Fellowship programming and internships last 14 weeks (4 weeks for assessments, training and matching, 10 weeks for the official internship).
Internships last 10 week from your official 'match' date with your host company.
Lessons are tailored to your cohort's skills and interests. For software engineering-heavy cohorts, as an example, we have speakers who've built impressive careers, such as CTOs, Founders, and Engineering and Data Architects. Throughout the year, we are always hosting a session on How to Build a Meaningful Career, which covers finding your Ikigai, pitching yourself, understanding what companies need and expect from you, and more. For these sessions, we have invited industry experts from the likes of Google, Brex, Uber, Ardent Ventures, and many other notorious companies and firms.
Mentors will provide technical support on your internship project. They are working professionals who have many years of experience in your field of work.
The Fellowship Program will empower you to build real world experience in a job that aligns with your skills and interests. If you're an engineer or designer who loves music, we'll do our best to match you with a music technology company so you can understand what it's like to bridge your passion and profession. As an intern, you'll prove your skills by working on meaningful projects and gain a network of peers and professionals who are excited to support your life-long career journey. Many interns at the completion of the 10-weeks have received return paid part-time or full-time offers.
The program costs $2,000. We have two pricing plans for students: standard and payment. The details of each can be found here! Depending on your university, you may be eligible for college credit, and/or your university may be willing to pay for the program fee. We recommend applying and completing the career interview to learn more.
For the 10 week program, interns earn a minimum $750 stipend at the completion of the program. Some interns earn more depending on their skill level, but any additional compensation depends on host companies' budgets.
Many fellows post the fellowship have $10,000 or more in their first year on folio while enrolled in school. Fellows are given priority access to paid opportunities on the folio internship marketplace after they complete their training program. Several have also received return-paid part-time or full-time offers from their host company!
It is expensive to recruit and vet host companies and interns, design meaningful projects, provide professional mentors, world-class speakers, and build the platform and community. We are building partnerships with universities and foundations to subsidize fees and offer folio programs and internships for free to everyone!
Unfortunately, we're unable to provide scholarships from Folio, but we recommend reaching out to your university's financial aid office and career center to see if they can provide reimbursement for the program. We understand that the cost can be prohibitive, and we hope to provide aid in the future. If we're able to secure funding, we'll let you know!
Yes! College students can work with their university department to earn college credit for their internship. Currently, we do not have the resources to facilitate this for you, but we highly recommend you reach out to our department advisor to ask for credit.
If your cohort has not begun and you have not started the assessment, training and matching process, you will receive a full refund of your deposit. If your cohort has begun but you have not yet matched with a company you will receive a 50% refund of your deposit. Once you've matched with a company, your deposit is no longer refundable.
Yes! All Fellows will be matched with at least one venture-backed startup for an internship. Internships last 10 weeks regardless of if you start on the same day as the program.
The matching process begins ~4 weeks before the first day of your targeted internship start-date. We ask that interns create a folio account, build their folio profile, and explore and apply to jobs in the Opportunities tab. From there, host companies and our team members will facilitate interviews and send offers to interns. Each student is offered at most five internship opportunities before choosing who they want to work with for the ten weeks. We do our best to ensure we match you with a host company that aligns with your skills and passions.
Yes! You can intern for as many companies as you'd like, but we recommend being thoughtful about your priorities, school work, and ability to deliver excellent work for each company. You will have up to five host companies to choose from.
We recommend 10-20hrs/wk as an active student. If you are not currently enrolled, enrolled part-time, or an international student with VISA limitations, we will provide guidance between you and your host company.
Yes, we have many international student fellows! Folio will provide an offer letter to Fellows who have confirmed their participation in the program by paying their deposit. Students can use this offer letter for the purposes of attaining CPT or OPT approval from your university or college.
While we can guarantee several options for your internship (all companies will be venture-backed startups), we cannot assure you that you will receive a full-time offer. That will have to be a discussion you have with the founders before the internship starts, ongoing during your project, and afterward. We will do our best to support you in finding a startup that has the highest probability of helping convert the internship to a full-time offer, but that ultimately will culminate in your efforts and the position the startup is in to extend a full-time offer.
During the matching process, you are free to reject offers that do not align with your skills and interests. However, you are limited to 5 internship opportunities to choose from so we recommend you avoid rejecting offers before you've conducted your interviews. If you reject all 5 offers, we will not provide you with additional interviews.
No, we do not offer H1B sponsorship. If you receive a paid extended offer from a company in the folio community, you and your company can discuss H1B sponsorship.
Fellows are students who've chosen to participate in our 3 month career training program. They complete 1 month of pre-program skill assessments and training, and 2 months of mentorship and classes while participating in a project with your company. Companies are not required to pay Fellows. Folio provides a stipend (see below)
Interns are students who are not currently part of the training program currently, but have complete skill assessments. Interns may qualify for subsidies from the government (40-50% of wages covered) which means your company only needs to pay the 50-60% of their wage ($6-$11/hr).
Fellows are compensated by folio at the end of the internship with a stipend of $750. If you’d like, you can also add an additional “tip” in the platform at the end of the fellowship. Additionally, at the end of the ten weeks, founders and fellows are encouraged to discuss potential full-time, part-time paid, or other internship opportunities if you and the fellow are happy throughout the ten weeks.
Most fellows can dedicate ~20 hours/wk, some more. It just depends on what other commitments they are balancing (mostly classes during the semester), and we encourage our fellows to have an open and transparent conversation about their capacity, if there is a mutual match, during onboarding!
To qualify for our fellowship, please signup for an onboarding session here. Our only requirement we hold for host companies participating in the venture fellowship program is that they be either venture-backed or part of an equity accelerator/incubator program.
After you have been onboarded and approved, when you navigate through the Posting a Job Flow, select the unpaid option upon arriving at the compensation. After selecting unpaid, you will see the option to post the role as part of the Venture Fellowship. Select Yes, and now you will exclusively receive applications from fellows in the current month’s cohort.
We provide Fellows with 1:1 mentors, biweekly classes and skills training. We are an education & training platform which includes on-the-job training in the form of an internship which aligns to the student's higher education program. Many students receive college credit and/or scholarships and compensation from their college. Folio internships must pass the Department of Labor's Primary Beneficiary test - Interns and students, may not be “employees” under the FLSA—in which case the FLSA does not require compensation for their work. More information can be found here.
We recommend you create a clear scope of work for your interns and check in weekly to ensure you get good work output.
They post a project on folio, set the hours and rate. If the intern is valuable, 85% offer a paid extended offer on folio, but this is not necessary.
We cannot guarantee that a fellow will commit to your company if you extend an offer. Fellows will receive up to five companies to interview with and will select the option that best aligns with their skills and passions. Therefore, even if you interview and accept a fellow, they will still need to commit to your startup.
Folio will provide an offer letter to Fellows who have confirmed their participation in the program by paying their deposit. The fellow can use this offer letter to attain CPT or OPT approval from your university or college.
The fellows have skills and experience across engineering, design, data science, product, sales, and business/finance. However, not every fellowship cohort will possess students with skills in each discipline. Therefore, while we encourage founders to post roles for the fellowship, if you have urgent demands, please post your role as a normal part-time contracting opportunity.
Students are matched with industry experts and will meet biweekly at minimum in addition to working on the fellowship projects. The mentors will be notified of the project scope and will provide advice to fellows throughout the project.
