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Tech Topics In This Article: startup accelerators, early-stage founders
Ian Scott Cohen, a tech startup founder and former educator, just launched 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽 to help give more founders with great ideas a “clear on-ramp into entrepreneurship.”
Unlike traditional startup programs focused on founders with proven venture-backable potential, The Founder Underground Bootcamp targets a critical gap in the ecosystem: supporting entrepreneurs at the earliest stages of their journey.
“I’ve worked with a lot of founders, and there are consistent gaps preventing them from developing promising ventures,” Cohen shared. “It’s not always about funding or connections—it’s about missing fundamental steps like customer discovery, problem validation, and sales.”
Inside The Founder Underground
The first program is self-paced and split into two phases. On top of weekly webinar trainings, founders in the program get access to private expert podcasts on different topics as well as exercises and templates designed to help participants go out and start validating their idea.
The second part of the bootcamp is focused more on founders who might be struggling getting their product into a repeatable sales cycle, Cohen added.
Founders can also opt-in to more one-on-one coaching sessions throughout the bootcamp.
Cohen intentionally designed the bootcamp without a flashy Demo Day finale, a hallmark of many accelerators. Instead, the focus is on sustainable business practices and consistent execution.
“Success is less about big ‘aha!’ moments and more about executing small foundational steps with discipline,” he added.
“What founders truly need is a clear, structured pathway,” he explained. “By the end of it, [founders] are going to walk away knowing exactly how to validate their idea and turn it into a business or a nonprofit and then have the mindset to actually go out and make it happen.”
“This bootcamp is also meant to serve as the first step towards building comprehensive training & developmental pipeline founders can move through systematically, progressing from idea validation to investment to profits and sustainability, with clear structure and guidance along the way – regardless of whether you are building a small business, a non-profit, or a venture-scale startup,” Cohen added.
Addressing Fear in Entrepreneurship
For Cohen, the founder’s mindset is as important as their business model. And that is why he said it is important that the bootcamp helps founders build confidence, focus, and resilience.
“The failure of most ventures starts in the founder’s head—how they deal with fear, fear of being wrong, or looking dumb,” he said. This fear often prevents founders from questioning their assumptions or seeking help, something that Cohen said he experienced firsthand while building companies.
Through The Founder Underground, Cohen wants to instill what he calls the “founder psyche.”
“It’s about being self-aware, curious, resourceful, and resilient. Mental health conversations in the startup world are often crisis-oriented. But what about training founders to make these qualities a strength ahead of time?” he added.
Why Atlanta, Why Now
A graduate of Emory University and an alumni of the Teach For America program, Cohen went on to found both non-profits and tech-based companies. He was the Co-Founder and Executive Director at Next Generation Men & Women, an organization aimed at inspiring and supporting historically underserved students through professional exposure, before serving as the Fellowship Co-Director at Atlanta’s Center for Civic Innovation. Hypepotamus readers will know Cohen from his work building up TARA Education Technologies, a SaaS teaching assistant platform that went through Techstars Impact in 2023.
He also served as a Performance Partner with Goodie Nation & Google’s Tech Equity Collective, working with over one hundred founders along their journey.
The Founder Underground Bootcamp is a culmination of Cohen’s background as a teacher, entrepreneur, and program leader. And he sees building a program like this in Atlanta as an opportunity to help grow the city’s startup and innovation ecosystem. It also might help Atlanta reach its lofty goal of producing 2,000 new startups a year and becoming a Top 5 Tech Hub in the country.
“Atlanta’s startup ecosystem has been growing at an incredible pace,” Cohen said. “But with that growth comes the need for a more organized and accessible point of entry for aspiring entrepreneurs.”
