work sucks, start a company, it’ll be fun. we’ll match your salary, you keep 93% equity
Free program with optional investment
Free program with optional investment
Mentors who've built multi-million dollar businesses
Host
Founder, CEO, ContactOut
$10M USD revenue, $5M profit bootstrapped.
Leads a global team of 50 staff.
Limited Partner at hustlefund.vc, iterative.vc, and blackbird.vc. Angel investor, 500 Startup Alum.
Rob’s startup course has 1M+ views on YouTube.
Mentor
Co-founder, Hmlet
Hmlet, a co-living company raised $40M USD from Sequoia
Mentor
Co-founder, BukuWarung
BukuWarung, a fintech company, raised $80M USD from Peter Thiel's Valar, 400 staff
Mentor
Co-founder, Una Brand
Una Brand an e-com company, raised $100M USD, $70M revenue
Hi there! We are Athena. We're helping:
1 million founders start their first business.
To create a university for entrepreneurship.
Start Silicon Valley ecosystems all over the world.
And accelerate science, technology and progress.
No experience required
You'll learn step by step how to build an 8 figure business from zero. We'll guide you on finding co-founders, ideation, product, sales, marketing.
Athena will be your "co-founder"
for 6 months
Work directly with Rob on refining your business idea and customer validation. Our 15 person product team can help you design and build your MVP. We'll help you fund raise. Leverage our experience to move faster. We've made all the mistakes so you don't have to.
Startups are not risky.
Everyone we know who's worked 10 years on startups is making $500,000 USD in profit. Startups fail because people quit. It takes 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, 10+ years to get good at anything. It's the same with being a founder, but your upside is uncapped.
The most actionable startup course ever
Other startup courses will tell you what to do on a high level.
Athena.vc shows you exactly how to do it step by step:
Study 100 related companies
Talk to 100 users
Talk to 50 industry experts
Build a 10x better product
View Athena's Curriculum
How To Start A Startup
Rob's startup course: screen shares, step by step tactics, real meeting recordings and case studies with 1 million+ views
Group coaching sessions
Weekly Ask Me Anything sessions.
Here participants share business challenges and our mentors will help brain-storm solutions.
Free to join, we prioritise questions from Athena founders.
Join AMA Session
A community for the
very best founders
Focus group
6 founders meet for 1 hr/week to share learnings and discuss challenges, either in person or online. This is the core of Athena Founders. The discussion structure is based on YPO forum a learning group attended by 30% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
Online community
Founders will share weekly updates on: goals, learnings, activities, challenges, and provide feedback and hold each other accountable.
Mentorship sessions
Meet with successful founders who have built $1million+ businesses. We’ll invite speakers and we’ll teach each founder group how to find their own industry relevant speakers via Linkedin outreach.
Athena is
Strategies and tactics. Gain insights, ideas, and guidance from fellow founders.
Safe space. Judgment-free zone where you can share successes, failures, and challenges
Hitting goals and accountability.
Making friends. Find your next cofounder. Create business relationships.
Raising money. Our community has raised over 40 million and are connected to major VC firms.
What we’re looking for:
Technical ability
You can code or you are technical in another field like engineering, biotech or hardware. You're a maker. You build stuff.
Fast learner
You've gone through at least 10+ books and courses last year. You're a self directed learner and independent thinker.
Grit and determination
You don't give up. You will succeed or die trying. 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, same with being a founder.
Program structure
Free to join, no equity requirement
Post weekly updates on goals, learnings, progress, challenges
Join Ask Me Anything sessions and focus groups
Meet 1000+ founders - because of community size we can't provide individual feedback until residency
Cash prizes for achieving goals:
$100 USD for studying 10 competitors
$100 for talking to 10 users writing up learning
$100 for talking 5 ex-founders / industry experts
$100 for building in public and posting weekly updates
We'll match your salary for 6 months so you can work full time on your startup, you keep 93% equity.
Athena will be your "cofounder" for 6 months. Work directly with Rob every week on refining your business idea and customer validation. Our 15 person product team can help you design and build your MVP.
Suitable for founders with 2-6 years work experience earning $20,000 - $80,000 USD salary based in Asia Pacific.
$20,000 - $50,000 USD funding for 7% equity on a post money SAFE
For Singaporean founders. We'll help you apply for an additional $20,000-$50,000 in matching government grants.
Worst case you'll learn something and go back to your job with no loss in income, best case you'll be running a successful company.
