Here’s an excerpt from reporter Alyson Krueger’s profile of Andrew and the Roadmap Course in The Pennsylvania Gazette, an alumni magazine for University of Pennsylvania graduates.
A few months ago, 60 entrepreneurs in the early stages of launching companies sat in a corporate conference room in midtown Manhattan, taking notes on their laptops. They had been there for almost 30 hours during a two-day boot camp known as Andrew’s Roadmaps, which was designed to walk them through every component of starting a business. They received templates for business plans and cash-flow projections, insider knowledge on the ins and outs of financing, best-practice guides on how to hire and fire staff. Though a cocktail reception awaited them at an Upper East Side mansion, no one seemed in a hurry to leave. Instead, they asked question after question.
These entrepreneurs knew how hard it is to start a business—90 percent of new companies don’t make it—and they were looking for any help they could get. But they were especially eager to learn from the guy behind the bootcamp: serial entrepreneur Andrew Weinreich C’90.
“Let me describe an inevitability, a theme that is bigger than me that will occur whether or not I’m successful,” Weinreich told the crowd. “At least then you know you are pointed in the right direction.”
Weinreich, who is known in startup circles for launching seriously forward-thinking companies, knows a thing or two about directions. Seven years before Facebook, he launched Six Degrees, the world’s first website that allowed members to connect with friends of friends. (He sold it in 1999 to YouthStreams Media Networks for a cool $125 million.) Later, he filed the patent that still governs all social networks. (LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman, who now owns it, called it the “most valuable patent in the world.”)