1.5 years after the launch of Spring Studios Bahrain, we realised we had a problem.

Up until this point, we'd been screening founders via traditional multiple-round based interview techniques. Founders didn't need to have a specific idea, or validation to begin building with us - we'd work with them to validate their ideas in the early stages, and we'd keep pivoting until we succeeded.

There's a notable difference here which separates this flavour of Venture Building and traditional Venture Capital. Typically, by the time you’re looking to raise from VC investors, you’ve already crossed a certain amount of barriers in your way - both on a founder level, and for your startup's proposition.

You're usually starting to demonstrate some signals by this point: you’ve proved your ability to navigate roadblocks, demonstrated signs of resilience to failure, and managed to get a handful of customers interested. This filter by no way guarantees future success, however, you've shown by this point that you're capable in principle of doing what needs to be done, and people will want your startup's products and services if you can now correctly execute.

Up until this year, we were using more traditional techniques to interview and screen founders - many of which pre-idea. This creates the following problems:

• Poor mapping to execution ability - does a CV and ability to interview well prove an individual can execute in the way a founder needs to? Are there even any common founder traits to screen for?
• Interview process - highly time consuming for the founder, for our team, and in the absence of proof that the founder's startup can be executed, looking more to individual qualities over their execution
• Repeated pivots - working with a founder pre-idea means conviction is typically low and needs to be proven over time. Strong founder profiles can still get get chewed up by the market - taking a long time to reach an idea with demand
• Narrow focus - only being able to work with a low number of founders at a time, and spending a long time engaging with each founder we worked with - even if ultimately unsuccessful

We knew we needed to mix things up a bit. The new plan was as follows:

• Increase the upper limit of founders we could work with, screen, and give opportunities to
• Bring the screening process more in-line with the reality of being a founder
• Spend less time working on ideas which may not get customer demand signals, and more on ones that do

So, we started working on the Spring Studios Founder Launchpad - an 8 week online, remote, part-time venture building program. This equips founders with everything they need to get going building their startup fast, and for us to judge founders on the only thing that really matters: can they build a startup?

• Fast screening: No rounds - fill out a form, take a 20 minute screening call, and make a decision
• More opportunities: Work with 30 founders at once. Measure based on how they execute, not how they interview
• Trial working together: Build a relationship in both directions: show how we work, learn how they work - and if it’s a good two-way fit, look to work together.

We ran the first batch of the Launchpad back in March 2024, and it was a success. We ran a program of content covering everything from ideation through to fundraising, provided over 150 hours of 1:1 mentorship to founders, and featured a range of fireside and partner chats from industry experts and previously exited founders.

26 founders joined us on day one, and at the end of the program we had 11 startups. One founder even secured $800,000 in pre-seed funding from an angel investor - before the program had even finished!

For batch #002, we've taken all our learnings and feedback onboard and now plan to run an even stronger founder-focused program:

• Community: ~30 top percentile global founders to bounce ideas with while you build Partners: Industry experts (e.g exited founders, regulators, CXOs) for mentorship, guest chats and warm customer introductions
• Expertise: Course content designed by venture builders and iterated with founders
• Risk-free: No need to quit your job, and no requirement to continue working with Spring Studios post-program
• Bahrain + MENA platform: Tap our local networks to understand if your idea is a good fit to launch in MENA

Sound interesting? We’d love to have you there. Read our blog on how it works, or apply now.