You do not need a cofounder, or a business idea, or any startup experience. Just need to learn fast and work hard.
Appendix
Athena's mission
Fund 1 million founders in developing countries
Create a university for entrepreneurship
Start Silicon Valley ecosystems all over the world
Accelerate science, technology, human progress
Create trillions in wealth
First believers
Athena will fund you when no other investor will. We'll write your first check. We'll fund: solo founders, young founders, weird founders - we like weird founders. You don't need a business idea. Our acceptance rate is 10x higher than mainstream venture capital firms. But it's 100% up to you, complete all your goals, put in the work, we will fund you. We believe anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to. Fancy university degrees, senior job titles doesn't count for crap. If you work hard, learn fast and build stuff, you're in. You can learn everything else.
Our funding terms are 20k-50k for 7% equity. This is only supposed to match your salary so you can work full time on the startup with no loss in income.
The main point of the program is working with our team for 6 months. Our 15 person team helps with ideation, design and building MVP.
We don't work with later stage founders who already have traction and can raise a seed round. e.g if you can raise 500k from YC, Athena is not a fit. If you can raise 5m from Sequoia then YC is not a fit.
We try to play a shadow co-founder role for solo founders. Instead of finding a business cofounder and giving up 50% equity. We'll fund you as a solo founder without a business idea, work with you to validate and test ideas, raise funds and hire in a business person later on, where you'll give away much less equity.
You could compare Athena to venture studios like HVF Labs or Idea Lab except they take much more equity (25% - 50%)
Power of individuals
The most impactful technologies are built by individuals and small groups. JavaScript was designed by 1 person as a summer project. Google was written by 2 people. Steve Wozniak single handedly built the Apple II including all the hardware and software. Microsoft's first BASIC was written by just Bill Gates and Paul Allen. There at 4 core researchers at OpenAI. All you need is enough money to pay for the founders living expenses to work full time. You don't need much money. You need hustle and determination. More money, more people will only slow you down. Hire once you get product market fit not before.
An alternative to university
Steve Wozniak (Apple) didn't learn anything about computers at university, he taught himself in high school by reading textbook and chip manuals and designing computers on paper. Einstein discovered the theory of relatively whilst working as a desk clerk and reading physics papers in his spare time. Elon Musk taught himself how to build SpaceX and Tesla.
Paul Graham (YC) describes school as Prison: a place to memorize meaningless facts so adults can get on with their day. Where all the work is pointless, and achieving results doesn't matter, so everything devolves into a popularity contest.
How to change the world
You have the entire trove of human knowledge in a device in your pocket.
WTF are you waiting for?
Pick an important problem. What are you passionate about? What are the most important problems and technologies in the world?
Study 100 companies in a high impact industry on YC and Crunchbase
Read 100 journal articles Google Scholar, nature.com unlock with Sci Hub
Talk to 100 mentors, ex-founders, industry experts
Become an expert and come up with a product that is 10x better than what's already out there.
That's how Elon Musk, and Sam Altman did it. There's no course at university for how to build SpaceX, Tesla or OpenAI.
Join us at Athena Founders
Free program with optional investment
Hear from our residents
I don’t have a co-founder, so having someone in my corner—and now I have the other Athena founders—makes it feel a lot less lonely.
It’s awesome to hear Rob believe in my idea and to feel like I’m part of something bigger.
Bryce Altman
Building a better podcast search engine.
Athena gave me the structure and support I needed to fully commit to my startup without juggling freelancing or worrying about funding. It’s not just about the money—it’s about having people in your corner who genuinely care about what you’re building
Nadine Susanto
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
Rob’s feedback and the weekly sessions opened a new dimension in my brain. It’s not that difficult to start a startup, even if you’re a newbie. The program provides clarity, consistency, and the confidence to build something meaningful.
Tania Malhotra
Building a better Google Scholar for faster, open research access.
The weekly updates at Athena were transformative. Writing them forced me to reflect, gave me direction, and helped me secure $100K in LOIs for my new drone idea. The trust and personal attention from Rob make all the difference.
Kshitij Pandey
Developing drones for police surveillance and emergency response.
Having people who’ve built these things share their thought process—it gives you more confidence. It’s not just about this cohort or the next six months—it’s about building something that evolves for the next decades.
