Founder Launch: A Push to Redefine Entrepreneurship at HBS
- Jay Bhandari
- 3 hours ago
- 14 min read
“All of you are talented, but not a single one of you knows how to close.”
Professor Reza Satchu, standing in front of 30 student founders, delivers a piece of feedback that lands like a thunderclap. He’s not trying to provoke. He’s trying to prepare. In most HBS classrooms, a comment like that might feel out of bounds. But in Founder Launch, Satchu and Professor Shai Bernstein’s new course for EC students actively building startups, it’s just another Thursday.
Each week, this handpicked group of student founders gathers for over two hours to share updates, confront roadblocks, and workshop critical milestones as they launch their ventures in their final semester at HBS. The setting is intimate: just enough students to fill the front rows of the classroom. The conversation that follows is raw and vulnerable. To protect that space, the first hour of class is strictly closed to guests, a protected container where founders can speak freely without fear of outside judgment.
During the second hour, seasoned venture capitalists are invited into the room not to give a lecture, but to engage in a radical exercise in two-way feedback. On the day before class, they meet with 10 founders one-on-one: five of their top-ranked prospects and five others. Surveys are submitted after each conversation by both the founders and investors. Satchu and Bernstein analyze these surveys closely, looking for mismatches in perception. The real goldmine? When one party thought a meeting went well and the other didn’t. Those moments are used to spark discussion in class the next day. It’s honest, sometimes awkward, and nearly unheard of in the traditional founder-investor dance.
“The power dynamic is totally flipped,” Satchu explains. “Founders usually have no idea what investors really think of them after a meeting. Similarly, investors rarely get the opportunity to understand how founders perceive them. I believe investors want to be led and founders are the prize. When both sides are confronted with the unvarnished truth 24 hours later, the conversation shifts from polite diplomacy and deference to equal partnership, and that’s where progress happens. Because the truth is capital is plentiful, but great founders are not. In this class, we make both sides see that clearly.”
Radical Transparency as Curriculum
This feedback culture is no accident. It’s a product of the directness and radical transparency that Satchu takes great care to instill in the classroom. He sees it as essential to confronting the raw realities of company-building, where judgment calls are constant and the stakes are real. This truth-seeking can be brutal at times, but it’s a hallmark of his “let’s get real” style that students from his popular Founder Mindset class have come to know and respect him for.
“There’s not enough radical transparency at a school that aims to prepare its students for the harsh realities of the real world,” Satchu says. In his view, uncomfortable feedback isn’t something to be softened; it’s a necessary ingredient for maximizing the probability of success. If aspiring founders can’t handle hard truths now, what chance do they have when facing them outside the walls of Aldrich?
“What I witnessed yesterday was something entirely different,” writes Charles Moldow (MBA ‘93), an HBS Executive Fellow and General Partner at Foundation Capital, after sitting in on the course. “I love that these students get to compare and contrast their journey with that of the rest of the cohort. There’s a raw honesty amongst the group that fosters a real learning environment. While painful at times, harsh criticism of what they are pursuing, coupled with nonjudgmental support for them as individuals, can really make an impact.”
Andrew Steen (MBA ‘25), a student in the course and winner of last fall’s HBS Shark Tank, agrees: “All of us (certainly myself) are making tons of mistakes every single day. This is actually a good thing because it is a great way to learn, but such learning is impossible if we do not create an environment where feedback is open, honest, and frequent. One of the most useful skills to learn as an entrepreneur is the ability to take feedback. Founders get harsh, negative feedback every single day, so if nothing else, this class is an opportunity for people to callus themselves to bad news — to learn how to take it in and keep moving forward — so that bad news doesn't derail their startup when it comes in a higher-stakes environment later on.”
Founder Launch’s Origin Story
The objective of Founder Launch is threefold: to build a tight-knit community of HBS’s most promising entrepreneurs; to increase the odds of their startups succeeding through accountability, milestones, and feedback; and to experiment with a hands-on, “learning by doing” approach that could reshape how HBS supports its founder talent.
At its core, the course is more than a classroom experience; it’s Satchu’s latest and most ambitious attempt to rewire the entrepreneurial DNA of HBS. And for Satchu, this isn’t just an academic project. It’s a deeply personal mission.
He believes HBS’s ability to attract and retain founders is an existential question for the school. As technologies like AI lower the barriers to launching companies, the most ambitious business minds are increasingly choosing the founder path. If HBS doesn’t provide the infrastructure to support them, he argues, it risks losing the very students who could define its future.
