FourthBox Bootcamp 2.0
Thirteen founders. A remote island. What could go right?
We took thirteen venture-backed founders to a remote island in the Finnish archipelago. It sounds like the setup for the next Knives Out — but what actually happened was much better: four days of workshops, peer learning, hard conversations and rethinking what comes next.
Building a company is lonely work. What makes FourthBox different is that founders realize they’re not alone — every challenge they’re wrestling with, someone else in the room has already faced. Coaches Anna, Clint, Marjorie, Marten and I helped guide those conversations, and our event coordinator Anton kept the whole operation running smoothly. Most founder conferences send you home with a tote bag and a hangover. FourthBox sends you home with conviction and a plan.
More Diverse Attendees, More Stage Consistency
This year’s attendees were quite diverse with 5 women founders and 8 men with a mix of nationalities: American, Chinese, Finnish, French, Irish, Swiss and more.
All of the companies were B2B businesses within a range of roughly $5 million to $30m in revenue. This was a more narrow band than last year and led to a higher degree of coherence. Many founders are going through the same growth challenges. How do I scale our culture? How do I think about our category and competition? How do I make my company more AI native? How do I prioritize my time? When should I delegate? How do I up level my team?
About 75% of the program was determined in advance based on our attendee surveys. Although we deviated from the program when necessary, I personally felt more prepared (and less jet lagged!) this year. For a couple of workshops we split into two groups, which enabled founders to pick the topic most relevant to their current situation and stage.
Coach Anna Binder, who worked as Chief People Officer in several high growth startups, had a major role in shaping the program. She also worked her magic to build an environment of high-trust within the first hour, which set the stage for maximum learning.
More Focus on Sales, Speed Coaching
There were two significant changes in the program based on feedback and observations from last year. First of all, we added a clear sign-up process for one-on-one speed coaching instead of the ad-hoc process we used previously. Founders could schedule time with any coach based on their area of expertise. By having a signup sheet and designated slots, we ensured that people could dive deeper into their particular challenges. We were immediately oversubscribed for coaching sessions.
While it made for a long day for the coaches, it enabled us to go much deeper and provide specific guidance on the exact circumstances founders face. Several attendees told me these were among the most valuable sessions of the bootcamp since it enabled them to develop specific action plans.
The second change was to bring in a coach who was more steeped in building the sales function. While several of the coaches have run sales, we don’t live and breathe that function the way a career sales leader does.
We were fortunate to be able to entice one of the foremost experts in this area by inviting Marjorie Janiewicz, CRO of Mistral. Marjorie has had a decades-long career in sales at startups and has seen the range of motions from product-led growth, SMB, Mid-market and Enterprise sales. She has built teams, hit quota, hired, fired, and is humble enough to share the mistakes lessons learned along the way.
I don’t think our founders had ever seen the kind of passion, leadership and brainpower that Marjorie brings to Sales. The audience was rapt, throwing out a wide range of questions, taking notes and learning from the best. Marjorie’s sessions ran overtime demonstrating just how much appetite there was.
For technical founders, there was a deeper appreciation for a methodical well-thought strategy to scaling sales. Sales is not just a tactical side quest. It is the lifeblood of any successful company. One founder said she had never realized you could bring a scientific approach to sales. It gave her confidence that should could make these ideas work in her very technical organization.
What Makes It Work?
Many of the founders said they had attended other larger founder conferences and put FourthBox in its own category. It’s a small group, by design, and focused as much on peer learning as from the coaches. There are no big stage presentations, slides or lectures. It’s a hands-on approach, working through issues together.
The Finnish archipelago is a unique location, but not easy to get to. We’ve chosen that over Napa, Santa Cruz or other Bay Area locations precisely because it is remote and isolated. We are there for one purpose: help founders with the toughest issues they face.
Being alone on an island eliminates a large number of distractions. There are no board members, investors, co-founders, colleagues, or outsiders which leads to a high degree of openness. Founders are spending time with peers who are going through or have already dealt with many of the same issues.
We had some afternoon and evening activities including kayaking, boating, (very) cold evening plunges in the Baltic Sea and three types of sauna. These activities help create deeper bonds and often end up becoming extended bull sessions.
Most founders coming from the US spent the first part of the week elsewhere in Europe meeting with customers or partners. That helped lessen the travel burden.
We may not always choose Finland for this event, but picking a location with few external distractions helps get founders out of their element and focused. We will investigate other locations to determine where we can find the perfect balance of nature, camaraderie and outdoors.
Four days on a remote island won’t solve everything. But being in the right place with the right people solves more than any of us hoped.
The FourthBox is a not-for-profit and we run on a break-even budget (most of the time.) I’m grateful to our venture sponsors who have made this possible: Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and Atomico. I’m also grateful to our coaches and founders who all took the extraordinary leap of faith to participate.