Arc is a
company building immersion for outlier founders
Applications for Arc Spring '24 are now closed.
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Applications for the Fall cohort will open in July.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

7 weeks of foundational curriculum designed to catalyze your business.
WEEK
WEEK
1
April 22-24
NYC

Outliers

What makes an outlier?
Immerse yourself in the mindsets of those who dare to build legendary companies. Uncover your own motivations and the scale of your ambition.

1
WEEK
2
May 1
Virtual

Customer

Who are you building for?
See how customer obsession is the underlying foundation of all great companies. Learn how to deepen your understanding of your own customer.

2
WEEK
3
May 8
Virtual

Product

How do you build great products?
Learn how to set a product mission that transforms your customers’ lives and establish the right metrics, strategy and tactics to build winning products with speed.

3
WEEK
4
May 13-15
LA

GTM & CULTURE

How are you different, not merely better?
Learn how to position your breakthrough to customers, partners and talent.

4
WEEK
5
May 22
Virtual

Business

How do you create enduring value?
Understand the fundamental structures of your market and how you orientate your business and cap table for the long term.

5
WEEK
6
May 29
Virtual

STORY

How does it all fit together?
Take the time to distill foundational learnings and weave them into your cohesive company story.

6
WEEK
7
Jun 3-5
Menlo Park

BEND THE ARC

How will you be a magnet?
Learn how to inspire others to your vision. Share your final presentations with a community of partners, founders, customers and talent ready to help.

7

JESS LEE

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Founder and CEO of KLARNA

Kevin Systrom

Founder of Instagram

Mike Krieger

Founder of Instagram

Lynn Jurich

Co-Founder and former CEO of Sunrun

ROELOF BOTHA

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Miki Kuusi

CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International

Ivan Zhao

Founder and CEO of NOTION

SUMAIYA BALBALE

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Ilkka Paananen

CEO of Supercell

NOLAN BUSHNELL

Founder and CEO of ATARI

Derek Muller

Creator of Youtube Channel, Veritasium

JESS LEE

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Founder and CEO of KLARNA

Kevin Systrom

Founder of Instagram

Mike Krieger

Founder of Instagram

Lynn Jurich

Co-Founder and former CEO of Sunrun

ROELOF BOTHA

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Miki Kuusi

CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International

Ivan Zhao

Founder and CEO of NOTION

SUMAIYA BALBALE

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Ilkka Paananen

CEO of Supercell

NOLAN BUSHNELL

Founder and CEO of ATARI

Derek Muller

Creator of Youtube Channel, Veritasium

GUEST SPEAKERS

A sampling of past and current teachers and speakers

JESS LEE

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Founder and CEO of Klarna

Kevin Systrom

Founder of Instagram

Lynn Jurich

Co-Founder and former CEO of Sunrun

ROELOF BOTHA

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

Ivan Zhao

Founder and CEO of NOTION

Miki Kuusi

CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International

Alfred LIN

PARTNER AT SEQUOIA

SUMAIYA BALBALE

Operating Partner AT SEQUOIA

Ilkka Paananen

CEO of Supercell

NOLAN BUSHNELL

Founder and CEO of ATARI

Derek Muller

Creator of Youtube Channel, Veritasium

ALUMNI

What past participants have to say
Devin Bhushan
founder and CEO of Squint
Formerly at Splunk and Yahoo. Now empowering industrial workers with AR.

“As a founder, you don't know what you don't know. Arc provides years of learnings from some of the most brilliant people in the space, condensed down to these short lectures full of golden nuggets. Seven weeks may feel like a lot, but it's actually a very time efficient way to learn all of these things.”

RENATE NYBORG
founder of meeno
Former CEO of Tinder. Now helping combat the loneliness epidemic.

“While my career provided the insights to build Meeno, Arc helped me uncover my personal motivation to solve the loneliness problem, which gave rise to a more holistic approach to product development and storytelling. The program also helped us gauge new benchmarks for product-market fit in a post-generative AI world, thanks to introducing a community of founders who I can trust to be open with.”

Samuel Colvin
founder and CEO of pydantic
Creator of the Pydantic open source  project, which is used by 19 of the top 20 largest companies on NASDAQ and downloaded > 140M/month.

“Participating in Arc was a transformative experience that perfectly aligned with our process of exploring what to build. We leveraged the weekly learnings to iterate faster, and we discovered how to be practical about finding product-market fit—removing the emotion and celebrating learning from failures to quickly move on.”

Youssef Ahres
co-founder and CEO of FlagshIP
Ex-Director of Data Science at Instagram.
Now empowering creators everywhere with Flagship.

“As founders, it’s easy to get pulled in the day to day and try to just get the next thing done. Arc taught me that, sometimes, we need to take a step back to leap forward. We should not mistake motion for progress.”

ELLEN DASILVA
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO OF SummerHealth
Ex-Hims & Hers and Twitter. Now radically simplifying access to healthcare.

“What you learn in Arc is applicable from day 1 and is grounded in pragmatism. Sequoia partners and operators helped us navigate the product-market fit journey and provided frameworks that we continue to revisit as we scale. The Arc community is also unparalleled.”

YU PAN
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO OF Mindy
Founding engineer at PayPal and YouTube. Now building an email-based AI assistant.

“Arc redefined how we think about company building. My co-founders and I have lots of insights from building PayPal, YouTube and more, but Arc helped us intentionally lay the right foundation. We learned how to be more empathetic about the people we’re serving, which informed our company culture, our product and how we go-to-market.”

FAQ

  • 01/
    Who should apply to Arc?
    This company building immersion is for pre-seed and seed-stage founders actively working on an idea, product and company. You can come to us with an idea and no lines of code or just an MVP site. Arc alumni come from a variety of backgrounds: some are first or second-time founders, while others have helped scale top tech companies.
  • 02/
    Why did Sequoia create Arc?
    We created Arc to discover the next generation of outlier founders and help increase their odds of success. At Sequoia, we aim to meaningfully change the trajectory of every company we partner with. We see the greatest potential at the earliest stages, when the smallest degrees of difference compound into massive transformations. Arc is meant to help pre-seed and seed-stage founders get to product-market fit faster and lay the right foundations as early as possible.
  • 03/
    What dates will Arc take place this year?
    Arc Spring '24 will run from April 22nd - June 5th. We will host another Arc cohort in the Fall, which will run from September 30th - November 13th. Applications for the Fall cohort will open this summer.
  • 04/
    Can companies from both the Americas and Europe apply?
    Yes. The Arc Spring '24 cohort is open to companies headquartered in the Americas and Europe.
  • 05/
    Is Arc in person?
    The first and last week of the program, along with a mid-program field trip, will be in person. The remaining weeks will be held remotely via Zoom.
  • 06/
    Is travel required?
    Yes. For Arc Spring '24, expect to spend the first week in New York City, the fourth week in Los Angeles, and the last week in the Bay Area.
  • 07/
    What is the weekly schedule?
    Arc is a hybrid in-person/virtual experience. The three in-person weeks will have 2.5 days of programming per week. The four virtual weeks will have four hours of programming per week.
  • 08/
    How many companies are in the program?
    Each Arc cohort will consist of ~10-15 companies. All co-founders of a company are strongly encouraged to attend.
  • 09/
    Do companies that participate in Arc receive funding from Sequoia?
    Yes. Companies that are invited to Arc receive funding from Sequoia. Each Arc cohort consists of pre-seed and seed companies we discover through the Arc open application process and early-stage companies we recently partnered with.
  • 10/
    What are the terms?
    Every new pre-seed or seed stage partnership with Sequoia is unique. As such any terms are company specific.

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