By Lucia Cerchlan, Head of Founder Experience – 28th May 2025
What makes a founder retreat unforgettable?
We won’t pretend to have all the answers, but after running ours for years and consistently receiving incredible feedback from founders and partners, we’ve have embodied learnings and deep insights we can share.
Now in its fourth year, the retreat has taken on a life of its own — each edition building on what came before, evolving what worked, letting go of what didn’t, and rising to a higher level each time. Think of it as recursion with soul.
Get into it by watching the full video, then read on to dive deeper:
In 2025, with a combination of the team’s lived experience and new ambitions, we took a fresh look in the planning stages.
Our new BACKED VC Head of Founder Experience, Lucia Cerchlan, was inspired re-reading Douglas Hofstadter’s book Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979). Hofstadter explores the nature of consciousness, the links between formal systems and meaning and the concept of emergence. The book reminded us to conceptualise the retreat not as a static event, but as a living system — one that reflects, adapts, and evolves with each edition. Through that lens, we created an experience where systems carried meaning, structure invited emergence, and participants reshaped the event as they moved through it.
And the results? A stunning 98 NPS score from our founders.
In this blog, we will pull back the curtain on how we built the 2025 edition of the BACKED Founder Retreat, with a mindset of building independent system instead of a checklist ticking exercise. (But we do have that too!) We’ll share some of the high-level observations that guided our thinking and the design of the retreat.
Yes, we’re keeping the secret sauce for our founders-eyes-only, so if you are a frontier tech founder about to raise your seed round, it’s time to get in touch.
2025 Founder Retreat approach: interdependent systems design
We resisted the default mode of treating the Retreat as a checklist to execute. Instead of asking, “What needs to get done?”, we asked, “What needs to work together for this to come alive?” That shift reframed the entire design process. We began to see the Retreat as a systems challenge — not a series of tasks, but a constellation of interdependent elements, each one shaping the experience in relationship with the others.
We coalesced seven systems: human, content, spatial, temporal, social, feedback and philosophical. We’re now explore them in order before addressing the theme of this year’s retreat: managing high performance.
1. Human System
A retreat rises or falls on who’s in the room. That’s why we obsess over curation. We don’t just look at backgrounds or traction — we look at emotional range, openness, and the kind of founders who make others feel brave enough to go deeper. We hold pre-calls, set group norms early, and think carefully about energy dynamics. Because when the people are right, the rest flows.
Checklist:
- Who are the founders that will bring the right mix of depth, openness, and curiosity?
- Are we mixing experiences (first-timers, veterans, solo builders) in a way that creates depth?
- Have we had real conversations with them beforehand to understand where they’re at?
- Are we bringing in facilitators or guests who elevate the space, not dominate it?
- What norms or signals will help people let their guard down early?
Learning: Design for energy, not for attendance.
2. Content System
We don’t stack sessions. We build arcs. The content system is how we carry founders through a journey — from connection to tension to insight and integration. It’s not just about delivering value; it’s about helping people think and feel differently by the end. The theme sets the tone, the sessions do the shaping, and the in-between moments often create the magic.
Checklist:
- What’s the one question or tension that all founders in the room are likely sitting with?
- How can we stretch that theme across formats – first-time vs. second-time founders, angel investors, seed-stage investors, advisors, etc – without diluting it?
- Does the content arc move people emotionally, not just intellectually?
- Have we planned a few moments where we don’t know what will happen — and that’s the point?
- What’s the language we want founders to take home and keep using after the retreat?
Learning: Founders cannot pitch well without a narrative — don’t run a retreat without one either.
3. Spatial System
Founders spend most of their time in overstimulating spaces. Our job is to create the opposite — a space that holds them gently, invites reflection, and signals that something different is about to happen. From venue layout to lighting to materials and scent, every spatial detail is intentional. We treat the environment as a silent co-founder — calm, grounding, and deeply supportive.
Checklist:
- What kind of space makes people breathe deeper the moment they arrive?
- Have we layered in sensory signals (scent, light, texture, sound) that tell people: this is different?
- Is there a spot for solo reflection? Quiet chats? Spontaneous movement?
- Are we designing the space to flex with the group’s energy, not constrain it?
Learning: Great environments do half the work. Design the space like it’s your co-founder.
4. Temporal System
Startups run fast. Retreats don’t have to. The temporal system is about pacing — not just scheduling. We think in beats, transitions, and emotional flow. We leave space between moments, not because we’re inefficient, but because founders need air to think, feel, and just be. The rhythm is where depth gets its chance to show up.
Checklist:
- Where are the emotional peaks and pauses across the three days?
- Are we giving founders time to land before we ask them to share or open up?
- Do we have enough white space — not for filler, but for emergence?
- Are transitions emotionally attuned, or just logistical?
