Part four · Run of show
Friday 6pm to Sunday 6pm.
Leave with one chosen idea, a clear team decision, and a fast track ready for students who want to begin building tonight.
- 6:00-6:30Doors, laptop setup, mingling, dinner
- 6:30-7:00Opening session
- 7:00-8:30Idea Generation Module
- 7:30-8:30MacKenzie Price fireside · parent track
- 8:30-9:00Elevator pitches
- 9:00Hard wrap + Replit homework
By end of day: a live URL, a designed offer, a 20-name outreach list, and 10+ conversations attempted.
- 10:00-10:30Breakfast + icebreaker
- 10:30-11:00Vibe Coding 101 + MVP sprint
- 11:00-11:30Work block · MVP build
- 11:30-12:00Offer Design Module
- 12:00-1:00Work block · offer + MVP 2
- 1:00-2:00Lunch + guest founder
- 2:00-2:30Sales Outreach Module
- 2:30-6:00Sales / build block · live progress loop
- 6:00Gate · where kids should be by the end of Saturday
- 6:00-7:30Dinner + Joe Liemandt fireside
- 7:30-9:00Open build
Close the outreach gap, build a real 90-day plan, pitch your results.
- 10:00-10:30Breakfast + icebreaker
- 10:30-11:30Pitch & Planning Module
- 11:30-1:00Build / sales block · polish the pitch
- 1:00-2:00Lunch
- 2:00-3:30First-round pitch competition · Guides select top 15
- 3:30-4:00Guides deliberate · top 15 announced
- 4:00Parents arrive · submissions close
- 4:30-5:30Finals · top 15 to judges
- 5:30-5:45Judges deliberate
- 5:45-6:00Shoutouts + awards + closing
Nobody has decided these yet.
- Two age tracks: whether to split younger and older kids in later cities.
- Where the Sunday physical / game break goes once the full flow is felt out.
- Team or colour-group format, and whether the group with the most finalists gets a reward.
- Social dynamics of the Friday elevator-pitch team pick for the youngest kids.
01Day oneFriday
Leave with one chosen idea, a clear team decision, and a fast track ready for students who want to begin building tonight.
Give every guest a 1-2-3 the moment they walk in. Script for the greeter: "Welcome to Founders Weekend, we're so glad you're here. Three quick things: sign in and note your table number, grab a nametag, then head to your table. There's a set of starter tasks waiting for you." Icebreaker while they eat (15 min): Rock-paper-scissors tournament. Everyone pairs up at their tables and plays. When you lose, you become the cheerleader for the kid who beat you and follow them to their next match. The winner absorbs the loser's cheering squad until the final round has the whole room behind two kids. Tell the youngest kids that the loudest cheerleader is the real winner.
FoodLead · Ops Lead
Why we're doing this, team intros, the five deliverables, and the one underlying thing.
ModuleLead · MC
Ninety minutes. Every student runs the niche, POV and grid flow and commits to one idea. Mentors coaching throughout.
ModuleLead · MC or Workshop Guide
Parents and guests in a separate room. Fireside plus Q&A. Runs parallel; no interruption to the student room.
FiresideLead · MacKenzie Price
Tables run five-minute pitch rounds first: every student shares their idea in thirty seconds, then each table sends one or two students to the stage. Those finalists pitch to the room in about a minute, including the teammate ask. Anyone who hears a better idea can join that team. The table round gives shy students a lower-stakes rehearsal.
Work blockLead · MC
Before kids leave, walk them through signing up on Replit with their parents' help. Redeem the free year of Core in Resources tonight so nobody hits the free-account daily wall during Saturday's sprint. Families who need to leave early can. Parents own all transport. Ready students may begin the MVP fast track.
LogisticsLead · Ops Lead
02Day twoSaturday
By end of day: a live URL, a designed offer, a 20-name outreach list, and 10+ conversations attempted.
Doors 10:00, start 10:30. Run two quick games from 10:00 to 10:20. First, call head, shoulders, knees and toes, speeding up and mixing the order. Then pair students over a water bottle: call body parts and yell "GRAB!" at random. Winners absorb the other student's cheering squad. Close with a one-sentence project update from each student.
FoodLead · Ops Lead
Quick demo on how to start building, then straight into a sprint. Everyone leaves with a first-draft landing page, something tangible to show mom and dad.
ModuleLead · Workshop Guide
Keep building. Mentors float and help students stuck on tooling. No stage time.
Work blockLead · Mentors
Rip the first-draft landing pages from the MVP sprint with live teardowns, then teach the offer: price, cost, market. Peer stack-ranking to close.
ModuleLead · MC or Workshop Guide
Rebuild the landing page around the new headline and design the offer. Mentors float; guests sit at tables, listen and push. No stage time.
Work blockLead · Mentors
15-min talk, 15-min Q&A, 15-min at the tables. Choose a young founder teens relate to with a spiky POV. Skip Shark Tank theatre and follow-your-passion speeches.
FiresideLead · Guest
Demo direct outreach on a hypothetical business: the right subreddit, cold email, social. Scripts that don't get ignored. Every no is data; every ghost is data.
ModuleLead · MC or Workshop Guide
Three and a half hours. Keep the leaderboard visible for the entire block. Every 30–45 minutes, pause for 60–90 second share-outs from students getting sales and students getting nowhere: what they tried, what happened and what they will do next. Spread tactics, normalize failure and send everyone back with one concrete move.
Work blockLead · Mentors
A live URL, a designed offer, a 20-name outreach list, and 10+ conversations attempted. Check it, don't assume it.
Gate
Students and parents together. Joe on starting Trilogy, tailored for teens, then open Q&A. Sell by showing, not telling. Prep the kids who plan to ask questions ahead of time. Have parents submit questions as well, kids or MC reads.
FiresideLead · Joe Liemandt
Free work time after dinner. Students who want to keep grinding can; students who are drained can wind down. Mentors are available but do not push.
Work blockLead · Mentors
03Day threeSunday
Close the outreach gap, build a real 90-day plan, pitch your results.
Run a short Find Three People icebreaker. Call prompts such as "find three people who have a dog," then move to weekend-specific prompts: changed their idea since Friday, got a no from a stranger or helped someone debug. Keep it light and stop after fifteen minutes.
FoodLead · Ops Lead
Build the 90-day plan and learn the three-minute pitch format. Book every filming slot now so teams can rehearse and record through the morning work block.
ModuleLead · MC or Workshop Guide
Close the outreach gap and finish filming. Most students will not have made a sale; documented attempts and evidence still count. Every team should have a filmed three-minute pitch ready by lunch.
Work blockLead · Mentors
Last break before the pitch competition. Keep it light; the room flips to presentations immediately afterward.
FoodLead · Ops Lead
Every team presents to the Guides and staff for three minutes. Guides select the top 15 for the finalist round. Students who do not advance still leave with the filmed presentation and 90-day plan.
FinaleLead · Guides
Snack break while Guides select the finalists. The MC announces the top 15 at the end of the block.
LogisticsLead · Guides
Campus tour and admissions AMA while the room resets for finals. This is the first chance to scan the application QR, book a Shadow Day or schedule a call. The submission form closes on an automatic timestamp.
LogisticsLead · Ops Lead
The top 15 present live to the judges for three minutes each. If team or colour groups run all weekend, reward the group with the most finalists.
FinaleLead · MC
Snack break, stage reset.
Logistics
Open the floor for students to recognize one another before awards. The MC seeds one or two examples, then announces the winners, schedules mentor advising, rings out the First Dollar Club once more and takes the group photo.
FinaleLead · MC
04Open decisionsPinned