Finding Your People: Community at Entrepreneur First

When you join Entrepreneur First, you surround yourself with a tight-knit entrepreneurial community for life. You might not realize it at the beginning, but the impact of this experience will hit you in waves for years to come.

What does community mean at EF? Imagine two concentric circles:

The Core: Your Cohort Community

At the core of the circles is your cohort community. This is your closest peer group, the people you spend time with in person every day for at least 8 weeks, who have been carefully selected to embark on the same journey with you. They’re your potential co-founders, friends, future employers or colleagues – you’ll never know for sure until you finish going through the programme. What you do know is that you’re surrounded by highly ambitious and inspiring individuals ready to embark on their entrepreneurial journey – right now.

The value of this core community is immense – this is where you have a shared experience, a sense of belonging, a common journey and where you form your closest ties. We strongly believe in the power of in-person experiences and community building at EF, as the depth of relationships built in real life is unrivalled by even the best-in-class online programming. Even years after graduating from EF, when I speak to alumni they mention the highlight of their EF experience being the amazing people they met in their cohort.

The EF team and frameworks create the conditions for hyper-accelerated personal growth and building relationships based on trust. We push founders to team up and break up fast. It’s uncomfortable at first, but it’s a crash course on experimentation, radical candour and sharp decision making.

At EF, community means belonging, trust and pushing each other to greatness. This doesn’t just happen naturally. It’s the result of the hard work our team puts into selecting and bringing together the best people, facilitating deep connections and strong relationships on the cohort and when there’s time – having fun together.

Obviously, the EF team and your advisors are there to support you and push you along the way and unlock advice at the right time. 

The Alumni Network

As soon as you graduate from your cohort, you instantly get access to the outer circles of the community. The EF alumni pool is 3500 people strong and growing every 6 months. It’s where all the people who went through the programme gather and it’s where serendipity happens. Regardless of your outcome on the EF programme, you get access to this highly curated network where opportunities are endless. 

The Alumni network embodies all experiences, stories and knowledge of all the EF cohort members, everywhere. Let that sink in. All the exceptional people selected by the EF team to join a programme, all the knowledge and growth gained on the cohort, all the opportunities that early-stage founders have created – everything comes together in the wider EF network. Each member of this network can unlock access to their own connections, making it possible for you to tap into resources that would have felt impossible to reach before joining EF.  It’s a space you will want to stay close to and that can provide you value at every stage of your career.

Have you realised that founding is not for you, but you want to join an early-stage startup? You’re in the right place because EF portfolio companies are always recruiting. Do you have a question that you can’t find the answer to anywhere else? Someone will likely have had the same question before and they will help you. Looking to raise investment? Well don’t be surprised if the VC you meet is part of the EF network!

Over time, we’ve built systems to help take advantage of that serendipity and maximize opportunities in the EF network. We have a private Talent Network to facilitate hiring for our portfolio companies, we host regular events to bring alumni together, we bring top experts to deliver masterclasses and help you continue your learning journey and much more. 

Remember, your EF cohort is the first building block of your EF network and that doesn’t end once you’ve left the programme. Instead, you’ve unlocked the next level now, and landed in a great spot, so make the best of what the EF network has to offer.