How HF0’s Dave Fontenot Helps Founders Birth Their Life’s Work

Hey, Justin here, and welcome to Just Go Grind, a newsletter sharing the lessons, tactics, and stories of world-class founders! Premium subscribers get full access to this newsletter, exclusive events, event discounts, and more.

Dave Fontenot founded HF0, the world’s first and only monastery for code.

Inspired by his first hackathon, he took it upon himself to build the largest one out there—MHacks. From its foundation in 2013, more than 10,000 people from across the globe have attended.

A decade later, this time inspired by living in real monasteries all over the world, he decided to build his own, only for hackers. A huge mansion in San Francisco, an ecosystem of well-known founders, and the opportunity to get a vision off the ground.

HF0 is about 12 weeks of flow where your sole focus is on one mission: building your life’s work.

3 months to just go grind.

Listen to Dave’s interview on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

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• Conflict is not the Devil. The first ever iteration of HF0 Residency aimed at connecting future co-founders. They learnt there that people who fought, stayed together. When building your life’s work, it really matters to be able to deal with conflict, and what better way to test that out than in the frenzy of a hackathon?

• HF0’s co-founders took their time in researching their version of market-product fit. What demographic wasn’t being served by other accelerators? What founders would build companies that could help more people in the future? Based on these factors, they decided on working with repeat founders only.

• “Startups are just an outer manifestation of someone’s inner world.” Dave encourages the team to spend 10% of their week doing inner work because he believes it transforms your mindset and helps get your priorities straight, two key elements when founding your startup.

• Selecting the right teams is crucial to form the best possible batch and get the most out of the experience. The secret? Boardy AI. First pass interviews are all in charge of Boardy, who’s really good at unmasking the founders that have great potential but that are hiding behind their own humbleness. This helps narrow down the applications significantly and efficiently.

• Dave believes in the power of in-person meetings. So much today can be remote—even HF0 probably could. But being constantly surrounded by people who inspire, motivate, challenge you? Grinding alongside one another day after day? Physical connections hold a whole different meaning, and that just can’t be compared.

• The number one thing Dave looks for in founders? The fire in their eyes. Visionary people are powerful. They have a fully-formed idea of what they want, which is not easy. He tends to ask himself: how scared would I be if I tried to stop this founder from achieving their mission? If the answer is very, then it’s definitely a good fit for HF0.

• “As a founder, you should be taking every advantage you can get.” You should be trying to make every investment you can make where you can win back time and accelerate faster’. To Dave, nothing comes closer to HF0 if you’re after that goal. You’re all in, 24/7. You’re literally fast-forwarding months and months of work in 12 weeks.

• In the HF0 Residency, it’s a lot about what happens, but it’s also so much about what doesn’t happen. Removing all mundane distractions and purging yourself from them truly takes you on a journey of self-discovery and realization. They call it the red button. Once you press it, the plot line of your life progresses. When you join HF0 you are making the decision to press the red button.

Listen to Dave’s interview on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

00:00 What’s coming in the episode…

1:22 Introduction

2:49 What is HF0?

6:00 Dave’s background

9:57 Dave’s vision

15:12 Early days of HF0

19:35 From MHacks to HF0

24:53 First ever concept of HF0

27:46 Second batch

32:58 Dave’s take on inner work

37:23 From New York to San Francisco

40:05 Funding HF0

48:29 Putting the teams together

1:05:40 The success of HF0

1:10:23 On the lookout for a GP

1:11:57 Dave’s hypothesis on why HF0 worked

Best,
Justin

Founder of Just Go Grind

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