Himanshu Daga
Exploring shared mortgages and loans to improve housing accessibility
Athena is a great place to get exposed to amazing people and feedback, especially from outside your own ecosystem. For people starting their own startups, the mentorship and the chance to learn from such a diverse group are invaluable.
Nico Chistian
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
work sucks, start a company, it’ll be fun. we’ll match your salary, you keep 93% equity
Free program with optional investment
Free program with optional investment
Free program with optional investment
Hi there! We are Athena. We're helping:
1 million founders start their first business.
So we can create a university for entrepreneurship.
Start Silicon Valley ecosystems all over the world.
And accelerate science, technology and progress.
The most actionable startup course ever
Other startup courses will tell you what to do on a
high level.
Athena.vc shows you exactly how to do it step by step:
Study 100 related companies
Talk to 100 users
Talk to 50 industry experts
Build a 10x better product
View Athena's Curriculum
No experience required
You'll learn step by step how to build an 8 figure business from zero. We'll guide you on finding co-founders, ideation, product, sales, marketing + more.
Athena will be your "co-founder" for 6 months
Work directly with Rob on refining your business idea and customer validation. Our 15 person product team can help you design and build your MVP. We'll help you fundraise. Leverage our experience to move faster. We've made all the mistakes so you don't have to.
Startups are not as risky as you think.
Everyone we know who's worked 10 years on startups is making USD 500,000 USD in profit. Startups fail because people quit. It takes 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, 10+ years to get good at anything. It's the same with being a founder, but your upside is uncapped.
Mentors who've built multi-million dollar businesses
Host
Founder, CEO, ContactOut
$10M USD revenue, $5M profit bootstrapped.Leads a global team of 50 staff.
Limited Partner at hustlefund.vc, iterative.vc, and blackbird.vc.
Angel investor, 500 Startup Alum.
Rob’s startup course has 1M+ views on YouTube.
Mentor
Co-founder, Hmlet
Hmlet, a co-living company raised $40M USD from Sequoia
Mentor
Co-founder, BukuWarung
Fintech, raised $80M USD from Peter Thiel's Valar, 400 staff
Mentor
Co-founder, Una Brand
E-commerce, raised $100M USD, $70M revenue
How To Start A Startup
Rob's startup course: screen shares, step by step tactics, real meeting recordings and case studies with 1 million+ views
Group coaching sessions
Weekly Ask Me Anything sessions.
Here participants share business challenges and our mentors will help brain-storm solutions.
Free to join, we prioritise questions from Athena founders.
Join AMA Session
A community for the very best founders
Focus group
6 founders meet for 1 hr/week to share learnings and discuss challenges, either in person or online. This is the core of Athena Founders. The discussion structure is based on YPO forum a learning group attended by 30% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
Online community
Founders will share weekly updates on: goals, learnings, activities, challenges, and provide feedback and hold each other accountable.
Mentorship sessions
Meet with successful founders who have built $1million+ businesses. We’ll invite speakers and we’ll teach each founder group how to find their own industry relevant speakers via Linkedin outreach.
Hear from our residents
I don’t have a co-founder, so having someone in my corner—and now I have the other Athena founders—makes it feel a lot less lonely.
It’s awesome to hear Rob believe in my idea and to feel like I’m part of something bigger.Bryce Altman
Building a better podcast search engine.
Athena gave me the structure and support I needed to fully commit to my startup without juggling freelancing or worrying about funding. It’s not just about the money—it’s about having people in your corner who genuinely care about what you’re building
Nadine Susanto
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
Rob’s feedback and the weekly sessions opened a new dimension in my brain. It’s not that difficult to start a startup, even if you’re a newbie. The program provides clarity, consistency, and the confidence to build something meaningful.
Tania Malhotra
Building a better Google Scholar for faster, open research access.
The weekly updates at Athena were transformative. Writing them forced me to reflect, gave me direction, and helped me secure $100K in LOIs for my new drone idea. The trust and personal attention from Rob make all the difference.
Kshitij Pandey
Developing drones for police surveillance and emergency response.
Having people who’ve built these things share their thought process—it gives you more confidence. It’s not just about this cohort or the next six months—it’s about building something that evolves for the next decades.
Himanshu Daga
Exploring shared mortgages and loans to improve housing accessibility
Athena is a great place to get exposed to amazing people and feedback, especially from outside your own ecosystem. For people starting their own startups, the mentorship and the chance to learn from such a diverse group are invaluable.
