A home for breakthrough founders

TKU is a school you wish you had.  

By joining TKU, you're joining a global community of domain experts who are living in the future.  You see inflection points before others see them.  You are ready to test and explore breakthroughs because your first-hand experiences let you see a different future.  

Not incremental improvements on existing problems.  Real, material breakthroughs. 

For that select group of founders and future thinkers, TKU is a home where invisible founders become irresistible.   

And because every founder’s path is unique, there’s no competition.

Just a community rooting for you, pushing you, and holding you accountable when it matters.

We’re entering an AI era where the cost of building and shipping products has collapsed. Anyone can launch something — which means the real differentiator is no longer code, capital, or connections. It’s clarity of insight, judgment, and the ability to know what’s real signal versus noise.

TKU founders are built for this moment. They’re uniquely positioned to break through the noise, see a future outside conventional patterns, and exercise the kind of discernment that tells you what to build, why it matters, and what should be ignored. That judgment — rooted in lived experience and worldview — is becoming one of the most valuable founder skills of the AI era.

At the same time, AI is transforming how venture capital works. Due diligence will be faster, deeper, and more automated. Pedigree and warm introductions won’t be enough. Founders will need traction, early validation, and a movement behind their idea to stand out.

TKU gives you the scaffolding to do exactly that — to turn invisible founders into irresistible ones. Through daily practice, community, and structured momentum, you emerge with the insight, clarity, judgment, network and early signals that make investors lean in.

This is the moment. TKU is built for founders who are ready to meet it.

Are you an insider who sees the world from angles others don’t? We are stacking the odds to attract founders with unfair advantage.  Your domain expertise, the places you’ve lived, the people you interact with, and the worlds you move between all shape a multi‑faceted view of the future that most founders never access.

Those vantage points — the edges where industries, cultures, and communities intersect — are where non‑obvious insights live. What once felt like being “between worlds” is actually the source of your pattern‑breaking perspective. You see things others miss because you’ve stood where others haven’t.

TKU’s structured 100‑day program is designed to surface exactly those insights. The ones shaped by your lived experience, your expertise, and your unique position in the world. That’s what positions you to seize the inflection point and build the breakthrough only you can build. It's powerful if you identify one inflection point.  We see the future where your worldview allows you to take advantage of more than one inflection point.

TKU is the only place intentionally designed to help founders hone the skill of harnessing their non‑obvious insights — and turn them into their superpower. And you'll meet others who are on the same journey.

TKU’s selection process is designed to surface founders with breakthrough potential — people with domain expertise, lived vantage points, and a multi‑angled view of the future that others can’t see. While the program focuses on emerging founders ready to explore or launch new ventures, we also welcome experienced founders, advisors, investors, and ecosystem builders who want to expand their network, deepen their insight, and test their breakthrough ideas.

We’ll begin accepting enrollments soon — make sure you’re on our newsletter list so you don’t miss the announcement. Once you’re accepted, you’ll be invited into a closed WhatsApp group where you can start meeting your fellow classmates and building your TKU circle from day one.

The 100 Days of Garlic and all official programming kick off on July 1, 2026.

For this inaugural year, we’re launching one cohort only. Space is limited, momentum is building, and spots will go fast — apply now and claim your place in the first inaugural class of TKU.

TKU is designed for mid‑ to senior‑level professionals with full lives and real responsibilities. The 100 Days of Garlic is intentionally modular: each daily prompt can be answered and recorded in about 10–15 minutes. You can do less, you can do more — the system flexes with your schedule.

Like anything meaningful, you’ll get out of it what you put in. The structure is built to make progress feel natural and sustainable, not overwhelming. Many founders tell us it becomes a daily rhythm — a small, consistent habit that compounds into a breakthrough.

The 100 Days of Garlic is built on the science of habit — a cue‑routine‑reward loop that compounds into real transformation. Each day strengthens the neural pathway behind the breakthrough work, making the action easier, more automatic, and more predictable.

