Pressure-test EPFL's next founders
The Red Team is a standing challenge engine: experienced operators who red-team founders on the assumptions that actually carry weight. Not mentorship, not validation. Pressure-testing.
Why we back founders
EPFL backs founders as a strategic investment, not charity and not a public service. The support exists to de-risk a venture to the point where it can reach its next real milestone: the first investor conversation worth having, the first pilot customer, the first competitive grant from outside EPFL. It is a bridge to that point, not a destination.
The fastest way to de-risk is to find the weakest load-bearing assumption early, while it is still cheap to act on. That is the Red Team's entire job: surface it before the market or daily operations do it for the founder.
Fast Track is EPFL's route for fast-to-market ventures: the Blaze Accelerator, the AI Track, and the Master Project in your Startup (PDM). The founders you'll challenge are building for rapid market entry, not long research timelines.
What the Red Team is
We match each founder to a challenger with the right hard-won experience, run one focused session, and our coaches hold the continuity so the challenge converts into follow-through instead of evaporating.
The goal isn't to demolish founders. It's to reconcile a big claim with an empty starting position, and to name what has to be true for the claim to hold. One expert, one founder, one hour that changes what the team does next.
If you'd rather companion a team over months than challenge it once, look at the Blue Team Coaches. All four contributor roles are compared on the ways to contribute page.
How a session runs
Three beats. You bring the reality; the founder leaves with decisions, not bruises.
Where they say they're going
The founder lays out the destination and the claim behind it.
What that takes
You bring the reality: the real cost, the real timeline, the conditions that have to hold.
What that means today
You translate it into the decisions they should make now, with what they actually have.
You are not left wondering whether the session mattered. The founder's Blue Team coach picks up the thread afterwards and holds the follow-through, so your hour compounds instead of fading by Friday.
What we ask of you
- Read a one-page brief and an initial profile review before the session.
- Run one focused session, 60–90 min, remote. Direct, specific, adversarial in the productive sense.
- Sign an NDA before any session.
- Send a short, structured candid note to the program afterwards on how solid and how coachable the founder looks. It stays between you and us, so the session stays honest.
What you don't do
- Ongoing mentorship, hand-holding, or pitching the founder anything.
The challenge domains
Each case names one or two of these as the priority. You tell us which ones you can pressure-test with real authority.
- Technology state-of-the-art — is the claimed edge real and defensible?
- Technology vs. product — what is shippable vs. what is a research bet?
- Product design — does the thing solve the problem people actually have?
- B2B & institutional sales — who buys, why now, and through what motion?
- Financial forecast — what has to be true for the numbers to hold?
Token & who we're looking for
200 CHF per session, as a token of recognition rather than a market rate for your time. After two sessions you can publicly mention being part of the EPFL Startup Launchpad red team, and you're invited to Launchpad events.
Who we're looking for
Four archetypes qualify. What they share: the hard-won experience to know what a claim really costs.
Built through zero-to-one
You've taken a venture from nothing to something, including the failures and pivots. You know which assumptions kill.
Real sector authority
B2B sales leaders, CTOs, operators in regulated industries. You know how your market actually buys, builds, and blocks.
Take claims apart for a living
VCs, due-diligence leads, investment committee members. Stress-testing a forecast or a moat is your day job.
Judge the state of the art
Researchers or senior engineers who can credibly assess whether a claimed technical edge is real and defensible.
Whatever the archetype, you think natively in zero-to-one terms: builders, not pure managers. If reconciling a big claim with an empty starting position sounds energizing rather than annoying, you're who we want.
Apply to the Red Team
A short form, reviewed personally. We're evergreen: applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Considering a different role? See all the ways to contribute.
Prefer to just reach out? Marius Conti, Program Lead · marius.conti@epfl.ch.