Nico Chistian
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
Athena is
Strategies and tactics. Gain insights, ideas, and guidance from fellow founders.
Safe space. Judgment-free zone where you can share successes, failures, and challenges
Hitting goals and accountability.
Making friends. Find your next cofounder. Create business relationships.
Raising money. Our community has raised over 40 million and are connected to major VC firms.
What we’re looking for:
Technical ability
You can code or you are technical in another field like engineering, biotech or hardware. You're a maker. You build stuff.
Fast learner
You've gone through at least 10+ books and courses last year. You're a self directed learner and independent thinker.
Determination
You don't give up. You will succeed or die trying. 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, same with being a founder.
Program structure
Free to join, no equity requirement
Post weekly updates on goals, learnings, progress, challenges
Join Ask Me Anything sessions and focus groups
Meet 1000+ founders - because of community size we can't provide individual feedback until residency
Cash prizes for achieving goals:
$100 USD for studying 10 competitors
$100 for talking to 10 users writing up learning
$100 for talking to 5 ex-founders / industry experts
$100 for building in public and posting weekly updates
We'll match your salary for 6 months so you can work full time on your startup, you keep 93% equity.
Athena will be your "cofounder" for 6 months. Work directly with Rob every week on refining your business idea and customer validation. Our 15 person product team can help you design and build your MVP.
Suitable for founders with 2-6 years work experience earning $20,000 - $80,000 USD salary based in Asia Pacific.
$20,000 - $50,000 USD funding for 7% equity on a post money SAFE
Worst case you'll learn something and go back to your job with no loss in income, best case you'll be running a successful company.
You do not need a cofounder, or a business idea, or any startup experience. Just need to learn fast and work hard.
Join Athena Founders
Free program with optional investment
Appendix
First believers
Athena will fund you when no other investor will. We'll write your first check. We'll fund: solo founders, young founders, weird founders - we like weird founders. You don't need a business idea. Our acceptance rate is 10x higher than mainstream venture capital firms. But it's 100% up to you, complete all your goals, put in the work, we will fund you. We believe anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to. Fancy university degrees, senior job titles doesn't count for crap. If you work hard, learn fast and build stuff, you're in. You can learn everything else.
Our funding terms are 20k-50k for 7% equity. This is only supposed to match your salary so you can work full time on the startup with no loss in income.
The main point of the program is working with our team for 6 months. Our 15 person team helps with ideation, design and building MVP.
We don't work with later stage founders who already have traction and can raise a seed round. e.g if you can raise 500k from YC, Athena is not a fit. If you can raise 5m from Sequoia then YC is not a fit.
We try to play a shadow co-founder role for solo founders. Instead of finding a business cofounder and giving up 50% equity. We'll fund you as a solo founder without a business idea, work with you to validate and test ideas, raise funds and hire in a business person later on, where you'll give away much less equity.
You could compare Athena to venture studios like HVF Labs or Idea Lab except they take much more equity (25% - 50%)
Power of individuals
The most impactful technologies are built by individuals and small groups. JavaScript was designed by 1 person as a summer project. Google was written by 2 people. Steve Wozniak single handedly built the Apple II including all the hardware and software. Microsoft's first BASIC was written by just Bill Gates and Paul Allen. There at 4 core researchers at OpenAI. All you need is enough money to pay for the founders living expenses to work full time. You don't need much money. You need hustle and determination. More money, more people will only slow you down. Hire once you get product market fit not before.
An alternative to university
Steve Wozniak (Apple) didn't learn anything about computers at university, he taught himself in high school by reading textbook and chip manuals and designing computers on paper. Einstein discovered the theory of relatively whilst working as a desk clerk and reading physics papers in his spare time. Elon Musk taught himself how to build SpaceX and Tesla.
Paul Graham (YC) describes school as Prison: a place to memorize meaningless facts so adults can get on with their day. Where all the work is pointless, and achieving results doesn't matter, so everything devolves into a popularity contest.
How to change the world
You have the entire trove of human knowledge in a device in your pocket.
WTF are you waiting for?
Pick an important problem. What are you passionate about? What are the most important problems and technologies in the world?
Study 100 companies in a high impact industry on YC and Crunchbase
Read 100 journal articles Google Scholar, nature.com unlock with Sci Hub
Talk to 100 mentors, ex-founders, industry experts
Become an expert and come up with a product that is 10x better than what's already out there.
