FORGE YOUR PATH TO product-market fit
Unusual Academy offers an elite, hand-picked cohort of founders the opportunity to receive personalized mentorship from top enterprise software founders and investors alongside an in-depth curriculum, accelerating their path to product-market fit.
Applications Open
Fall 2025 Cohort Details
Teams should be 2 - 4 members with at least 1 technical co-founder.
Our terms are simple: Uncapped SAFE for up to $1M in your next financing and a 3% program fee.
All participating teams will be invited to remain in the Unusual Ventures community following the program.
Our Academy is not another multi-week, check-the-box program. It’s a one-week, intensive program in the Bay Area from November 17-21, 2025, where the concepts and tactics run counter to the conventional advice provided by VC led accelerator programs.
Early application deadline: Friday, September 12th — apply by this date and you’ll hear back from us by the end of September.
Final application deadline: Friday, September 26th — apply by this date and you’ll hear back by early October.
Decisions delivered: First or second week of October.
Investment
Up to $1M uncapped SAFE
Date
November 17-21, 2025
Location
Menlo Park, CA
Added Perks
Speakers
Learn from Industry Leaders
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Curriculum
Expert guidance on your path from insight to product-market fit
Day
1
From Insight to Product-Market Fit
Founders learn the Unusual Way to PMF built and proven by Jyoti Bansal and John Vrionis. Learn how many of the most successful enterprise software startups of the past 20 years executed in the early days and how to apply it to your startup. Jyoti and John cover the very best practices for customer discovery including ICP iteration, finding and working with the right design partners, and how to prioritize your product roadmap.
Day
2
Building an AI Startup
Functional leaders and founders from the top AI startups dive deeply into the topics of pricing, partnerships, resources, hiring, new tools and how to approach funding."
Day
3
Managing, Hiring, Leadership & Fundraising
We focus on essential management, hiring, leadership and fundraising skills for early stage founders. Collaborate and learn from seasoned founders and leaders like Don Faul, Andy Rachleff and Abhi Sharma about how they’ve learned to hire, manage, lead and fundraise. Wrap up by pitching in front of the cohort and famous guest investors to receive real-time feedback.
Outstanding outcomes
Some of the founders who’ve been through our Academy curriculum and have gone on to build category-defining companies like Pinterest, Notion, and Databricks.
The Unusual Academy is an incredible catalyst for an early stage startup. The sessions from retired military veterans, storytelling leaders and later stage investors made it such a standout and unique experience.
Matthew Darrow
CEO of Vivun
In our first meetings with John he said, 'Hands off the keyboard - no coding'. Our young team was startled but that got us to learn more about our customers and do fast prototyping before doing hard engineering. The program with John was like that meeting, nothing but a masterclass on navigating PMF. Super helpful for my journey as an entrepreneur.
Ishan Sharma
Co-founder & CEO, SellScale
Founders of iconic companies have learned from the experts who built Unusual Academy
We partnered with Unusual from day one. From finding PMF to scaling GTM, Unusual helped us build at every step.
Sanjay Nagaraj
Co-founder, Traceable
If you are thinking of starting a company, especially as a builder or engineer, Unusual provides the best resources to start your journey.
Phil Vander Broek
Co-Founder, Dopt
Unusual deeply understands how to build open source startups. For us, the choice for our Seed investor was easy.
Andre Zayarni
Co-founder, Qdrant
Hear from our team and founders about Unusual Academy
We provide more than $1m in credits from top providers like Microsoft Azure, OpenAI, and more.
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FAQ
Who is eligible for this program?
Any founder who is starting a company is eligible to apply to Unusual Academy. Most companies have not raised any money prior to Unusual Academy, but in some cases companies have raised up to $2M at the time when we make our investment.
Is this program for founders based anywhere in the world?
Unusual Academy is for companies incorporated in the United States. The sessions are in person so you must be able to attend the full week of curriculum in Menlo Park, CA.
How far along does my company need to be for me to apply?
No idea is too early! We welcome teams at any stage from idea to prototype to production to apply to the program.
How much time will I need to commit to the program?
This is a week long program from November 17th - 21st, in-person in Menlo Park, CA.
What happens after Academy ends?
Every participant of Unusual Academy is invited to continue to indefinitely engage with the entire Unusual team including former Academy participants and the entire portfolio community. We host continuing education events with world class speakers, offer office hours with the investment Partners, provide office space for meetings, and welcome future participation in Academy events.
When will applications be reviewed and decisions made?
We will review applications and make decisions on a rolling basis. Key Dates are as follows:
- Early application deadline: Friday, September 12th — apply by this date and you’ll hear back from us by the end of September.
- Final application deadline: Friday, September 26th — apply by this date and you’ll hear back by early October.
- Decisions delivered: First or second week of October.
How much do you invest?
Uncapped SAFE for up to $1M in your next financing and a 3% program fee.