About us
Placeholder Ventures is a cohort-based accelerator designed to help the world's best engineers build companies by matching them with compelling vertical SaaS opportunities, ensuring 100% of funded teams reach profitability within two years.
The team behind Placeholder Ventures has educated over 20,000 engineers from hundreds of tech companies. Using our collective experience and networks, we attract engineers at scale to run an intense founder selection and matching process spanning 12 weeks. Our approach makes learning to build a SaaS company seem like learning a new technology.
During the cohort experience, top engineers choose from high-potential vertical SaaS opportunities and achieve key customer exploration milestones. The goal of the intensive phase of Placeholder Ventures’ program is to uncover their ability to execute, their founder-market fit, and their ability to build teams with complementary skill sets.
By the end of this twelve-week intensive, successful teams are funded and transition to growth, leveraging Placeholder Ventures’ playbooks and resources to rapidly prototype, iterate and scale.
How we are different
Founder recruitment
While other accelerators and studios rely on a short application and interview process with limited accuracy, Placeholder Ventures has a more rigorous selection process.
Experienced engineers apply to discover vetted business ideas, learn about sales, and meet potential co-founders. Our structured approach is familiar and comfortable for engineers while providing Placeholder Ventures a detailed understanding of strengths in customer exploration, go-to-market strategy, product design and rapid shipping.
Founder/market fit
Founders often have limited visibility and experience with problems in different industries. They tend to build what they know, even if it's not what the market wants. This is why Placeholder Ventures has created a playbook for uncovering and matching technical founders to real customer problems.
By exposing teams to a variety of high-potential market opportunities, we help them find a customer problem they are obsessed with and build a solution that meets the demands of the market.
We also provide founders with early anchor customers and access to C-suite executives administering billion-dollar budgets. Founders begin working together early on to ensure they are aligned, committed, and have a healthy operating relationship.
Shared resources and GTM playbook
Our idea- and go-to-market playbooks save founders six months of execution time. We guide teams through a proven go-to-market playbook, providing guard rails and clear expectations to reliably launch profitable companies. We also provide support across operations, legal and hiring. Teams prototype using low-code platforms in order to efficiently iterate toward product-market fit and accelerate the path to profitability.
Our Process
We run cohorts that include both remote and geographically-clustered teams of part-time and full-time engineers. Founders experience a three-month bootcamp that includes several phases, including customer problem and team matching, weekly GTM milestones, and culminating with a virtual demo day and investment decision.
All teams receive an initial budget of $5,000, and successful teams receive an investment of $200,000, and graduate to the growth phase of our program, during which we’ll continue to monitor and support teams as they grow to reach $1MM+ in Annual Recurring Revenue.
FAQ
Can I apply to Placeholder Ventures if I already have an idea I want to work on?
If the idea passes our idea validation framework, yes.
Can I apply if I want to work 100% remotely?
Absolutely. We are remote first and design our programs with remote collaboration in mind.
Can I apply as a solo founder?
Yes — we will help you find a co-founder or co-founding team with a complementary skill set.
Can I apply as a non-technical founder?
We are only accepting technical founders at this time.
Do all founding teams get funded at the end of the program?
Each team receives a starting budget of $5,000 to get them up and running, but the $200,000 investment is contingent on meeting go-to-market milestones.
Can I bring my own team to Placeholder Ventures instead of participating in the co-founder matching process?
Yes, if you have a team who you already work well with, you are encouraged to apply as a group.
What specific industries within vertical SaaS does Placeholder Ventures focus on?
We do not focus on any one particular industry. Our idea- and go-to-market playbooks are industry agnostic.
How can I get in touch?
Please email hello@placeholderventures.com. We respond quickly.