That's how Elon Musk, and Sam Altman did it. There's no course at university for how to build SpaceX, Tesla or OpenAI.
work sucks, start a company, it’ll be fun. we’ll match your salary, you keep 93% equity.
Free program with optional investment
Mentors who've built multi-million dollar businesses
Host
Founder, CEO, ContactOut
$10M USD revenue, $5M profit bootstrapped.
Leads a global team of 50 staff.
Limited Partner at hustlefund.vc, iterative.vc, and blackbird.vc.
Angel investor, 500 Startup Alum.
Rob’s startup course has 1M+ views on YouTube.
Mentor
Co-founder, Hmlet
Hmlet, a co-living company raised $40M USD from Sequoia
Mentor
Co-founder, BukuWarung
Fintech, raised $80M USD from Peter Thiel's Valar, 400 staff
Mentor
Co-founder, Una Brand
E-commerce, raised $100M USD, $70M revenue
Hi there! We are Athena. We're helping:
1 million founders start their first business.
So we can create a university for entrepreneurship.
Start Silicon Valley ecosystems all over the world.
And accelerate science, technology and progress.
No experience required
You'll learn step by step how to build an 8 figure business from zero. We'll guide you on finding co-founders, ideation, product, sales, marketing + more.
Athena will be your "co-founder" for 6 months
Work directly with Rob on refining your business idea and customer validation. Our 15 person product team can help you design and build your MVP. We'll help you fund raise. Leverage our experience to move faster. We've made all the mistakes so you don't have to.
Startups are not as risky as you think.
Everyone we know who's worked 10 years on startups is making USD 500,000 USD in profit.
Startups fail because people quit.
It takes 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, 10+ years to get good at anything. It's the same with being a founder, but your upside is uncapped.
The most actionable startup course ever
Other startup courses will tell you what to do on a
high level.
Athena.vc shows you exactly how to do it step by step:
Study 100 related companies
Talk to 100 users
Talk to 50 industry experts
Build a 10x better product
View Athena's Curriculum
How To Start A Startup
Rob's startup course: screen shares, step by step tactics, real meeting recordings and case studies with 1 million+ views
Group coaching sessions
Weekly Ask Me Anything sessions.
Here participants share business challenges and our mentors will help brain-storm solutions.
Free to join, we prioritise questions from Athena founders.
Join AMA Session
A community for the very best founders
Focus group
6 founders meet for 1 hr/week to share learnings and discuss challenges, either in person or online. This is the core of Athena Founders. The discussion structure is based on YPO forum a learning group attended by 30% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
Online community
Founders will share weekly updates on: goals, learnings, activities, challenges, and provide feedback and hold each other accountable.
Mentorship sessions
Meet with successful founders who have built $1million+ businesses. We’ll invite speakers and we’ll teach each founder group how to find their own industry relevant speakers via Linkedin outreach.
Athena is
Strategies and tactics. Gain insights, ideas, and guidance from fellow founders.
Safe space. Judgment-free zone where you can share successes, failures, and challenges
Hitting goals and accountability
Making friends. Find your next cofounder. Create business relationships.
Raising money. Our community has raised over 40 million and are connected to major VC firms.
Hear from our residents
I don’t have a co-founder, so having someone in my corner—and now I have the other Athena founders—makes it feel a lot less lonely.
It’s awesome to hear Rob believe in my idea and to feel like I’m part of something bigger.Bryce Altman
Building a better podcast search engine.
Athena gave me the structure and support I needed to fully commit to my startup without juggling freelancing or worrying about funding. It’s not just about the money—it’s about having people in your corner who genuinely care about what you’re building
Nadine Susanto
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
Rob’s feedback and the weekly sessions opened a new dimension in my brain. It’s not that difficult to start a startup, even if you’re a newbie. The program provides clarity, consistency, and the confidence to build something meaningful.
Tania Malhotra
Building a better Google Scholar for faster, open research access.
The weekly updates at Athena were transformative. Writing them forced me to reflect, gave me direction, and helped me secure $100K in LOIs for my new drone idea. The trust and personal attention from Rob make all the difference.
Kshitij Pandey
Developing drones for police surveillance and emergency response.
Having people who’ve built these things share their thought process—it gives you more confidence. It’s not just about this cohort or the next six months—it’s about building something that evolves for the next decades.