- Are we ending the days in a way that leaves something to reflect on?
Learning: Not every moment needs to be filled. Founders need whitespace, too — that’s where clarity happens.
5. Social System
You can’t force connection, but you can design for it. The social system is what turns a group of brilliant strangers into something that feels like a tribe. Through buddy systems, circles, rituals, shared meals, and a few unexpected twists, we build the kind of belonging that lasts beyond a long weekend. This is where the we forms — and where real momentum begins.
Checklist:
- What’s the first moment that makes someone feel, “I’m in the right place”?
- Have we designed intentional groupings (buddies, circles, surprise pairings)?
- What shared rituals will naturally form connection — without feeling forced?
- What moments will let humour and intimacy emerge? (in-jokes, games, unexpected challenges)
- What does staying connected post-retreat actually look like?
Learning: Startups are built on trust and speed — so is retreat culture. Bond them fast, then get out of the way.
6. Feedback System
We don’t wait for the post-event form. The feedback system starts from the moment the first founder walks in. We watch, sense, check in, and adapt as we go. Think debriefs with facilitators, real time feedback loops. If something’s not landing, we don’t wait — we shift.
Checklist:
- How will we read the room beyond what’s being said?
- Are we creating gentle prompts for feedback during the retreat (e.g. end-of-day postcards, emoji boards)?
- Have we set up space to debrief as a team each night?
- Do we have a plan if something isn’t landing — or something better wants to happen?
- How will we capture founder reflections that shape the next retreat?
Learning: The best founders don’t wait for quarterly reviews. The same goes for retreats — sense what’s needed now, not later.
7. Philosophical System
Every retreat has an operating system — most just don’t realise it. At BACKED, we’re intentional about ours. It’s the tone in the invite, the language in the talks, the values behind every decision. We believe in vulnerability without performance, ambition without ego, and space over noise. This is the philosophical layer — the part you don’t always see, but always feel.
Checklist:
- What’s our deepest “why” for this retreat — and is that felt in every choice?
- Does every email, welcome talk, and gesture reflect our values as BACKED?
- Are we holding space for ambition and tenderness?
- How do we keep ourselves honest — that this is for the founders, not the fund?
- What would this look like if we trusted emergence even more?
Learning: If you’re not clear on your “why,” no amount of good vibes will carry the room.
Exploring the theme of Managing High Performance
This year’s theme — Managing High Performance — wasn’t just something we slotted into a keynote. The theme itself was recursive.
We explored it from multiple layers of (founder) experience: first-time builders figuring it out in real time, second-time founders navigating it with hindsight, investors reflecting on it from the outside in, a serial angel offering hard-earned perspective from dozens of cap tables, or by having the first British women who climbed Mt Everest with us. The theme repeated, but never in the same way — it morphed with each voice.
Each lens brought the theme back into focus — slightly altered, slightly deeper. That’s recursion: not repetition, but variation with memory. What started as a topic became a system for insight — performance under pressure, performance in solitude, performance after failure.
For founders, this mirrored the reality of their own journey — performance isn’t a single moment; it’s a living, adaptive cycle.
For us at BACKED VC, it was a reminder that the best themes don’t shout. They echo. That kind of resonance happens when everything around it — the structure, the space, the flow — is alive enough to carry it.
When Systems Create Meaning
The resonance didn’t emerge by chance. Hofstadter calls this isomorphism: when two complex structures map onto each other. The retreat’s architecture — its sessions, pacing, key theme and emotional tone — began to mirror the internal journeys of the founders in the room. As a result, the retreat became a mirror — and in that mirror, founders saw themselves more clearly.
We believe designing systems means designing for responsiveness. Yes, we build agendas with intention — but we hold them lightly. A conversation deepens? Let the session run on. The group’s energy shifts? Scrap the slide. A moment of silence feels heavier than our next speaker? Stay with it.
This isn’t spontaneity for its own sake. It’s responsiveness as a design principle. Founders know this feeling — when a product roadmap meets real user behaviour and something more important than the original spec starts to emerge. The same is true here.
When a retreat system reflects the emotional truth of the people inside it and has the flexibility to respond in real time, something more than good design happens. That’s when systems create meaning. Not because we imposed it — but because we stayed present enough to let it surface.
We didn’t set out to run a perfect offsite. We set out to build something that learns — just like a great product, a strong team, or a founder figuring things out in real time.
So what did we take away?
We’re building something that gets better every time — because it listens, adapts, and reflects the people inside it. That means designing systems that can flex. Holding structure lightly. Letting go of the plan when something better wants to happen.
The 2025 BACKED VC Founder Retreat was about what emerged — from the group, from the theme, and from the space we created to let it breathe.
That’s what we’ll keep doing.
Designing for emergence.
Trusting the system.
And letting the moment lead — because that’s how the real stuff shows up.
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