“HBS is all about attracting right-tail students — those who come here to swing for the fences, not to settle for average careers in consulting or investment banking. Their trajectory of ambition is exceptionally high coming here,” Satchu says. “But when they get here, we don’t expose them enough to right-tail outcomes, like starting companies. Instead, many of our students leave and go into safer paths that don’t offer extraordinary outcomes, like consulting. Instead of accelerating their growth, their slope flattens once they come to HBS, which is the exact opposite of what should be happening.”
Founder Launch is designed to change that trajectory, and its roots can be traced back to a small experiment. Last year, Satchu agreed to sponsor Independent Projects (IP) for seven students from his wildly popular Founder Mindset course on one condition: they’d meet regularly to share progress and hold each other accountable. It wasn’t a class, exactly, but a rough prototype for one. The results were striking. Six of the seven founders raised capital and launched their ventures within months of graduating. One of those students was David O’Hara (MBA ‘24), who founded and raised seed funding for his healthcare startup Brace Health through Reza’s IP.
“The IP with Reza was arguably the most valuable part of my HBS experience,” shares O’Hara. “His mentorship, combined with the community of founders he brought together, pushed me to think and act like a founder, not just a student with an idea. It was highly motivating to be surrounded by peers who were just as committed to building companies and who were navigating the same day-to-day trade-offs to make their visions a reality. It felt different from the rest of the HBS experience. I was pushed to move faster, think bigger, and confront uncomfortable truths early — lessons that continue to shape how I operate as a leader and builder today.”
Word got out. This year, over 90 students — half of the entire Founder Mindset cohort — applied to join the next version of that informal founder circle. Satchu realized it was time to build something more official. Together with Bernstein, he designed a new course that would blend community, accountability, and real-world application.
The demand was overwhelming. From those 91 applicants, 30 were selected to form the inaugural cohort of Founder Launch. The stakes were high from the beginning. To even be considered, students had to pledge to not recruit for a full-time job during the semester. For Satchu, it wasn’t just about time management. It was also about signaling to the group, investors, and themselves that they were fully committed.
Kevin O’Leary — businessman, investor, and famously known as Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank — sees that commitment as one of Founder Launch’s defining advantages. He’s an investor in Founder Launch student Steen’s startup, Laptis, and views the class as a promising source of deal flow for investors.
“Founder Launch isn’t just teaching entrepreneurship; it’s curating it,” O’Leary says. “That’s a big distinction. Most schools offer entrepreneurship courses, but this class selects real, committed entrepreneurs and nurtures them with resources and relationships. As an investor, that combination of curation, commitment, and development is very compelling. If I had to choose between two founders — one from this class and one who wasn’t — I’d bet on the one who’s been through the Founder Launch experience.”
It seems the dedication is paying off. All four finalists in this year’s HBS New Venture Competition came from the Founder Launch class, and several students have already raised funding — many with oversubscribed rounds — before even graduating. Others found unexpected breakout moments directly through the course.
Ash Overbeek (MBA ‘25), founder of vegan caviar startup Pearle, was featured in a TikTok by Alix Earle after a connection made through Founder Launch. The post generated over $7,000 in pre-orders and a flood of DMs from other influencers eager to invest. Overbeek has since successfully closed an oversubscribed funding round, exceeding her initial target. The same exposure propelled Chris Lucas’s (MBA ‘25) resale AI startup, SECONDSENSE. Alix Earle’s post about SECONDSENSE went viral, attracting over three million views (as of April 2025) and crashing Lucas’s platform.
Cecilia Liu (MBA ‘25) secured a contract with Delta Air Lines for her robotics company, Intuitive Motion, after pitching CEO Ed Bastian during his visit to class. “After extensive time spent refining our solution at Delta’s catering facilities, the pitch provided crucial validation from an industry leader, dramatically accelerated internal processes, and significantly enhanced our credibility,” she says. “Ed’s endorsement not only rapidly moved us from conversation to contract, but also served as a powerful signal to investors and other potential customers. This boosted my confidence in our venture’s potential and opened more opportunities for fundraising and customers.”
Perhaps what’s most impressive is how many students went from idea to raising capital in just a semester. Despite graduation still being a few weeks away, the majority of students have received capital commitments and several have rounds that are oversubscribed. One such story is that of Jess Haghani (MBA ‘25), who began the course unsure whether the founder path was for her and ended it with an oversubscribed pre-seed round for her CPG startup, Lucille.
