Free · Online · 5-Session Intensive
A free 10-hour sprint for Marie Curie Actions alumni — from customer interviews to a completed Y Combinator application, in five consecutive Thursday sessions.
Apply nowApplications close August 31, 2026
Startup Foundations for MC Alumni is a free online course covering customer discovery, minimum viable product, what Y Combinator looks for, and writing a competitive accelerator application — delivered in five consecutive Thursday sessions.
It follows Paul Graham's approach, adapted for people with deep research expertise. The format is designed for MC alumni who are already moving and want a structured sprint to a completed YC application, not a semester-long programme.
By the end of five sessions, you will have learned a methodology to stress test your startup idea following Y Combinator's (and Paul Graham's) philosophy. You will also have drafted your startup application for Y Combinator, or a comparable accelerator, that I hope you will submit. Depending on your effort and your peers', you may also experience the structure and feeling of a mock YC interview and the evaluation of your startup application.
The course is free. There is no equity ask, no upsell, and no commercial angle for participants.
This course is for Marie Curie Actions alumni who are curious about entrepreneurship and ready to move quickly. The intensive format suits people who already have a direction — or at least a strong instinct — and want structured accountability to develop it.
Places are limited to 10 participants. Applications are reviewed for genuine curiosity and domain expertise — not for how polished the idea is. The course gives you the most back when you attend every session and complete the pre-work. If you miss a session or arrive without the interviews done, you can still participate — you will simply take less from what you missed.
Each session runs two hours. Every session ends with an assignment that feeds directly into the next one. There are no off weeks — the course runs five consecutive Thursdays.
Conduct three 20–30 minute interviews with people in your research domain. Use the Mom Test template provided after acceptance. Write one paragraph per interview: who you spoke to, what they said, what surprised you. Bring your notes to Session 1 — the first 45 minutes of Session 1 are built around what you heard.
Mindset shift from researcher to founder · Research as your competitive moat · Interview debrief: what the group heard across 45–60 interviews · Name your idea in 50 characters
Pivot, persist, or kill — group decisions · The Mom Test: how to run interviews that produce real data · Do Things That Don't Scale: the manual-first principle · Finding your first 10 users via referral chain
What an MVP actually is (concierge, Wizard of Oz) · What traction looks like before you have a product · What YC actually weights and in what order · Founder-market fit for MC fellows
Storytelling for researchers: narrative arc without the academic trap · YC application questions decoded one by one · Guest speaker: someone who has been through the process · Live writing workshop: rewrite your weakest answer in session
Mock YC interviews — 10 minutes per direction in breakout pairs · Full group debrief: what landed, what did not · What happens next: YC application timeline, Curie Ventures Cohort 0
Your instructor
The course is organized and taught by Filippo Neri (filippo.neri.email@gmail.com). I am a researcher in computer science (Machine learning / AI) since 1997, working in the Italian academic system with stints abroad and in industrial R&D centres.
I held a Marie Curie fellowship from 2000 to 2002 in artificial intelligence — building software agents to model customer behavior. After my fellowship, I became curious about Silicon Valley and applied to Y Combinator. I was not accepted. In 2016 I started a company in Italy using my personal savings. It did not find market fit and eventually closed.
I built this course because I went through the process without any of the preparation it teaches. The mistakes I made are well-documented. The course is what I would have needed before I applied.
Marie Curie Fellow · AI / Software Agents · 2000–2002
You need to complete three customer discovery interviews — 20 to 30 minutes each — with people in your research domain. After acceptance, you receive a one-page interview guide and a note-taking template. Total time commitment: 2 to 4 hours, including writing up your notes. The interviews do not need to be polished or formal. You are exploring a problem, not pitching a product.
That is fine. The pre-work guide walks you through how to ask for an interview, what questions to ask, and what to listen for. The Mom Test principle — ask about their life, not your idea — is simple enough to apply on your first attempt. Most people find their first interview easier than they expected.
No. The course is free. There is no equity ask and no fee. You will not be asked to join any program, fund, or organization as a condition of participating.
Not a polished one. The pre-work interviews are designed to help you find or sharpen one before Session 1. If you have a vague instinct about a problem in your field — a workflow that is broken, a tool that does not exist, a gap in how research gets applied — that is enough to start. The interviews will tell you whether the instinct is worth developing.
Sessions are not recorded. There is no buffer — each session feeds directly into the next, and the mock YC interview in Session 5 requires the YC application draft from Session 4. If your schedule has any significant risk of a Thursday conflict between September 10 and October 8, do not apply for this cohort.
No. The YC application is the course's structured output — a concrete artifact that forces clear thinking about your company. You can apply to YC, to another accelerator, or to nothing at all. The application is a tool for sharpening your thinking, not a commitment to any particular path.
Yes. The three-year minimum exists to ensure participants have had time to experience the post-fellowship gap the course addresses. There is no upper limit.
No, you cannot apply. The three-year minimum exists to ensure participants have had time to experience the post-fellowship gap the course addresses.
18:00–20:00 Central European Time is 12:00–14:00 US Eastern Time, and 09:00–11:00 US Pacific Time. The course is EU-primary in its scheduling. US-based participants on the East Coast can join; West Coast participants will need to join at 9am local time.
With your permission, your application will be considered for the next available cohort. We will contact you when applications open again.
Free · 10 hours · 5 weekly sessions · Thursdays 18:00–20:00 CET · September 10 – October 8, 2026
Start your applicationApplications close August 31, 2026 · 20 places · Notifications by September 4