Founder Guide

The season, and why it is a season

You register once, then build in public for eight months. One State Champion is crowned on May 19, 2027.

A pitch competition rewards one good afternoon. The League is built to reward what you actually did between September and May. That is why the season is long, why you report every week, and why the prize capital is non-dilutive: $500,000 for the Founders Cup and $25,000 for each of three Regional Champions, with no equity taken, ever. The League wants you to keep the company you built.

The three phases exist so the field narrows on evidence. The Campus Activation Phase gets every strong venture registered by the November 20 cutoff. The Playoff puts 36 of them through eight tracked sprint weeks with a mentor each, then three live Regional Championships. Selection Sunday names ten. Seven more weeks of building, scores freeze on May 5, and the State Championship is decided on stage.

1. 1Register before November 20, 2026. There is no second window.
2. 2Your campus lead nominates 10 to 15 ventures. Make sure they know you exist.
3. 3The 36 are announced December 4. Sprint weeks run January 15 to March 5.
4. 4Regional Championships March 9 to 11 in Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. Selection Sunday March 14. Blackout May 5. Championship May 19.

Registration, and why you are told your stage

One flow, five steps, about ten minutes. The League tells you your stage and profile from what you have already done.

Founders are bad at judging their own stage. Some undersell, most oversell, and a league where everyone picks their own starting line is not a fair race. So the discovery questions ask only about what exists today: an entity, a team, a documented problem and customer, an MVP, users, revenue, funding. The stage those answers support is the stage you get, with the reasons written out. Everyone in your cohort earned their starting line the same way.

Your profile is different. It is not a ranking. It describes how ventures like yours grow, so the League can give you the right advice and hold you to the right scale threshold later. A services firm and a software marketplace should not be told to chase the same milestones.

Some challenges are pre-checked from your answers because you have already done them. Confirm them honestly. An official will check every one of them at your first boss fight.

1. 1Your Venture: name, one line, university, team.
2. 2Discovery: yes or no on what exists, with follow-ups for each yes.
3. 3Your Profile: read your stage reasons and your profile. You do not pick either.
4. 4Challenges: confirm the pre-checked items. Uncheck anything you cannot prove.
5. 5Scorecard: your starting Traction Score and how it was built.

The Traction Score, and why only three things move it

Traction Score = metric points + challenge points + boss bonuses. Your stock price in the Scout market is the same number.

The score has to be something a founder controls completely and a judge can trust completely. So nothing external moves it. Scouts buying your stock do not move it. Your campus lead cannot touch it. A judge cannot edit it. It goes up when you report work, complete a challenge, or beat a boss, and it goes down in exactly one case: an official audit finds something you claimed was not true.

The ten weekly metrics pay different rates at different stages on purpose. At Stage 0 the most valuable thing you can do is talk to customers, so a conversation is worth 5 points and revenue is locked. By Stage 3 the most valuable thing is money and customers, so revenue pays 5 points per $100 and conversations pay 2. The weights push you toward the work that matters at your stage, and they make it impossible to farm points doing Stage 0 work forever.

Locked metrics unlock when you beat a boss. That is the whole point of the bosses: the highest scores are only reachable by actually building the business.

1. 1Report units, not dollars or feelings: one conversation of 10 minutes or more, ten messages, one piece of content, one event, one document, one signed deal, $100 of revenue, one customer, one meaningful release, one mentor meeting of 30 minutes or more.
2. 2Check the rate for your stage below before you decide what to work on this week.
3. 3Use the Score Sandbox at the end of this guide to see how a week of numbers turns into points at each stage.

The weekly report, and why it is weekly

Ten numbers, once a week, due Sunday at midnight. Revise until the week closes.

Weekly is the shortest cadence a founder can sustain and the longest the League can wait. A month is long enough to hide a bad stretch. A week is not. Reporting every week turns the season into a record of what you did, and that record is what officials verify, what Scouts read, and what judges interpret as momentum.

The report is also where the League compares you to your cohort. Each sprint week, your score increase minus the cohort's average increase is your Sprint VAA, value added above average. Cumulative VAA across the Playoff sets your rank within the cohort, and that rank is the Traction slice of League Scoring. It means a Stage 0 venture that outbuilds its cohort can out-score a Stage 3 venture on traction. Raw score never decides the Playoff. Progress against your peers does.

