ZFellows Experience

How I Discovered ZFellows

My ZFellows Experience was life-changing. I can’t imagine how got into it. Just completely random Twitter surfing got me into it.

I saw Matt Espinoza’s Tweet one day related to ZFellows and got interested in the program and applied to it.

Timeline

I applied to it on 3 Mar’22. Here is a copy of my application: ZFellows Application

I received an email from Cory on 10 Mar’22 asking me to schedule an Interview using his Calendly.

The Interview was only 10-15 minutes long. Cory’s Calendly only gives you 10-minute slots. So, make complete good use of the 10 minutes.

I made use of the tips which Matt Espinoza told me:

Focus on the problem-solution statement during the call of your company. Cory tends to back founders more than companies, so make sure your "founder proposition" is clear.

Send Cory all the company details (deck, website, traction)

The interview took place on 22 March’22. For the first 3-4 minutes, I just talked about my company and myself. At the beginning of the presentation, I focused on the company and on the latter part on my personal story. And the rest of the time, Cory asked me questions about the company, the metrics, the problems, the plan, and the future.

Then right after the interview, as Matt suggested, I mailed him the Deck along with some more details for his reference.

And I got the acceptance email on 9 May’22

The cohort ran from Mar 15 - Mar 20. The calls happened at about 1:30am / 2:00am IST so it was a lot tiring for me but it was so so worth it.

The Cohort Experience

It started with an introductory meeting where we introduced ourselves and our project. And also we played a fun game and Cory introduced us to the structure of the cohort. The cohort runs for 1 week. We will meet 3-4 times in the whole week.

In each meeting, the first half will be led by a $100M+ company founder. He/she will come and talk about their story and in the end, we can ask them some questions.

After the founder leaves, in the second half of the meeting 2 people from the cohort came in and presented their projects and got feedback and questions from everyone else.

So, like Cory said we met and talked with some mind-blowing founders like Ankur Nagapal (Founder of Teachable) and also our fantastic batchmates from Ivy League and other top-tier colleges building groundbreaking products.

It was a great learning experience. Hearing about stories, the kind of questions are posed, and the level of feedback back was amazing to see. I also got invaluable feedback for DevKit from my batchmates.

The Benefits

$10K Investment

Only in companies registered as Delaware C Corp

Investment happens through a SAFE similar to the one used by YCombinator

Cory/ZFellows get stocks based on the next priced round so you are giving away a tiny amount of equity

$10K AWS Credits

The amazing community of Ivy League and top-tier students and graduates, amazing professionals, PhD students, and more!

The connection to Cory Levy

He can help you to raise more money
He can help you in resolving some doubts or you can ask him a few questions
He can introduced you to other people like the people listed on the ZFellows website (AngelList, Tinder, Figma founders and the likes) if you want

Conclusion

You can apply to ZFellows as many time as you want. If you are building a product or a company or just have a really great idea, just document it, flesh it out a bit, and then apply to ZFellows.

You will get to be a part of a global community that will lift you up. Go for it!