The MLH Commit Fellowship
Because you've been sitting on this long enough.
Three weeks to launch your vision to the world and be in market.
The next cohort starts November 2nd.
Entry this time is through the Commit Fellowship prize category at select fall hackathons. Build something, submit it, and if it's selected, you're on your way in.
Limited seats available - 6 highly selective spots.
Open to community members in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Email fellowship@mlh.io with questions.
What exactly is theCommit Fellowship?
Most people who want to start something keep waiting for the right moment. The Commit Fellowship is designed for people who are done waiting. Major League Hacking (MLH) is partnering with Transcend Network to bring their groundbreaking zero-to-founder curriculum to the MLH community.
This is not what you think it is.
The Commit Fellowship is not a networking program. You won't be collecting LinkedIn connections or sitting through panels. You'll be doing work — real, uncomfortable, sometimes frustrating work — with the team you built this with.
It's also not a credential. If you're here to add a line to your resume, you will not have a good time, and you'll make the experience worse for the rest of your team.
How You Get In: The Commit Prize Category
If you built something at a fall hackathon you actually cared about, and the team you built it with felt like something worth keeping, this is for you. Look for the Commit Fellowship prize category at participating events. Submit what you built. If it's strong, we'll bring you in for a real conversation about turning it into something.
We're only taking a handful of teams this round.
From Lonely Cliff to Shared Hill
You won't be doing this alone.
One of the things that keeps people from starting something is that the early stage is genuinely lonely. You have an idea, or half an idea, and there's no one to pressure-test it with who has the same amount of skin in the game you do.
Your team already exists. You'll spend three weeks with the same people you built with at the hackathon, thinking out loud, pushing back on each other, and building the kind of honest working relationship that most early-stage founders spend years trying to find.
This will probably be new to you. It's new to almost everyone who comes in. That's expected. The program is designed around it.
Three weeks. Each one has a deadline.
Three weeks to: Position yourself as a visionary founder, attract and close distribution partners, seek out investors and enterprise customers, and launch your company.
You're not watching videos or reading frameworks — you're attempting something real, reporting back on what happened, and adjusting based on what you learned.
Week one, you find someone who has the problem you care about and talk to them. Week two, you try to do something about it. Week three, you find out if anyone else cares.
Sessions happen live, with your team and a small group of other fellows. There's no recording to catch up on later. You either showed up and did the work, or you didn't.
What you walk away with
Teams that finish the program are eligible for microgrants worth thousands of dollars, in cash or in-kind tooling like AI credits, so the momentum from three weeks doesn't stall in week four.
We'll share the details and eligibility with teams once accepted.
Who Belongs HereIs this for me?
You might be a good fit if any of these are true.
- You've explained a problem to someone at dinner and couldn't stop talking about it.
- You've started a side project and let it die, and you still think about it.
- You've watched someone else build something and thought "I could have done that."
- You've already built something and can't stop thinking about where it could go.
You do need an idea. You do need a team, the one you already built with at the hackathon. You don't need certainty. You need a problem worth caring about.
A few practical things: Commit Fellowship is open to anyone in the US, Mexico, or Canada. This cohort runs November 2nd through November 20th.