For Founders

If you are a founder, start with an in-person class that improves a skill you use repeatedly: pitching, public speaking, sales, finance, marketing, leadership, negotiation, storytelling, AI, product, design, coding or communication. The best class is usually the one that removes a current bottleneck in your business.

Early-stage founders usually benefit most from classes that improve communication, sales, pitching, customer discovery, marketing, finance, product thinking and confidence. These skills help you explain the business clearly, speak to customers, make better decisions and build momentum before you have a large team.

For startup pitching, look at public speaking, presentation skills, storytelling, voice, acting, improv, communication skills and investor pitch workshops. These classes can help you speak more clearly, structure your message, handle nerves, explain your idea simply and respond better to questions.

Before raising investment, useful classes can include pitching, presentation skills, finance, financial modelling, storytelling, negotiation, sales, leadership communication and startup strategy. The goal is to become clearer on your numbers, market, story, traction and the way you communicate the opportunity.

If you want to sell better, look at sales, negotiation, communication skills, storytelling, customer discovery, copywriting, marketing, public speaking and presentation skills classes. Founders often need to sell before they have a sales team, so improving how you listen, explain value and ask for commitment can be highly useful.

To become a better founder-CEO, look at leadership, management, communication, finance, negotiation, strategy, hiring, coaching, public speaking and decision-making classes. These can help you move from doing everything yourself to leading people, setting direction and communicating priorities more clearly.

Choose technical classes if your bottleneck is building, automation, AI, data or understanding your product better. Choose creative classes if your bottleneck is brand, content, design or storytelling. Choose communication classes if your bottleneck is pitching, selling, leading, hiring or explaining the business clearly.

Yes. In-person classes can be useful for founders because they give you structure, feedback, accountability and practice with other people in the room. This is especially valuable for skills like pitching, public speaking, negotiation, leadership, sales and communication, where real-time interaction matters.

If you only have time for one course, choose the class that matches your biggest constraint. If you struggle to explain the business, choose pitching or storytelling. If you need revenue, choose sales or marketing. If you avoid numbers, choose finance. If you are hiring or managing people, choose leadership or communication.

Yes. If you are still at the idea stage, classes in customer discovery, startup basics, communication, public speaking, design thinking, coding, AI, marketing, finance and business planning can help you test whether the idea is worth pursuing and understand which skills you need to build next.

The Classes for Founders goal brings together London classes that can help founders build practical startup skills, communicate better, sell more confidently, understand finance, use technology, lead teams, pitch investors and develop stronger products or brands.

Learn.London currently lists 50 founder-focused classes in London. These include Spanish, Japanese, Italian and Mandarin from 9 London providers.

Learn.London currently lists founder-focused classes from 9 London providers, including City Lit, Dear Asia, International House London, Spanish House London and Battersea Spanish. Use the provider column in the table to compare adult learning providers, business schools, startup programmes, colleges, communication trainers, digital skills schools and specialist course providers by location, price, schedule and class type.

Yes. Learn.London currently lists 23 evening founder-focused classes and 17 weekend founder-focused classes in London. Use the day and time columns to find options that fit around building a company, working full-time or managing other commitments.

Start by choosing the founder skill you want to improve, such as pitching, sales, finance, marketing, leadership, communication, AI, design, coding or storytelling. Then narrow the table by level, class type, day, time, location, price and duration. If you are unsure, begin with the skill that is creating the biggest business bottleneck right now.