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Program Description
At its core venture capitalism is an apprenticeship business, requiring an approach that includes hands-on mentoring and close guidance. Successful venture investors, with vision and judgment, are made not born.
Leveraging Managing Partner Trevor Loy, Flywheel advisors David Alderson and Tom Byer’s collective experiences and success in building the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), Flywheel is pleased to offer students the prospect of working as a summer apprentice with New Mexico-based Flywheel Ventures. While embracing STVP’s mission of “accelerating high-technology entrepreneurship research and education for engineers and scientists worldwide,” F²P is dedicated to serving as a sophisticated tool that builds successful leaders, teams and organizations.
Coordinated in the spring and implemented every summer, Flywheel selects a small number of elite MBA students from the world’s premier universities to participate in the Firm’s annual Flywheel Fellows Program. Sitting at the intersection of venture capital and high technology entrepreneurship, the Program has been designed to help students to develop a practitioner’s understanding of the techniques for investing in and growing successful emerging technology companies.
Working in both a Flywheel investment analysis and portfolio company operations capacity, students gain an appreciation of and experience with the partnership building, strategy and tactical execution required to build venture-backed technology start-ups. Students are immersed in and work directly with Flywheel with responsibilities in areas such as opportunity analysis, investment due diligence, market roadmapping and portfolio governance. Additionally, each student is dedicated operationally to one or more of Flywheel’s portfolio companies in areas such as strategy, finance, sales and marketing, product management, and business development. It is often the case that Fellows perform to such a degree that they become viewed as “the right hand man (or woman)” of the CEO. Each student has the full Flywheel resources and network behind them, stretching worldwide and including a unique blend of classic strategy, hands-on practicality, depth and authenticity in all areas of technology entrepreneurship and investment.
As part of an elite group, the Program has been developed with strong peer camaraderie and cooperation in mind. Each year’s class works hard and operates as an intelligent unit, helping one another on individual deliverables and working in unison towards group goals. One of the greatest long term benefits is the ability to leverage the evolving F²P Alumni Network throughout one’s career.
Flywheel advisor and Stanford Professor Audrey MacLean described it best when using the term “mentor capitalism,” meaning offering experience and tangible investment that accelerates an education and career prospects in the world of venture-backed, technology start-ups. What we demand is a high level of commitment and, as a result, a significant return on our investment.
Do you have what it takes?
