A founder school for the AI era
Build companies
that print cash,
not pitch decks.
F-School is a tiny, invite-only program for founders building AI companies. No demo days. No bullshit. Just the playbook to go from zero to revenue, funded by customers.
Why Now
The old path is broken.
A decade ago, the playbook was simple: get a degree, get a job, climb the ladder. That playbook is dead. AI is reshaping every knowledge profession, and the people who will thrive are the ones who learn to build with it, not compete against it. The safest career move in 2026 is building a company that puts AI to work for paying customers.
This is not an accelerator.
"We'll intro you to 200 investors"
We'll teach you to never need investors.
"Demo Day is the goal"
First paying customer is the goal.
"Raise a $3M seed round"
Hit $10k MRR with zero dilution beyond us.
"Move to San Francisco"
Build from wherever you are. The internet is the office.
"Batch of 200 companies"
2-3 founders. That's the whole cohort.
The Deal
Operating Grant
Unrestricted. Spend it on whatever your company needs: AI tools, infrastructure, incorporation, hosting, design. No strings beyond the equity. You know what you need better than we do.
Equity
A clean advisory equity agreement. No convertible notes. No SAFEs. No complicated cap tables. You keep 95% of your company from day one.
The Network
Access to the F-School network. A growing community of founders who build the same way you do: with customers, not committees.
What you'll actually learn.
Every module is taught by an F-School Founder. Not a professor. Not an "entrepreneur in residence." Someone who's built and exited a real company.
Find a Problem Worth Solving
Stop building solutions looking for problems. Learn to identify painful, expensive problems that real people will pay to solve today, not after your Series A.
Clarify Your Mission, Vision, Strategy, and Values
The values create the value. Whether you're pre-product or post-revenue, getting clear on what your company stands for changes every decision you make after. This module gives you the framework.
Incorporate the Right Way
Stripe Atlas, QSBS election, trust stacking, operating agreements. The boring legal stuff that saves you millions later. Most founders get this done in about a week.
Build with AI, Ship Fast
You already know the tools. Now use them to go from idea to deployed product in weeks, not months. It doesn't matter which AI tools you use. What matters is velocity.
Price It Right, Sell Before You're Ready
Revenue cures everything. Get your pricing right, then close your first 10 customers before the product is "done." Cold outreach, positioning, monetization. The uncomfortable stuff.
Scale Without Permission
Content engines, referral loops, partnerships. Grow with customer cash, not venture capital. Build a business that funds its own growth.
Hire Right and Build Your Team
Your first hires will make or break you. Learn when to hire, who to hire, and how to build a team that compounds your ability to execute.
The Founder's Operating System
Time management, mental health, decision-making frameworks. The stuff nobody talks about when you're building alone at 2am.
How it actually works.
8 weeks. Small group. Structured curriculum. No fluff.
Group + 1:1 + Async
Weekly group sessions where the cohort works through the curriculum together. Weekly 1:1s with your F-School Founder for your specific business. Async feedback and support between sessions. You get all three.
8 Weeks
One module roughly every week, plus buffer for going deep where you need it. Short enough to maintain intensity. Long enough to get from zero to something real.
Remote-First
No relocating. No coworking space. Build from wherever you are. The cohort meets over video. If geography allows, we'll meet in person too.
What if I don't have an idea yet?
That's fine. Module 01 is specifically about finding a problem worth solving. Having an idea is preferred but not required. What matters is that you're ready to commit to building something real.
What if some founders are further along than others?
The group sessions cover the curriculum. The 1:1s meet you where you are. A founder with paying customers will get different coaching than one still searching for a problem. The cohort learns from each other's differences.
What happens after the 8 weeks?
You keep building. You stay in the network. Access to every F-School founder, past and future. The 8 weeks are the foundation. The network compounds from there.
Who teaches?
F-School Founders: post-exit founders who've built and sold real companies. For specific modules, we bring in advisors and operators with deep expertise in their field. Everyone who teaches at F-School has done the thing they're teaching, not just studied it.
Do I need to be a developer?