“The very first investor pitch I did was through Founder Launch,” she recalls. “I approached the first half of the semester as a chance to refine my story, sharpen my understanding of the milestones that matter at the pre-seed stage, and learn what investors are truly looking for. Not every meeting was perfect, but each one offered valuable learning. It’s not lost on me how incredible of an opportunity that was. The feedback surveys pushed me to reflect critically on what resonated and what didn’t, while the live dialogue with investors during class sessions provided real-time insights. I gained meaningful confidence as a founder, and this process helped us grow closer as a class cohort, building an environment of trust, companionship, and stability.”
That momentum carried beyond the classroom. Early in the program, Haghani pitched Galen Weston, CEO of Loblaw’s (Canada’s largest grocery chain) and later visited the company’s offices in Canada. In another session, she and several classmates pitched to Bill Ackman, fielding live questions in front of an audience. “These experiences not only sharpened my ability to think on my feet but also opened real fundraising doors,” she says. “Several of the relationships I built through Founder Launch led to ongoing investor conversations, and I ultimately closed commitments from a few of them.”
“It’s hard to fully capture the impact Founder Launch has had on me and on Lucille. It has been an extraordinary journey, one that I’ll always look back on as the jet fuel that propelled the start of something incredible,” Haghani adds. “While this is only the beginning, the experience was profoundly formative. I have immense gratitude for Professor Satchu and Professor Bernstein for creating such a special class. At HBS, founding and Founder Launch should become synonymous.”
Applied Learning at HBS
Satchu is not alone in reimagining how HBS teaches entrepreneurship through hands-on learning. A growing number of professors are experimenting with applied learning and outcome-driven coursework — offering students more than frameworks, but real momentum behind their ventures.
Courses like Startup Operations and the Startup Bootcamp winter SIP have long given students space to accelerate their ideas. But recently, we’ve seen experiential learning start to seep into even the most traditional, case-based classrooms. For example, Professor Jeffrey Bussgang has retooled his Launching Technology Ventures course to reflect the rise of AI-native startups. This year, he introduced a “build-with-AI” assignment where students — most with no coding background — were tasked with creating a functioning web app using tools like ChatGPT, Vercel, and Lovable. In just a few hours, students launched everything from alumni networking platforms to AI-powered productivity tools.
“To be a winning entrepreneur in the age of AI, you need to operate on two levels at the same time,” Bussgang argues. “First, you have to apply timeless strategic frameworks to create value in a wildly dynamic, competitive market environment. Second, you have to apply timely AI-native tools to execute at a furious velocity and become what I call ‘a 10x founder.’ HBS has been historically world-class at the former but needs to embrace the latter. We need to educate students to both learn and execute faster than the competition.”
This shift isn’t being driven by practitioner faculty alone. In both Founder Launch and Founder Mindset, Satchu has joined forces with two of Harvard’s top academic minds: Bernstein and David Deming, a leading labor economist at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Skills Lab. Together, they blend practical execution with academic rigor.
“I’m thrilled to join Reza in teaching the Founder Mindset course next year,” Deming says. “My research is about how to measure and develop soft skills, including the skills required to be a successful founder. We met because of our shared interest in developing entrepreneurial talent, and we bonded over the shared belief that students respond well to high expectations and that they learn best from critical feedback.”
A New Entrepreneurial DNA at HBS
The semester culminated in a Demo Day, where all 30 students took the stage for a rapid-fire round of three-minute pitches to a room of investors. For many founders, it was not just a presentation but also a celebration of major milestones. Liu had closed her contract with Delta that very morning. Several students like Haghani, Steen, Lisa Yan, and Drew Borinstein (all MBA ‘25) announced that their rounds were already oversubscribed.
What made the event especially powerful was the progress many founders had made in just a semester. Many of the VCs in the room had been following these founders throughout, offering feedback, and witnessing their evolution in real time.
Mark Diker (MBA ‘96), HBS Executive Fellow for Founder Launch and CEO of Diker Ventures, comments: “Working over the course of the semester with Reza and Shai on Founder Launch, by Demo Day I was struck by how effectively the students evolved their ventures, some with hard pivots, likely due in part to initial feedback by the VCs in pre-course surveys, and ongoing engagement with VCs during the course of the semester. A powerful driver of startup success is the ability of founders to react to realities of the marketplace, adapt to opportunity, and refine business plans to reach product market fit. Founder Launch was designed to drive this process, and Demo Day presentations reflected successful execution.”
