Resource hub
Senior product help for RICE founders, at no cost.
1000 Hours of Product is a give-first program. Experienced product managers, designers, researchers, data people and engineers donate their own hours, in rounds of 1,000, to founders who cannot otherwise reach that expertise. No cost, no equity, no selling. Founders keep all of the work and all of the IP.
This page exists so it can be forwarded. It lays out what a RICE founder would walk away with, why the gap is worth closing, and the ways we could work together.
What a founder walks away with
Not advice. Work.
Every session ends with something the founder can use on Monday. A founder does not need a finished plan, and does not need to know which role they need. Working from an unclear starting point is the job.
A clear first thing to build
A product manager cuts a long list down to the smallest version worth building, and puts it in order.
Screens that make sense
A designer reworks the flow so a customer knows what to do without being told.
Real answers from real users
A researcher talks to your customers and turns what they say into direction you can act on.
Numbers that mean something
A data person sets up simple measurement and tells you which few numbers actually matter.
A realistic build plan
An engineer scopes what can be built, what it will cost, and what to build it on.
A hire you don't regret
Someone who has done the job helps you decide whether to hire yet, and what to look for.
The gap
The expertise and the need are already in the same city.
Deep product expertise is concentrated inside a small number of well-funded companies. It gets applied to problems that are already well funded. Founders outside that circle are told to hire for it, or to figure it out alone, and most do the second one.
That is not a talent gap. It is an access gap. The people with the expertise are willing; there has never been a straightforward way to hand a few hours to a founder who needs them. This program is that way.
Why Atlanta, why RICE
Founders trust the place that already backs them.
Atlanta has both sides of this: a deep bench of product and technology people across large companies, and a base of founders building real businesses without access to them. What it does not have is the connection between the two.
RICE is already the place its founders come to. A resource that arrives through RICE gets used. A resource that arrives as a cold link does not. That is why this is framed as hours placed with a program rather than a directory founders have to discover.
1,000
hours per round, pledged by working product people
$0
cost to the program and to the founder
0%
equity. Founders keep the work and the IP
Ways we could work together
Exploratory, not fixed.
Nothing here is decided. These are the shapes this has taken well elsewhere, offered as starting points for a conversation. Any one of them can start small.
Pathway one
Founder hours
A block of hours reserved for RICE founders. They pick the situation in plain words, we match them to the right product person, and the work happens over one to three sessions. Turnkey: we handle intake, matching, scheduling and a written recap RICE can see.
Pathway two
Working sessions on site
A small group of product people at RICE for a half day. Founders rotate through short, focused conversations. Good for reaching many founders at once and for showing the value quickly.
Pathway three
A live problem, worked out loud
One founder brings a real problem. A panel of senior product people works it in front of the room. Everyone watching learns how the decision gets made, not just what was decided.
Pathway four
Bridging people starting out
Members finishing programs get introduced to working product and technology people, and get advocacy rather than another resume filter. This runs alongside the founder work.
What a first step looks like
A short conversation, then a small block of hours for a handful of RICE founders. We handle intake, matching, the sessions and a written recap. If it works, it grows. If it does not, nothing was spent.
Questions, or want this as something you can send on? hello@1000hoursofproduct.com