Cohort 1 — Applications Open

The Backable CEO Incubator

90 days to become the CEO institutional capital wants to back.

A 90-day implementation sprint with Mark Rampolla. Twenty founders, application-only. The playbook Mark used himself and applies at GroundForce Capital — this time applied to developing the founders he believes can become backable.

Apply for Cohort 1 → Watch the free masterclass first

Cohort 1 starts August 4, 2026. Applications close July 31.

90 Days

20 Founders

7 Shifts

1:1 Access to Mark

Results you can see. A sense of power that is irreplaceable.

Why now

Most founders never make the transition. The ones who do change the trajectory of their business and life.

Every year at GroundForce, Mark and his team meet with hundreds of incredible companies. They invest in two or three. The difference between the ones they pass on and the ones he backs is not only the product, the market, or even the numbers.

It's the founder.

Almost every founder eventually hits the same wall: Founder Puberty — usually between $5M and $50M in revenue. The business has outgrown the way you built it, but you haven't outgrown who you were when you built it. The behaviors that created early success start quietly constraining growth. You become the bottleneck. The things that used to work stop working.

You can't skip it. But you can navigate it with a guide.

"Institutional capital doesn't back founders. It backs CEOs. And we especially love those rare founders who become great CEOs."

Shift One

See and Accept Reality

The shift from denial and avoidance to seeing things — your situation, your company, yourself — exactly as they are. Tools: blind-spot mapping and 360 feedback.

Shift Two

Know and Lead Yourself First

From Chief Everything Officer to leading from your zone of genius. Tools: the Energy Audit, your personal operating system, the "Working With Me" guide.

Shift Three

Break Free From What's Running You

From unconscious reactions to conscious leadership. Tools: the Freedom Key, pattern interruption practices, the four-question check-in.

Shift Four

Free to Dream

From bogged down in the weeds to reclaiming the ambition you had when you started. Tools: vision work, the upper-limit problem, playing massive.

Shift Five

Success and Freedom Take Discipline

From chaos and reactivity to the routines and structure that give you the freedom to do the work only you can do. Tools: operating cadence, weekly review, habit stacking.

Shift Six

You Are Free to Change

From attachment and being right to adaptation — holding strong convictions, loosely. Tools: hypothesis-driven leadership, test-and-learn rituals.

Shift Seven

Build a New Tribe

From the people who got you here to intentionally designing the team and tribe around you that will get you where you want to go. Because no founder makes this journey alone. Tools: org design at the founder/CEO transition, advisory and board calibration, peer cohort.

Direct access to Mark

Weekly group sessions plus 1:1 time. Mark personally leads cohort 1. You're working with the operator-investor who's been on both sides — not a coach he certified.

AI-powered tools

Mark and his team have built a personalized toolkit — assessments, frameworks, and operating dashboards — that adapt to how you think, decide, and lead. Built in, not bolted on.

One concept, one tool, one action

Every week. Integrated into your business immediately. This is implementation, not theory. You learn and integrate something that changes how you operate before you move on.

A small founding cohort

Twenty founders, hand-selected. The peer group is part of the program — founders at the same stage, with similar stakes, on the same journey. Cohort 1 also gets 6 months of post-program monthly group calls with Mark.

The investor lens

You'll see your business through the same frame institutional capital uses — not because we promise investment, but because that's how Mark thinks. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Built for $5–$50M founders

Post-product-market-fit. Team of 5 to 50. Bootstrapped, angel, or venture-backed. Wondering if you're the bottleneck and ready to make the leap. If that's you, this was built for you.

Cohort 1 starts August 4, 2026.

The first cohort is hand-selected. Apply to learn more about the program, see if you're a fit, and have a real conversation about your business and self — not a sales pitch.

Apply for Cohort 1 →

Cohort 1 also gets six months of post-program monthly group calls with Mark, included. Pricing, structure, and timeline get covered on the call — once we both know whether the fit is right.

Meet Mark

Your Coach

Mark Rampolla built ZICO Coconut Water from a van and a crazy idea — sparked during his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America — into a global brand acquired by Coca-Cola for over $200 million. Then he bought it back — and now he's doing it again, this time building ZICO to $1B+.

After ZICO, Mark co-founded GroundForce Capital, a $600M investment firm, where he's sat across the table from thousands of founders as an institutional investor. He's raised over $1B, created $5B+ in economic value, backed nearly 100 companies, sat on 40+ boards, and written two bestselling books — High-Hanging Fruit and An Entrepreneur's Guide to Freedom.

He's been through the founder-to-CEO transition three times himself. He's watched thousands of other founders go through it from the investor's chair. The Backable CEO Incubator is the program he wishes someone had built for him while he was running ZICO.

ZICO: $200M+ Exit to Coca-Cola

Co-Founder, GroundForce Capital ($600M investment firm)

Invested in 100+ Companies

40+ Board Positions

2x Bestselling Author

Forbes 30 Under 30 Mentor

Does completing the program get me an investment from GroundForce Capital?

No. The Incubator is Mark's personal program. It uses the same lens Mark uses at GroundForce, but it is not a path to an investment by GroundForce. No investment is promised, implied, or evaluated as part of the program. The point is to make you backable — whether that's by GroundForce, another firm, or your own next chapter.

How is this different from a course or a mastermind?

Courses are content. Masterminds are peers. This is both, plus a guide. Every week you get one concept, one tool, and one action you integrate into your business immediately. Mark leads the sessions personally. You're not watching pre-recorded videos — you're working with the person who built multiple successful businesses and the curriculum.

What's the time commitment?

About 2–3 hours of structured time per week (one cohort session plus the weekly tool and action). The work isn't on top of your business — it's inside it. The Energy Audit alone tends to give founders back more time than the program takes.

Who is this not for?

Pre-revenue founders looking for a launch playbook. Founders looking for growth hacks. Anyone who wants to be told what they want to hear. This is implementation work that asks you to look honestly at yourself — if that's not the season you're in, it won't land.

What happens after I apply?

The application takes about five minutes. Mark and his team read every application and reach out to founders who look like a fit to book a 30-minute call. The call is a two-way conversation: we're qualifying for cohort fit and you're deciding if it's the right next move. No high-pressure pitch.

What if I'm a fit but cohort 1 fills before I apply?

We hold a small waitlist for cohort 2 (target start October 2026). Waitlist founders get first look at cohort 2 before applications open more broadly.