Andre Charoo, Founder of seed-stage fund Maple VC, remarks: “Founder Launch reminds me of the early days of Y Combinator, except this time for business school founders. As technical skills commoditize, the edge is shifting to taste, strategy, and execution — traits HBS talent brings in spades, showcased at demo day. I believe Founder Launch could seed the next great companies of tomorrow, which is why Maple VC intends to invest in every cohort.”
A similar sentiment is shared by Lily Lyman, General Partner at Boston-based Underscore VC: “Founder Launch is redefining what it means to teach entrepreneurship. It’s not theory; it’s lived experience. As parts of the company building journey get more automated with AI, the class cultivates the two things founders need most: sound judgment and a strong community. As an investor, it’s rare to see this level of honesty, iteration, and momentum in such a short time. This class is building cohorts of builders truly prepared for the founder journey. At Underscore we are excited to continue to invest time (and capital) in this class.”
At a cocktail reception hosted at Satchu’s home later that evening, the mood shifted from pitch mode to reflection. Students traded stories not just about their companies, but about how they had challenged, inspired, and supported each other through the intensity of the semester. It was clear this was more than a class; it had become a cohort forged in the shared challenge of building something real. “It’s remarkable to see how students have transformed over these three months,” says Denise Koller, a Research Associate who worked closely on Founder Launch. “Reza has exceptional pedagogical intuition and EQ. He doesn’t just teach students to be better founders; he helps them become better human beings — people who own their actions, embrace uncertainty, and work toward something bigger than themselves.”
What started as an informal Independent Project has evolved into one of the most intense and transformative experiences for student founders at HBS. And if Satchu gets his way, Founder Launch will serve as a blueprint for a new kind of entrepreneurship education: one grounded in real-world stakes, risk, and radical honesty.
While his teaching style differs from that of most HBS professors, Satchu sees his course as a modern interpretation of the school’s core mission: educating leaders who make a difference in the world.
“Inherent to that mission is developing judgment, the most important leadership skill,” he explains. “And judgment is what founders exercise every day when they shape their business model, decide who to take money from, or choose who to hire. In a world of increasing uncertainty, especially with AI disrupting everything, honing one’s judgment is more important than ever.”
The case method aims to build judgment through narrative and debate. But in most HBS classrooms, students don’t actually implement the decisions they argue for: they discuss, reflect, and move on. Founder Launch is different. It pushes students to put their ideas into motion, to make real decisions about their startups and live with the outcomes. Each week brings new stakes, new feedback, and new consequences. In Founder Launch, judgment isn’t developed in the abstract. It’s forged through action.
“I spent over a decade teaching entrepreneurship using the case method — first at Stanford Graduate School of Business, then at Harvard Business School,” Bernstein shares. “The case method has many strengths: it fosters thoughtful discussion and allows students to learn from one another. But entrepreneurship demands more than sharp analysis; it requires grit, perseverance, persistence, and a sense of urgency, qualities that are hard to simulate in a traditional classroom.”
“As Reza and I began envisioning what Founder Launch could become, we started with a set of hypotheses: that meaningful progress could be made by creating an environment defined by accountability, candid (and often tough) feedback, and a deeply supportive community,” Bernstein adds.
Reflecting on the past semester, Bernstein says, “it was heartening to see how positively the Founder Launch ecosystem responded to the structure we built. The investors played an important role, offering evaluations and feedback that founders might otherwise struggle to access. But above all, we were fortunate to work with an impressive group of founders. No doubt, the course was a trial by fire — an emotional rollercoaster. Yet their progress over a short period was truly impressive. I may be biased, of course, but the investors' reactions and the ventures launched tell it all.”
If HBS wants to remain a magnet for the most ambitious right-tail students, it may need to rethink how it educates them in a world of rapid technological and socio-economic change. From hands-on AI projects in Launching Technology Ventures to rapid prototyping exercises in Startup Bootcamp, a new generation of courses is reshaping what entrepreneurship education looks like at HBS. If Founder Launch is any indication, the future of business education won’t just be about thinking like a founder — it will be about being one.
Jay Bhandari (MBA ’25) is originally from Houston, Texas. He graduated from Georgetown University in 2018 with a degree in Economics. Prior to HBS, Jay served as Chief of Staff at thredUP in San Francisco and as an Investment Associate at Blackstone in New York.
Sam Berube (MBA ’25) is originally from Dover, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brown University in 2019 with a degree in International & Comparative Political Science. Prior to HBS, Sam worked in corporate strategy at McDonald's in Chicago, and for BCG in Boston.