Himanshu Daga
Exploring shared mortgages and loans to improve housing accessibility
Athena is a great place to get exposed to amazing people and feedback, especially from outside your own ecosystem. For people starting their own startups, the mentorship and the chance to learn from such a diverse group are invaluable.
Nico Chistian
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
What we’re looking for:
Technical ability
You can code or you are technical in another field like engineering, biotech or hardware. You're a maker. You build stuff.
Fast learner
You've gone through at least 10+ books and courses last year. You're a self directed learner and independent thinker.
Determination
You don't give up. You will succeed or die trying. 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, same with being a founder.
Program structure
Free to join, no equity requirement
Post weekly updates on goals, learnings, progress, challenges
Join Ask Me Anything sessions and focus groups
Meet 1000+ founders - because of community size we can't provide individual feedback until residency
Cash prizes for achieving goals:
$100 USD for studying 10 competitors
$100 for talking to 10 users writing up learning
$100 for talking to 5 ex-founders / industry experts
$100 for building in public and posting weekly updates
We'll match your salary for 6 months so you can work full time on your startup, you keep 93% equity.
Athena will be your "cofounder" for 6 months. Work directly with Rob every week on refining your business idea and customer validation. Our 15 person product team can help you design and build your MVP.
Suitable for founders with 2-6 years work experience earning $20,000 - $80,000 USD salary based in Asia Pacific.
$20,000 - $50,000 USD funding for 7% equity on a post money SAFE
For Singaporean founders. We'll help you apply for an additional $20,000-$50,000 in matching government grants.
Worst case you'll learn something and go back to your job with no loss in income, best case you'll be running a successful company.
You do not need a cofounder, or a business idea, or any startup experience. Just need to learn fast and work hard.
Join Athena Founders
Free program with optional investment
Appendix
First believers
Athena will fund you when no other investor will. We'll write your first check. We'll fund: solo founders, young founders, weird founders - we like weird founders. You don't need a business idea. Our acceptance rate is 10x higher than mainstream venture capital firms. But it's 100% up to you, complete all your goals, put in the work, we will fund you. We believe anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to. Fancy university degrees, senior job titles doesn't count for crap. If you work hard, learn fast and build stuff, you're in. You can learn everything else.
Our funding terms are 20k-50k for 7% equity. This is only supposed to match your salary so you can work full time on the startup with no loss in income.
The main point of the program is working with our team for 6 months. Our 15 person team helps with ideation, design and building MVP.
We don't work with later stage founders who already have traction and can raise a seed round. e.g if you can raise 500k from YC, Athena is not a fit. If you can raise 5m from Sequoia then YC is not a fit.
We try to play a shadow co-founder role for solo founders. Instead of finding a business cofounder and giving up 50% equity. We'll fund you as a solo founder without a business idea, work with you to validate and test ideas, raise funds and hire in a business person later on, where you'll give away much less equity.
You could compare Athena to venture studios like HVF Labs or Idea Lab except they take much more equity (25% - 50%)
Power of individuals
The most impactful technologies are built by individuals and small groups. JavaScript was designed by 1 person as a summer project. Google was written by 2 people. Steve Wozniak single handedly built the Apple II including all the hardware and software. Microsoft's first BASIC was written by just Bill Gates and Paul Allen. There at 4 core researchers at OpenAI. All you need is enough money to pay for the founders living expenses to work full time. You don't need much money. You need hustle and determination. More money, more people will only slow you down. Hire once you get product market fit not before.
An alternative to university
Steve Wozniak (Apple) didn't learn anything about computers at university, he taught himself in high school by reading textbook and chip manuals and designing computers on paper. Einstein discovered the theory of relatively whilst working as a desk clerk and reading physics papers in his spare time. Elon Musk taught himself how to build SpaceX and Tesla.
Paul Graham (YC) describes school as Prison: a place to memorize meaningless facts so adults can get on with their day. Where all the work is pointless, and achieving results doesn't matter, so everything devolves into a popularity contest.
How to change the world
You have the entire trove of human knowledge in a device in your pocket.
WTF are you waiting for?
Pick an important problem. What are you passionate about? What are the most important problems and technologies in the world?
Study 100 companies in a high impact industry on YC and Crunchbase
Read 100 journal articles Google Scholar, nature.com unlock with Sci Hub
Talk to 100 mentors, ex-founders, industry experts
Become an expert and come up with a product that is 10x better than what's already out there.