Streaks exist because consistency is the best predictor the League has. Four straight weeks earns Consistent, eight earns Dedicated, a full season earns Iron Will. Missing a week never costs points, but it resets the streak and it shows.

1. 1Open Report. Enter units for each metric. Lock in the week.
2. 2You see points per line, your total against last week, whether it is a personal best, and your cohort rank.
3. 3Revise any time before Sunday midnight. Points update with the revision.
4. 4Only report what happened this week. The activity feed shows your cohort what you reported.

Challenges, and why each one exists

A short list per stage. Each pays once. Finish the list and you are Boss Ready.

The challenges are the work that gets a venture from one stage to the next, in the order that works. Stage 0 is about knowing what you are building and for whom. Stage 1 is about being findable and having something to sell. Stage 2 is about asking for money until someone says yes. Stage 3 is about proving people come back. Stage 4 is about building the machine. Each list is short because a short list you finish beats a long list you admire.

Every challenge shows what done looks like, because done has to mean the same thing for every venture in the cohort. A landing page with no call to action is not done. A deck you have never presented is not done. Mark a challenge done when you could show the evidence to an official, and keep the evidence.

Later and N/A exist so honesty is never punished. A Stage 1 challenge that is not the right move yet can wait. A challenge that does not fit your profile can be marked N/A and does not count against Boss Ready.

1. 1Open Challenges. Read what done looks like before you start.
2. 2Work the list. Mark done only what you can prove.
3. 3Use Later for timing and N/A for fit. Reset anything you marked by mistake.

Boss fights, and why an official checks everything

Each boss has one kill shot. Prove it with evidence, an official reviews the whole stage, and you advance with a bonus.

A stage gate has to be defended or it is not a gate. So every boss fight is a verification event. The official checks the kill shot, and then checks everything you claimed at that stage: every challenge marked done and every weekly number. If it holds, you get the ceremony, the bonus, a title, and the next stage with its metrics unlocked and its challenges at a higher rate. If it does not, the official writes the reason, the unprovable items are struck, and a penalty can follow. A previous stage advancement can be reversed.

Audits are public on your profile, and every Scout holding you is notified. That is deliberate. The whole League runs on self-reported numbers, and self-reported numbers only work when everyone knows they will be checked and everyone can see what happened when they were.

The kill shots are chosen because each one is the thing a founder at that stage most wants to avoid. Apathy dies when a stranger cares. Invisibility dies when the public can find you. Money dies when a dollar actually moves. Proven Demand dies when customers come back without being asked. Scale dies when the business can survive eighteen months on its own.

1. 1Gather the proof first: a screenshot, a link, a statement, a recording.
2. 2Submit from Challenges: describe the evidence, attach or link it. PROVEN DEMAND needs three of the five demand signals.
3. 3You can attempt a boss any time you have proof. Most ventures finish the challenges first.
4. 4If it fails, read the reason, fix the record, and submit again when you have the evidence.

Cohorts, Scouts, and League Scoring

You are ranked against ventures that started where you did. Scouts back you with credits. Judges decide the rest.

Cohorts exist because a fair race needs a fair starting line. Your cohort is every venture that started at your stage, and every comparison the League makes, from the dashboard to the Playoff, is within it.

Scouts exist because a venture with people behind it is a stronger venture. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni get $10,000 in play credits (not real money: no Scout ever puts money in or takes money out), hold up to ten ventures, and sell at most 3 times a week. Your price is your Traction Score, so the only way their pick pays is if you build. They are told every time you earn points and every time an audit takes points away. Their aggregate backing feeds the Fan score at live events and the Scout slice of League Scoring. Recruit them.

League Scoring decides the Regional Championships and the State Championship: Judges 60, Traction 30, Scouts 10. Five judges score six criteria from 1 to 5, and the composite normalizes to 60. Traction is your cohort rank on cumulative VAA. The split is deliberate: judges project what you could become, traction proves what you did, Scouts show who believes it.

1. 1Check your cohort rank every week on the dashboard and the Leaderboard.
2. 2Open any venture's public profile from the University tab to see how they are scoring.
3. 3Ask friends, classmates, and alumni to register as Scouts and back you.
4. 4Build your pitch to the six criteria below. You get the rubric in advance. There are no prescribed slides.

Score Sandbox

This runs the League's real scoring engine. Pick a stage, type one week of numbers, tick the challenges you would have done, and watch the Traction Score build. Switch stages to see which metrics unlock and how the rates shift toward the work that matters next.