The program is intentionally structured in three phases:

• Days 1–30: You uncover who you are as a founder — your unique strengths, lived vantage points, and the worldview that shapes how you see the future.

• Days 31–60: You gain clarity on who you want to serve, what venture you want to build, and why now is the right moment.

• Days 61–100: You test assumptions, gather early market signals, build early adopters and customer pipelines, and develop a real business plan.

By the end of 100 days, you don’t just have an idea — you have insight, validation, and the early momentum needed to bring a breakthrough venture into the world.

The name is inspired by the Dangun myth, where a bear and a tiger commit to a disciplined 100‑day transformation to become human — a story about patience, identity, and becoming something more. And just like in the myth, you’re not doing this alone. You’re in the cave with other bears and tigers — a cohort moving through the same daily practice, supporting one another, and emerging together after 100 days as transformed founders with their own breakthrough ideas. Fittingly, we love that garlic is one of the most widely used ingredients in global cuisine: a universal catalyst with the power to transform everything it touches.

It’s rooted in the Dangun myth, the story behind how the first Korean kingdom was founded - Tiger and Bear asked to endure 100 days of garlic to transform into human. TKU is built for the Bears: the ones willing to show up consistently, intentionally, without shortcuts.

But the story doesn't end there.  A Tiger may not have taken that last step to become human, but the Tigers are in the cave with the Bears.  TKU tells a different story for the Tigers - they're supporters, advisors, and funders for the Bears who take that step to break out and start a venture.  We believe that people with unique stories and capabilities can become Bears and Tigers at different times.  The TKU is a de-risked way to find out if this is your time.

No — TKU is for everyone.  

Yes, many from the global K‑diaspora will join, but TKU warmly welcomes anyone who loves K‑culture, believes in its creative energy, and wants to be part of something big. Korea today is one of the most exciting places in the world — a modern symbol of rebirth, reinvention, and relentless innovation.

If you want to experience that momentum firsthand and be part of the largest startup gathering in Gyeongju, TKU is absolutely for you.

Pricing is simple: the program fee is US$5,000.  

Unlike accelerators or venture studios, TKU takes no equity. It’s straightforward, transparent pricing for founders who know what they need and want full ownership of what they build.

TKU doesn’t provide direct funding during the program — but funding opportunities are absolutely part of the journey.  

All TKU graduates are invited to Homecoming in Gyeongju, where you can pitch your breakthrough venture at Tiger Tank to a panel of investors and ecosystem builders, with a chance to win up to $100K.

And we’re not stopping there. As the TKU community grows, we’re actively building new, truly revolutionary asset classes for startup funding — models that reflect how founders actually build today. Stay tuned, and reach out if you’re interested in partnering with us on this frontier.

No — TKU isn’t accredited.  

We were built outside traditional institutions so we can partner with all of them and move with the speed founders actually need. Think of TKU as the school you always wished you had — the one that didn’t exist, so we went ahead and created it.

A place shaped by real Sunbae–Hubae relationships, where experience flows forward and upward, and where builders learn from builders in a way only this community can offer.

TKU isn’t an incubator, accelerator, or VC studio — it’s the new starting line for how breakthroughs are made.  

Traditional programs matter, but TKU focuses on the moment before all of them — where founders gain the clarity, conviction, and non‑consensus insight that make everything after more powerful, whether that’s investors, grants, partnerships, or an accelerator.

And because the startup journey can be lonely, TKU also gives you the friendships, Sunbae–Hubae support, and high‑trust community that make the path feel lighter. It doesn’t feel like pushing a boulder uphill — it feels like chasing the boulder downhill.

Through global talent development, a tight professional network, and a structured 100‑day breakthrough process where you test for early market signals, TKU helps you surface the idea only you can build.

It’s the inevitable future of how founders begin — prepared, supported, and ready for whatever’s next.