ZFellows

🪙 Quick Facts

• Type: Fellowship with optional $10,000 investment at $1B valuation cap
• Eligibility: Open to everyone (students, high school dropouts, people with full-time jobs)
• Format: One week, in person in San Francisco
• Schedule: Rolling applications, cohorts run every other month per year
• Location: Global program, can participate from anywhere
• Team: Solo founders or teams welcome (one application per team)
• Contact: team@zfellows.com or text Cory Levy 650-505-9984

👀 Mission

“Z Fellows are technical builders of all ages working on side projects and startups. We are your first believer. We’ve worked with high school dropouts, college students, and people with full-time jobs across a variety of industries, including consumer, social, enterprise, defense, healthcare, edtech, fintech, gaming, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, crypto, AI, ML, climate, biotech, and more. When in doubt, apply. We are all winging it :)”

💰 Funding Details

• Investment Terms:

  • Option to participate with or without funding
  • $10,000 investment available at $1B valuation cap
  • Investment converts to equity at your next priced round

• Company Status:

  • No existing company required
  • Help available with company formation
  • Can apply with side projects or full-time ventures

• Reapplication: Welcome to reapply if previously rejected

📝 Application Guide

The core piece of advice most fellows of the program share, is to not give up if you're initially passed on. Many people who end up getting accepted to the program, are rejected after the application and interview but are asked to continue sending updates. This isn't a confirmed pipeline, but it seems like it might be a way for the team to better understand how you make progress over time and what the speed of iteration looks like on your part.

Application Questions

Current Status

• Are you in school or working? Or both? Where at?

Project & Vision

• What is the project you are currently working on or would like to pursue? (500 chars)
• What problem are you solving? (500 chars)
• What expertise do you have to execute on the work? (500 chars)
• Who are your competitors and what do you understand that they don't? (500 chars)

Experience

• What have you worked on in the past? (500 chars)

Personal

• What's the nerdiest thing about you? (250 chars)
• What drives you? (250 chars)
• What non-traditional things were you doing growing up?
• Tell us about a risk you've taken or a challenge you've faced (500 chars)

Additional Information

• Personal and/or Project Website Links
• Achievements and prizes
• 1-minute video introduction (Optional)
• Who would you co-found with from your network? (excluding current co-founder)
• What's 1 thing you need help with? (Optional, 500 chars)

📻 Interview-Prep Resources

After submitting your application, you might be asked to hop on a short 10m interview call with Cory or Baylor. Both are friendly and interested in hearing more about what you're building - it's nothing to be stressed about! Share what you're working on, why you're excited about it, how you came across the problem space, etc. It's a normal interview. No crazy curveballs.

• Inside ZFellows with Ali Debow
• ZFellows Announcement/Back Story
• What the Most Ambitious Gen Zers Think is Coming

Additional Resources

• ZFellows Blog
• ZFellows Twitter
• Program FAQ