That's how Elon Musk, and Sam Altman did it. There's no course at university for how to build SpaceX, Tesla or OpenAI.
work sucks, start a company, it’ll be fun
we’ll match your salary, you keep 93% equity
Free program with optional investment
Mentors who've built multi-million dollar businesses
Host
Founder, CEO, ContactOut
$10M+ USD revenue, $5M+ profit bootstrapped.
Leads a global team of 50 staff.
Limited Partner at hustlefund.vc, iterative.vc, and blackbird.vc.
Angel investor, 500 Startup Alum.
Rob’s startup course has 1M+ views on YouTube.
Mentor
Co-founder, Hmlet
Hmlet, a co-living company raised $40M USD from Sequoia
Mentor
Co-founder, BukuWarung
Fintech, raised $80M USD from Peter Thiel's Valar, 400 staff
Mentor
Co-founder, Una Brand
E-commerce, raised $100M USD, $70M revenue
Hi there! We are Athena. We're helping:
1 million founders start their first business.
So we can create a university for entrepreneurship.
Start Silicon Valley ecosystems all over the world.
And accelerate science, technology and progress.
No experience required
You'll learn step by step how to build an 8 figure business from zero. We'll guide you on finding co-founders, ideation, product, sales, marketing + more.
Athena will be your "co-founder" for 6 months
Work directly with Rob on refining your business idea and customer validation. Our 15 pax product team can help you design and build your MVP. We'll help you fund raise. Leverage our experience to move faster. We've made all the mistakes so you don't have to.
Startups are not as risky as you think.
Everyone we know who's worked 10 years on startups is making USD 500,000+ in profit. Startups fail because people quit. It takes 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, 10+ years to get good at anything. It's the same with being a founder, but your upside is uncapped.
The most actionable startup course ever
Other startup courses will tell you what to do on a
high level.
Athena.vc shows you exactly how to do it step by step:
Study 100 related companies
Talk to 100 users
Talk to 50 industry experts
Build a 10x better product
View Athena's Curriculum
How To Start A Startup
Rob's startup course: screen shares, step by step tactics, real meeting recordings and case studies with 1 million+ views
Group coaching sessions
Weekly Ask Me Anything sessions.
Here participants share business challenges and our mentors will help brain-storm solutions.
Free to join, we prioritise questions from Athena founders.
Join AMA Session
A community for the very best founders
Focus group
6 founders 1 hr meeting / week. Share learnings and discuss challenges. You can meet in person or online. This is the core of Athena Founders. The discussion structure is based on YPO forum which is attended by 30% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
Online community
Founders share weekly updates on: goals, learnings, activities, challenges on Discord. Provide feedback and hold each other accountable.
Mentorship sessions
Group coaching with successful founders who have built $1million+ businesses. We’ll also teach founders how to find their own industry relevant mentors using LinkedIn.
Hear from our residents
I don’t have a co-founder, so having someone in my corner—and now I have the other Athena founders—makes it feel a lot less lonely.
It’s awesome to hear Rob believe in my idea and to feel like I’m part of something bigger.Bryce Altman
Building a better podcast search engine.
Athena gave me the structure and support I needed to fully commit to my startup without juggling freelancing or worrying about funding. It’s not just about the money—it’s about having people in your corner who genuinely care about what you’re building
Nadine Susanto
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
Rob’s feedback and the weekly sessions opened a new dimension in my brain. It’s not that difficult to start a startup, even if you’re a newbie. The program provides clarity, consistency, and the confidence to build something meaningful.
Tania Malhotra
Building a better Google Scholar for faster, open research access.
The weekly updates at Athena were transformative. Writing them forced me to reflect, gave me direction, and helped me secure $100K in LOIs for my new drone idea. The trust and personal attention from Rob make all the difference.
Kshitij Pandey
Developing drones for police surveillance and emergency response.
Having people who’ve built these things share their thought process—it gives you more confidence. It’s not just about this cohort or the next six months—it’s about building something that evolves for the next decades.
Himanshu Daga
Exploring shared mortgages and loans to improve housing accessibility
Athena is a great place to get exposed to amazing people and feedback, especially from outside your own ecosystem. For people starting their own startups, the mentorship and the chance to learn from such a diverse group are invaluable.
Nico Chistian
Fixing Indonesia’s cold storage with electric freezers.
Athena is
Strategies and tactics. Gain insights, ideas, and guidance from fellow founders.