No. AI has changed what's possible for non-technical founders. Module 04 is specifically designed to help you build and ship with AI tools, regardless of your coding background. What matters is problem-solving ability, not programming ability.
What if my company needs venture capital?
Then we'll help you chart that path. F-School teaches bootstrapping as the default because most founders won't need VC. But if your company genuinely requires venture capital to reach its potential, we'll help you approach it from a position of strength, with revenue, leverage, and options.
This is for you if:
You have something to prove.
You didn't grow up with warm intros to Sequoia. You've always had to work harder, and that's exactly why you'll win.
You're already building with AI.
You're not AI-curious. You're AI-native. You've shipped things with Claude, GPT, or open-source models. You just need the business playbook.
You're high agency.
You don't wait for permission, mentors, or funding. You figure things out. You just want someone who's done it to compress the learning curve.
You want to own what you build.
You've seen what happens when founders hand over the keys to VCs. Not you. You want a business that pays you, not a board.
F-School Founder
Military brat. Problem child. Founder.
"If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent."
- Yvon Chouinard, founder of PatagoniaGrew up in a military family. New school every 3-4 years. No connections. Couldn't sit still in class, spent most weekends in detention, and narrowly avoided juvenile hall more than once. Started businesses at 10: landscaping, then anything that paid: paper routes, pizza delivery, bagel making, tuxedo salesman, American Eagle stocker, concessions cashier at Wolftrap, waiter, busboy, door-to-door siding sales, windows telesales (cold calling), lifeguarding, and a brief stint selling .
Played lacrosse in high school. Recruited to play at Maryland, until a shoulder injury senior year ended everything. Scrambled to find a new path. Landed at the University of Kentucky, then transferred to Virginia Tech, where I fell into computer science and web design in the late '90s. Graduated in 2001 with a degree in Management Science, right into the dot-com bust and 9/11. Zero tech jobs. Took a job at a printing company that was literally printing emails for lawyers to read.
At that printing company, I reconnected with fellow VT alum Sheng Yang. We left to start Logik Systems, an eDiscovery data processing company. No investors. No funding. Just customers. We built it to millions in profit, 100% bootstrapped.
That same year, we saw the cloud coming. We reconfigured hundreds of hand-built servers and built Logikcull.com, the first self-service eDiscovery application. Moved the company from DC to California. Eventually raised ~$40M from Storm Ventures (Jason Lemkin [now at SaaStr], Alex Mendez), OpenView Ventures (Blake Bartlett), and NEA (Chetan Puttagunta [now Partner at Benchmark], Colin Bryant [now COO at Coatue]). I learned the SV GTM playbook for scaling from $1M to $100M. In 2019 we rebuilt the entire go-to-market around a flywheel model. Two years of painful rewiring that changed everything.
In 2023, we sold Logikcull for $280 million, all cash. Today it does over $100M in ARR and is the #1 self-service eDiscovery platform in the world, serving thousands of customers from solo practitioners to Fortune 10 companies and the US government.
After the exit, I started advising early-stage founders, the ones who remind me of myself. The ones building with AI, bootstrapping with customer cash, and figuring it out without a playbook. That's why I built F-School. I also recently cofounded Geocast.ai. Annotating the world with story is an incredible mission, and the technology is bleeding edge.
The Network
F-School Founders.
F-School isn't one person. It's a growing network of post-exit founders who run cohorts under the F-School brand. We call them F-School Founders. They've built and sold real companies. They teach because they're not done yet.
Post-exit
Built and exited a company. They've been through the entire journey you're about to start.
Skin in the game
Every F-School Founder takes equity alongside you. When you win, they win. Incentives are aligned from day one.
Not done yet
They're not retired. They're investing, advising, or exploring their next build. They teach because they still love the work.
Are you a post-exit founder who wants to teach the next generation? Apply through the same door. We'll know.
Do NOT apply if:
- You can't handle honest feedback.
- You think you already know everything.
- You're looking for a shortcut to getting rich.
- You'd exploit customers or employees to hit a number.
- You're not willing to go all in.
Still here? Good. 2 to 3 spots. Fall 2026.
Applications close August 1