo

At this stage founders will already be “on to something”. Strong signal from the market and suitability of the solution to the market will have been demonstrated. The focus on opportunity gives way to a new focus on the business model and go to market.

Business model refinement, go-to-market prep

Scaling Dojo

With the growing momentum, customers clamoring for the product and things taking off, the top 6 founders will go to Silicon Valley to “drink from the firehose”. The growing momentum will be built up on by founders feeling and learning the intensity, speed, and growth mindset in Silicon Valley. Founders get intensive coaching and introductions to help them increasingly build momentum and attract resources to fuel their growth.

Top 6 founders go to Silicon Valley