As a startup founder, no one expects you to be an expert on every aspect of building your business. Much of your early years as a founder of a tech startup will be based on the philosophy that you have to “fake it till you make it.” It’s OK. We’ve got you.
As a part of Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, members get access to tailored learning paths to fill in the gaps in your experience and help you get to the next stage, with learning modules on topics ranging from product naming to raising capital to technical how-tos.
We take you step by step through some of the toughest challenges that founders face when building out their startups. Each issue is addressed head on in simple, easy-to-digest learning modules. You can go at your own pace, pause and restart whenever you need. The modules are broken down into bite-sized chapters so you can skip ahead and find the exact answer you’re looking for.
Our founder-focused content brings together insights from some of the brightest minds in the entrepreneur ecosystem including Eric Ries, Ash Maurya, Cindy Alvarez, and others, and includes distinct learning paths for developers and business owners. The Developer learning path guides you through some of the key technical stages of building out your product on Azure. The Business Owner track will help you develop some of the core skills for setting up and running a business.
Building your business on Azure with the Developers learning path
These modules will take you step by step through the basic principles of building your product or service on the cloud. This is ideal training material for the first-time technical founder to help you understand the potential that Azure offers and the best way to start developing your product. The modules available for developers include:
- Microsoft Azure Fundamentals – basic cloud concepts and hands on exercising for deploying on Azure
- Azure Static Web Apps
- Creating your first web apps with React
- Create and connect to an Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- Deploy and run a containerized web app with Azure App Service
- Automate development tasks by using GitHub Actions
Business fundamentals for early-stage leadership teams
Launching your first startup can be daunting. These modules will help you understand what questions every founder needs to ask about setting up a business, hiring your team and marketing your idea to customers and investors.
We built these learning paths to support founders who have the vision and the determination to build a company from scratch, but who may not have mastered every one of the practical skills required. Whether you’re a technical founder looking for corroboration for an original idea, or a first-time CEO needing practical tips about how to brand and market that idea, Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub is here to help.
The topics covered here include:
- Validating your startup idea with customers
- Getting to revenue
- Naming and branding
- Building your team – finding cofounders and recruit your first employees and contractors.
- Fundraising and pitching
Members of Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub get free access to all the learning modules immediately and alerts when a new module becomes available.
Each module also contains helpful worksheets, checklists and a knowledge check quiz to make sure the content sticks.
Ready to get started with Microsoft for Startups Founders? Sign up now.
