Founders Guide
You don't teach. You don't lecture. You don't grade papers. You run a squad of students who are building real companies, developing real skills, and figuring out who they are — and your job is to make sure that process actually produces founders instead of just looking busy.
Founders School is a 4-year high school program where teenagers build real companies targeting $1M in profit by graduation. The program launches in New York City in Fall 2026 with 20 students, scaling toward 1,000.
Students handle core academics in a compressed morning block on our AI-powered learning platform; the rest of the day — the majority of it — is the founder program, where the real transformation happens. You own that for your squad of students.
This is not a teaching position. There is no curriculum for you to deliver and no lesson plans for you to follow. The program is built around real projects, real revenue, workshops, mentors, and peer accountability — and your role is to know each of your students deeply enough to push them toward the right next move and hold them accountable when they drift.
If you've run teams, coached high-performers, or built something, and you love working with young people, read on.
What you will be doing
Running daily standups with your squad: what did you ship, what's blocking you, what's the one thing today.
Having weekly 1:1s with each student — deep enough to know their business inside out, their motivation this week, and the thing they're avoiding.
Coaching students through real-world challenges: their first cold call, their first rejection, their first product nobody wants, their first pivot.
Tracking each student's progress across their business and their core skills, and having honest conversations about where they actually are.
Facilitating workshops and structured skill-building — selling, building in public, resilience, financial thinking, rapid iteration — and helping students extract maximum value from mentors and guest founders.
Building culture. The vibe of your squad should feel like a high-performing startup team, not a classroom, and that's on you.
What you will NOT be doing
Teaching academics. The platform delivers content and the academic team monitors progress. You stay focused on the founder program.
Following a pre-built curriculum. There's structure — standups, workshops, build time — but what you do in your 1:1s and how you push each student is based entirely on where they are right now.
Lecturing. If you're talking for more than 10 minutes straight, something has gone wrong.
Handling enrollment, scheduling, or family logistics. Ops handles that. You stay on your students.
Replacing the student's judgment. You coach, challenge, and hold accountable. They own the decision; you own the process.
What this becomes
At 6 months, your students are building real businesses and shipping — not "exploring ideas." Each one has a number that's going up, and you can articulate exactly where each student is and what they're working on next. Your students are visibly growing on the skills they came in weakest on — selling, resilience, communication — because you're pushing on them directly every week, and your squad has a culture worth being part of: high standards, real accountability, students pushing each other because you modeled it.
At 12 months, your students have real traction — revenue, users, shipped work — and you've helped build the playbook (the standup format, the 1:1 framework, the accountability rhythms) that the next wave of Guides will learn from.
As Founders School scales toward 1,000 students and multiple cities, Guides who deliver results become Lead Guides — running a campus, managing a team of Guides, and shaping the culture of an entire location. You're getting in early enough to define what a great Founders Guide looks like.
Candidate requirements
You have run teams, squads, cohorts, or programs where the output was measurable and the people you managed actually got better — at a startup, in coaching, in the military, in sports, at an accelerator. It has to be real accountability for real results.
You have real building experience. You've started a business, launched a product, or built something where the outcome depended on your ability to execute. You don't need a $1M exit, but you need skin-in-the-game experience you can draw on when coaching students.
You are comfortable with AI tools and use them in your own work — fluent enough to reinforce what students learn and model AI-native behavior.
You are comfortable with direct, honest feedback — giving it and receiving it. If respectfully calling a 16-year-old on their bullshit makes you uncomfortable, this isn't the role.
You are energized by working with teenagers, not drained by it. This is a high-contact, high-energy, every-day role.
You are located in or willing to relocate to New York, NY.
You are legally authorized to work in the United States.
Nice to have
Experience in project-based education, accelerators, boot camps, or cohort-based programs.
Coaching, mentoring, or managing young people (teens, early-career, college students).
A background in entrepreneurship, engineering/building, content creation, or another founder-relevant track.
Familiarity with high-intensity cohort models like YC, Buildspace, TKS, or the Thiel Fellowship.
If you've run teams, coached high-performers, or built something real, and you're energized by pushing teenagers to become founders, this is the squad to run.
Apply below and we'll reach out if you're a potential fit.
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