Pear PFC Fall Cohort 2024 Reflections
Pear VC is a truly unique organization for all founders, especially those at at the Pre-seed or Seed stage. Some of their programs such as PearX can benefit any founder, while other programs are focused on supporting specific groups such as the Female Founder Circles or the Persian Founder Circles (PFC). If you are a founder of Persian/Iranian heritage, I highly recommend you apply to the PFC program. I believe the applications for the Spring 2025 Cohort will go live very soon on Pear’s website. I was part of PFC's Fall 2024 Cohort and here are a few thoughts from my experience.
Overview
The PFC program has many facets, and the Pear team delivered flawlessly on every single one of them. It ran over a 3- to 4-month period, almost every Monday, usually in the late afternoon. It's the kind of program that makes Monday your favorite day of the week as you prepare for the next session in anticipation! You can attend in-person or via Zoom. If you are in the Bay Area, you would absolutely get the most out of the program by attending in-person. If you are in the rest of the world, it’s worth traveling at least a couple of times, to the extent that your time, budget, and logistics allow it. Traveling to PFC is a good opportunity to grow your network in the Bay Area beyond just the people you meet at PFC. If you plan ahead of time and schedule other meetings during the days before or after a PFC session with the rest of the people in your network, it can really help your entrepreneurial journey.
Taking notes
At PFC, you really need to take notes. The organizers are kind enough to send you a link to a video recording at the end of most sessions, but nothing replaces capturing the key thoughts and ideas in your own handwriting. People will rain down pearls of wisdom on you and share lessons they learned the hard way. Every speaker will bestow upon you a piece of knowledge that has the potential of making a huge difference in your startup journey, especially when it comes to avoiding common mistakes. If you are lucky, when you are facing the same choice (or challenge) they faced, you might remember the words you heard and the notes you took, and hopefully you can avoid a pitfall.
Topics
The variety of topics covered will help you whether you are a 1st time entrepreneur or a repeat one. Most speakers had very compelling personal stories and anecdotes that illustrated their perspectives and ideas in a memorable fashion. There was a plethora of subjects including go-to-market strategies, ideas worth pursuing, the essentials of corporate law and startup banking, bottom-up thinking, understanding the market, customer focus, sales, non-verbal communication skills, pitching, hiring, trends in AI, and practically anything else you need to pay attention to as you build your company. The Pear team did not leave any stone unturned.
People
The best thing about the program is of course the people. The quality of the people at PFC was absolutely through the roof. The organizing team at Pear, the PFC Cohort participants, the speakers, the guests, the partners, absolutely EVERYBODY was kind, caring, and knowledgeable. Everybody I met was highly accomplished and extremely generous with their time and assistance no matter what question or what request I had. The program was run with perfect execution in every way, from the choice of speakers, to subjects covered, to opportunities to interact. Everything was top notch!
The PFC organizing team was led by a powerful duo: Roya Soleimani and Athena Shiravi. They are smart, resourceful, articulate, and caring beyond imagination. They had organized a phenomenal lineup of speakers and guests, including of course Pejman and Mar themselves.
One of the most fascinating aspects of PFC is that you can see and feel how Pejman is giving back to his community something of huge value with pride, energy, time, money, and focus. He is a man who is deeply aware of his roots and his inspiring personal journey, and he shares it with you candidly.
In closing, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the following people:
领英推荐
As for my fellow Cohort members, I will cheer you on from the sidelines and I can’t wait to see the category-defining companies you build.
And of course, there is always an open invitation to grab a fine coffee in Pasadena if you find yourself on my turf!
Associate Engineer at City of San José
3 个月This is amazing. Thank you Kaveh for sharing.
Founder, Winner Comms, wedding officiant at Winner Weddings by Roya. Formerly at Meta, Google, & Google.org.
3 个月Kaveh Jaan - this is AMAZING and one of the most thorough, thoughtful, and d reflective recaps I’ve seen to date. You were a phenomenal part of the program, and I’m so happy to hear that it was impactful for you. Looking forward to celebrating your work for years to come.
Founding Managing Partner at Pear
3 个月Kaveh, thank you for the most thoughtful note about PFC. We are proud of this amazing community and I am glad you are now our PFC ambassador!??
Partner at Pear VC
3 个月Thank you for sharing your reflections. ?
University Instructor| Researcher| Technology Assessment| Mentor
3 个月Kaveh jan, so good to see you haven't changed and by looking at the photos I easily could spot you, still look young and energetic. ??