A home for founders on
day 0
Pioneers receive $20,000, join a 2-month remote accelerator program, spend a month together in Silicon Valley, and much more.
Pioneer Offer
Kickstart your company
Select founders receive the Pioneer Offer: up to $20k, mentorship, a community of fellow founders, and a two-month accelerator program.
1% to become a Pioneer
1% of your company for all of the Pioneer benefits below
or
2% for an additional $20,000
2% of your company for all of the Pioneer benefits below, including $20k
2-month remote accelerator
Regularly meet with an advisor and a small group of Pioneers
Trip to Silicon Valley
Build alongside other Pioneers for 1 month or longer
Amazon Web Services
$25,000 in AWS credits
Github
$1,000/mo in GitHub Enterprise credits for 2 years
Segment
$50,000 in Segment credits
Mixpanel
$50,000 in Mixpanel credits for 1 year
Plaid
Up to $3,500/mo in Plaid credits for 6 months
Mixmax
Free Mixmax Small Business for 1 year
Sendgrid
$5,000 in Twilio Sendgrid credits
Airtable
$2,000 in Airtable credits
Vercel
$1,200 in Vercel credits, 10% off forever
Meet the Pioneers
Join a network of 200+ founders in 50+ countries
Pioneers have joined the Tournament with as little as an idea and a handful of GitHub commits,
and have collectively gone on to raise over $100M.
“I've been dying for a community like this forever. This company is taking off and I attribute it 100% to Pioneer.”
Sacha Schermerhorn
“Pioneer is excellent. You’ll find the real builders there. The tournament and accelerator were my chance as a relative outsider to break in and build the highest leverage relationships I have ever had in my career.”
Erik Dunteman
“I’m actually shocked how good Pioneer is. When we think about random people on the Internet giving feedback to other people, normally you think of something very toxic, but Pioneer is very nice. Everybody gives very useful feedback on a week to week basis, it’s really amazing. And it’s definitely shaped a lot of the decisions we have made. And made me think about product much better.”
Rahul Tarak
“I got into YC! I wouldn’t have applied if not for validation from the Pioneer Tournament, so thanks again for making it!”
Tshepo Mohlala
“This journey has been nothing less than amazing. Even though the past couple of weeks were rough, this group was essential for my survival (mentally and otherwise). Thank you for that!”
Sherif Ali
“Pioneer has been a great productivity hack for us. As an early stage startup founder it’s hard to get a benchmark for how you’re doing relative to your peers. Matching up head-to-head weekly is a great way to assess your progress. I like to describe it as “the hunger games crossed with a todo list.””
Brad Dwyer
“I did Pioneer with Clearcall and it was the best decision I made in 2019. Highly recommended.”
Justin Glibert
“You don't know how awesome the Pioneer community is before joining their Slack!”
Sam Abrika
“Pioneer is one of the most high-leverage things I’ve done in my life. And my favorite community.”
Julia Wu
“Pioneer has changed the trajectory of my startup and my life. Through incremental and subtly powerful means it forces you to develop precisely the primary quality of a good founder — relentless resourcefulness for executing on the things that matter. Highly recommend.”
Alex Gunnarson
“It's basically my favorite thing on the internet.”
Everett Berry
“Pioneer is definitely in the top 3 things to ever happen to my life so I’m a huge fan!”
Arsalan Bashir
“It all started with Pioneer. They were the first ones who believed in Peek. It opened up so many doors with future users, investors & partners and what's more - I've made life long friends with incredible people.”
Deborah Igunma
“Pioneer has been great for me. You will absolutely find yourself working harder. You will find yourself working on a Sunday evening because you haven't yet completed the tasks that you said you would in last week's progress report. Accountability + gamification + incentives is a powerful way to boost productivity.”
Dave Jeffery
“Pioneer has given us the best peer group we've ever had.”
Esteban Vargas
“Coming from where I come from, this really is a life changing opportunity (a lot bigger than you can imagine!). It’s also helped inspire other people from my neighbourhood to actually apply (most count themselves out because they don’t think people like us can get this stuff)!”
Adaobi Adibe
“I literally started by myself in my living room in April and the only reason we are here is because of Pioneer. Jason saw the pitch and he invited us to LAUNCH [accelerator] because of it, so thank you.”
Karen Serfaty
“I can’t emphasize enough how crucial Pioneer was in our early days, even before we were a startup. We’d have probably died early on without Pioneer’s support, the amazing founder community, and the accountability of the tournament.”
David Nandwa
“The journey so far wasn't easy... but Pioneer has been instrumental in all our progress so far - both before and after becoming a Pioneer. A heartfelt thanks to the entire team and the community for making it happen.”
Shred Vepencheri
“It’s been insanely helpful, and I really dig the vision of finding people who aren’t on the standard trajectory.”
Jake Cooper
“If you are plagued with the disease of needing to start a company, there is no better hospital than Pioneer. The community of mature builders is top notch and the most intentionally diverse collective you can find today.”
Leonard Bogdonoff
“Pioneer was one of the first supporters of what I was doing early on. Pioneer helped me go from a hacker to a company.”
Luke Barwikowski
“Pioneer is an amazing thing. It indeed takes the idea of an accelerator online, and makes it available for people all around the world. I love the regular feedback, love to see what other fellow Pioneers do, and learn from them. Highly recommend it for any early-stage startup!”
Andriy Bas
“Joining Pioneer was the best thing we've done as a company.”
Matthew Johnson
Mentorship
Get practical advice
You’ll have support from our network of advisors & the Pioneer team.
Check out these clips from past sessions:
Jeff Weinstein
Articulating your problem
Daniel Gross
Product feedback
Calvin French-Owen
Focusing on distribution vs. product
Summit
Spend a month with other Pioneers IRL
Pioneers travel to Silicon Valley for 1 month together.
We plan a light schedule—dinners, talks with successful founders, etc.—designed to help you make real progress.
