Justin McLeod is a business savvy creative that loves bringing ideas to life. He is the Founder of Surthrive, a socially-driven marketing consultancy specializing in communications for forward thinking brands, a Mentor a TechStars Social Impact in Atlanta, has helped startups led by women and people of color raise $1.1M+ in seed investments and generate $2.5M+ in revenue as the former D&I Program Manager at Atlanta Tech Village, and currently is a Venture Partner investing in outlandish ideas at Outlander Labs.

By living in the intersection of culture and technology, Justin is on a mission to shift the narrative in today’s society by bringing more diversity into the tech industry.

Crystal is the Program Manager for Square One Startup School. She works closely with instructors, advisors, and founders ensuring the program’s workshops, office hours, and other program activities are on track to help founders reach their intended goals and outcomes. Crystal has leveraged her creative marketing skills in the startup world by working with incubators, accelerators, and coding bootcamps all centered around educating creative entrepreneurs with stints at the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative (WEI) in Atlanta and Tech Talent South, a woman-owned tech recruitment, training, and staffing company that believes everyone can be equipped with the skills to work in tech.

What Is Square One?

Square One is a 10-Week virtual pre-accelerator program for founders starting their first tech startups. We provide access to community, curriculum, and coaches that helps founders validate their ideas, avoid costly mistakes, and get their first paying customers so they can scale in the most equity-efficient way possible. 

Where Is Square One?

Square One is a 100% virtual program where classes, sessions, and office hours all happen online via Zoom, Slack, and other online tools. This allows anyone from around the world to participate.

What Type of Founders Can Participate?

Square One focuses on Founders who are launching their first technology startup (I.e. proprietary software or tech-enabled). You are a good fit if you have a solid concept (Pre-Product), have a product but have generated little to no revenue (Pre-Revenue), or have a product and a little bit of revenue but have raised less than $250K in outside capital (Pre-Seed). 

How much does it cost?

To participate in Square One there is a tuition fee that has 3 different payment options for Square One Startup School: 

1. Pre-Product – $1,000 (Access to Program Activities)
2. Pre-Revenue – $1,500 (Access to Program Activities + We will build you a landing page & email campaign)
3. Pre-Seed – $2,000 (Access to Program Activities + Prepare you to raise your pre-seed or seed round)

Each option can be paid in 5 installment payments. 

Why We Charge Founders?

We want to empower founders to hold onto as much ownership of their company as possible in the early-stages. This is why we do not take any equity for participation in our program but instead we charge a founder-friendly tuition fee upon being accepted.

Also, from our research we noticed that most first-time founders spend between $10K – $20K on an MVP before validating their idea. So we’re looking founders who are willing to make a small financial commitment to learn the fundamentals that will help them avoid costly mistakes such as overpaying for development costs. 

Your tuition fees are reinvested back into the Square One community to cover operational expenses, reach more founders across the world and bring in more amazing coaches to help you along your journey. 

What Does A Week In The Life Of A Founder Look Like?

• Monday: Virtual Standup Meetings for Founders @ on your own time.  
• Tuesday: Founders attend Lesson Labs online @ 6:30pm EST 
• Wednesday: Q&A w/ Successful Startup Founders @ 6:00pm EST 
• Friday: Founders sign up to speak with Advisors during their Office Hours between 10:00am – 5:00pm EST 

I’m unable to make the sessions due to a time conflict, can I still attend?

Yes! All sessions will be recorded and available for your review in our Member Dashboard immediately after the session finishes. However, to gain the most value from this program, we encourage founders who are unable to attend every session to take the initiative to watch Lesson Labs, complete assignments, and schedule time with Advisors on their own time. 

Below are some alternatives to participating in our 10-week program: 

• Online Course
• Memership
• Class Pass 

What Can Founders Expect?

Founders can expect to build their concepts out in a close-knit intimate learning environment with a community of like-minded startup founders who are at the same stage of their startup journey. Our key focus is providing tangible takeaways for each class, connecting you with industry experts to get the full scope of running a startup, and validating your idea through paying customers or getting potential customer to sign up for your waitlist.

What Makes Square One Unique?

What makes Square One Startup School so unique is our intentionality on paying customers instead of going straight to raise capital. We believe that if first-time founders focus their time and energy on converting interest into leads and leads into paying customers then they will experience the traction needed to negotiate better terms with investors when it’s time to scale.