Terms of Service

These terms cover Founders Weekend, a 48-hour program where young people build and try to sell a real product, and the app they use to do it. They also cover registering for a Founders School event and applying to a Founders School program (see the last sections below).

Who you are agreeing with. Founders Weekend and Founders School are programs run by Alpha School 78701, LLC. When these terms say “we” or “us”, they mean Alpha School 78701, LLC. It is the company you are agreeing with, and the merchant on every sale a student makes.

This agreement is with the parent, not the child

Almost everyone using this app is a minor, and a child cannot enter into a contract. So this agreement is between us and the parent or guardian who enrolled the student. By enrolling your child and letting them use the app, you agree to these terms on their behalf and confirm you are their parent or legal guardian.

You agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy on the registration form, when you apply for your child's place — in your own name, before they have an account. We record that with the date and the version number of each page. We never ask the child to agree instead of you, because a child's tick would not be your signature. When they create their account they give us your email address so we can reach you. If you did not know your child had an account, email us.

Founders Weekend is built for young people roughly 8 to 16 years old. There is no hard age limit enforced by the app: whether a younger child is ready is a judgement we make with you when your family applies, and places are limited. If we do not think the program is a good fit for your child, we will say so and refund your place.

What the program is — and is not

Students come up with a business idea, build a simple website with AI tools, price an offer, talk to real people, and may make real sales. It is an educational experience. It is not a guarantee of any outcome, income, or skill, and it is not business, financial, legal, or tax advice for you or your child.

Real money

Students can take real payments during the weekend. Payments are processed through the Stripe account of Alpha School 78701, LLC — we are the merchant of record, not your child. That means:

• Money from a student's sales is received by us, not by your child, and held until their family decides what happens to it. We do not take a cut of what a student earns.
• For weekends starting on or after 26 September 2026, Stripe's payment-processing fees, the fee for paying your family, and any chargeback fees are deducted from the team's sales before payout. The app shows the after-fee amount. Weekends before that date are paid as originally stated: those fees are paid by us, not deducted from your child's earnings.
• If someone who bought from a student asks for a refund, we will give it. These are children learning to sell, and we would rather refund a customer than have a young person's first sale become a dispute. The customer always gets the full amount back. For weekends before 26 September 2026 the refund is paid from our account and is not taken back out of your child's earnings; from that date on, the processing fee on a refunded sale comes out of the team's remaining sales.
• Taxes on anything a student earns are the family's responsibility, not ours.

Payout or refund: each family chooses for its own child

When sales close we email you and ask you to choose, in the parent portal, what happens to your child's money: pay it out to you, or refund it to the people who bought.

• If your child worked alone, you choose for all of their sales: pay out everything, refund everything, or decide sale by sale.
• If your child was on a team, each family chooses payout or refund for its own child's share, and only that share. A share is an even split of what the team keeps after fees, unless every teammate accepted a different split in the app.
• No family chooses for another. The parent of the student who started the team cannot choose for your child's share, and you cannot choose for theirs.
• Payouts are sent once you have chosen payout and your Stripe payout account is ready. On a team you do not wait for the other families.
• Refunds go back to the buyers in full.
• If your family hasn't chosen a refund or payout within 7 days after our reminder email, we refund your child's sales to the buyers' original payment method. Families who choose payout are never auto-refunded.

If you choose payout

Choosing payout means the money is paid to you, for your child. By choosing it, you take on responsibility for making sure your child actually delivers what they sold. You remain responsible for your child's obligations to their customers, including delivering what was sold. If you are not sure your child can deliver, choose refund instead.

What your child makes is theirs

Your child owns the idea, the words, and the designs they create. By using the app you give us permission to store and display that work inside the program — for example on the public leaderboard, on the pitch screen at the event, and to mentors and judges — for the purpose of running the weekend.

We will not use your child's name, face, voice, or work to advertise Founders Weekend without asking you first. The permission above covers running the program itself — showing their work to mentors and judges, on the room screens, and on the public leaderboard described in our Privacy Policy. Anything beyond that is a separate conversation with you.

Photos, video and the public leaderboard

Students may upload photos and video, which may show them or other children. The leaderboard is public and shows students' shortened names alongside their venture, and uploaded media is stored at public web addresses. This is described in full in our Privacy Policy. If you do not want your child's name or likeness shown, email us and we will remove it.

AI tools

The app uses AI to coach, grade, and to generate images, video and voiceover. What your child types and uploads is sent to third-party AI companies to be processed — see the Privacy Policy for who they are. AI output is frequently wrong or odd. It should be treated as a prompt to think, never as fact, and never as advice.

Using the app sensibly

Students agree not to:

• Share their login with anyone, or use someone else's.
• Upload anything hateful, sexual, violent, or that isn't theirs to share.
• Upload photos of another child without that child's permission.
• Try to break, overload, or get around the security of the app.
• Use the app to sell anything unsafe, illegal, or misleading.

We can suspend or remove an account that does these things, at the event or afterwards.

Things we do not promise

The app is provided as it is. We do not promise it will always be available, that AI features will produce good results, that a student will make any sales, or that data will never be lost. To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, and our total liability is limited to what you paid us for the program.

Nothing here limits liability for anything that cannot legally be limited, including death or personal injury caused by negligence.

Ending things

You can ask us to close your child's account and delete their information at any time by emailing events@founders.school. We may close an account that breaks these terms. Some records are kept even after an account is closed — signed waivers, the record of what you agreed to, and records of money taken, paid out or refunded — because the law or a possible dispute requires them. Our Privacy Policy explains what is deleted, what is kept, and for how long.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas. If something goes wrong, please email us first — we would far rather fix it directly than have either of us involve lawyers.

Registering for a Founders School event

You register for Founders School events on headcount.events or founders.school. These terms and our Privacy Policy apply there too. Please give accurate names and contact details for everyone in your party. Some events are by application, and a place at one event is not a promise of a place at the next. We may cancel, reschedule or move an event; if we do, we will email the address on your registration. Taking part in person also needs the event waiver, which you sign separately on the registration form. The media release is a separate choice too.

Applying to a Founders School program

Applications are made at founders.school. If the applicant is under 18, their parent or guardian must know about and agree to the application. Everything submitted must be true: misrepresenting grades, test results or anything else can disqualify the application and future ones. The aptitude test is taken once per application, without calculators, AI tools or anyone's help; browser activity is monitored during the test and a breach can void the score. The test content belongs to us or our licensors and must not be copied or shared. Applying does not guarantee admission, and we decide at our discretion.

Changes

If we change these terms we will update this page and the date at the top, and tell enrolled families directly if the change is significant.