Safe space. Judgment-free zone where you can share successes, failures, and challenges
Hitting goals and accountability
Making friends. Find your next cofounder. Create business relationships.
Raising money. Our community has raised over 40 million and are connected to major VC firms.
What we’re looking for:
Technical ability
You can code or you are technical in another field like engineering, biotech or hardware. You're a maker. You build stuff.
Fast learner
You've gone through at least 10+ books and courses last year. You're a self directed learner and independent thinker.
Determination
You don't give up. You will succeed or die trying. 10 years to be a doctor, 10 years to be a lawyer, same with being a founder.
Program Structure
Free to join, no equity requirement
Post weekly updates on goals, learnings, progress, challenges
Join Ask Me Anything sessions and focus groups
Meet 1000+ founders - because of community size we can't provide individual feedback until residency
Cash prizes for learning entrepreneurship:
$100 USD for studying 10 competitors
$100 for talking to 10 users writing up learning
$100 for talking to 5 ex-founders / industry experts
$100 for building in public and posting weekly updates
We'll match your salary for 6 months so you can work full time on your startup, you keep 93% equity.
Athena will be your "cofounder" for 6 months. Work directly with Rob every week on refining your business idea and customer validation.
Our 15 person product team can help you design and build your MVP.
Suitable for founders with 2-6 years work experience earning $20,000 - $80,000 USD salary based in Asia Pacific.
$20,000 - $50,000 USD funding for 7% equity on a post money SAFE
Worst case you'll learn something and go back to your job with no loss in income, best case you'll be running a successful company.
You do not need a cofounder, or a business idea, or any startup experience. Just need to learn fast and work hard.
Join Athena Founders
Appendix
First believers
Athena will fund you when no other investor will. We'll write your first check. We'll fund: solo founders, young founders, weird founders - we like weird founders. You don't need a business idea. Our acceptance rate is 10x higher than mainstream venture capital firms. But it's 100% up to you, complete all your goals, put in the work, we will fund you. We believe anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to. Fancy university degrees, senior job titles doesn't count for crap. If you work hard, learn fast and build stuff, you're in. You can learn everything else.
Our funding terms are 20k-50k for 7% equity. This is only supposed to match your salary so you can work full time on the startup with no loss in income.
The main point of the program is working with our team for 6 months. Our 15 person team helps with ideation, design and building MVP.
We don't work with later stage founders who already have traction and can raise a seed round. e.g if you can raise 500k from YC, Athena is not a fit. If you can raise 5m from Sequoia then YC is not a fit.
We try to play a shadow co-founder role for solo founders. Instead of finding a business cofounder and giving up 50% equity. We'll fund you as a solo founder without a business idea, work with you to validate and test ideas, raise funds and hire in a business person later on, where you'll give away much less equity.
You could compare Athena to venture studios like HVF Labs or Idea Lab except they take much more equity (25% - 50%)
Power of individuals
The most impactful technologies are built by individuals and small groups. JavaScript was designed by 1 person as a summer project. Google was written by 2 people. Steve Wozniak single handedly built the Apple II including all the hardware and software. Microsoft's first BASIC was written by just Bill Gates and Paul Allen. There at 4 core researchers at OpenAI. All you need is enough money to pay for the founders living expenses to work full time. You don't need much money. You need hustle and determination. More money, more people will only slow you down. Hire once you get product market fit not before.
An alternative to university
Steve Wozniak (Apple) didn't learn anything about computers at university, he taught himself in high school by reading textbook and chip manuals and designing computers on paper. Einstein discovered the theory of relatively whilst working as a desk clerk and reading physics papers in his spare time. Elon Musk taught himself how to build SpaceX and Tesla.
Paul Graham (YC) describes school as Prison: a place to memorize meaningless facts so adults can get on with their day. Where all the work is pointless, and achieving results doesn't matter, so everything devolves into a popularity contest.
How to change the world
You have the entire trove of human knowledge in a device in your pocket.
WTF are you waiting for?
Pick an important problem. What are you passionate about? What are the most important problems and technologies in the world?
Study 100 companies in a high impact industry on YC and Crunchbase
Read 100 journal articles Google Scholar, nature.com unlock with Sci Hub
Talk to 100 mentors, ex-founders, industry experts
Become an expert and come up with a product that is 10x better than what's already out there.
That's how Elon Musk, and Sam Altman did it. There's no course at university for how to build SpaceX, Tesla or OpenAI.