TC Early Stage 2020
July 21 – 22, 2020
Speakers
Rahul Agarwal
Product Manager Boomi (Dell Technologies)
Baris Aksoy
General Partner AV8 Ventures
Sophie Alcorn
Founder Alcorn Immigration Law
Cyan Banister
Venture Partner, The Frontier Long Journey Ventures
Katherine Boyle
Partner General Catalyst
Josh Brody
Venture Partner Western Technology Investment
James Buckhouse
Design Partner Sequoia Capital
Konstantine Buhler
Partner Sequoia Capital
Dalton Caldwell
Managing Director & Group Partner Y Combinator
Priti Youssef Choksi
Partner Norwest Venture Partners
Jeff Clavier
Founder and Managing Partner Uncork Capital
James Currier
General Partner NFX
Casey Ellis
Founder, Chairman & CTO Bugcrowd
Jon Evans
CTO HappyFunCorp
Dylan Field
Co-founder & CEO Figma
Michael Glenn
Partner, Patent Prosecution Perkins Coie
Talia Goldberg
Partner Bessemer Venture Partners
Sarah Guo
Founder and Managing Partner Conviction
Travis Hedge
Co-founder and CRO Vouch Insurance
Miguel Helft
Editorial Director Message Lab
Emily Heyward
Co-founder & Chief Brand Officer Red Antler
Myles Hilliard
Senior Growth Account Manager Vouch Insurance
Reid Hoffman
Partner Greylock
Lewis Hower
Managing Director, Startup Banking Silicon Valley Bank
Charles Hudson
Managing Partner Precursor Ventures
Jess Lee
Partner Sequoia
Rebecca Lynn
Co-founder & General Partner Canvas Ventures
Vlad Magdalin
Co-founder & CEO Webflow
Caryn Marooney
General Partner Coatue Management L.L.C.
Arun Mathew
Partner Accel
Ann Miura-Ko
Co-founding Partner Floodgate
Saam Motamedi
Partner Greylock
Mariam Naficy
Founder & CEO Minted
Matthew Oshinsky
Partner, Emerging Companies & Venture Capital Perkins Coie
Ali Partovi
CEO Neo
Marissa Peretz
Founder, Advisor, Investor Silicon Beach Talent
Anna Pickard
Head of Brand Communications Slack
Sam Pullara
Managing Director Sutter Hill Ventures
Krystina Rubino
Head of Offline Right Side Up
Amy Saper
Partner Accel
Jake Saper
General Partner Emergence
Ben Schippers
Co-founder & CEO TezLab
Lindsay Piper Shaw
Senior Marketing Consultant Right Side Up
Ethan Smith
CEO Graphite
Susan Su
Startup Growth Advisor & Head of Portfolio Sound Ventures
Garry Tan
Managing Partner Initialized Capital
Lo Toney
Founding Managing Partner Plexo Capital
Kristin Tucker
Executive Search Partner Koller Search Partners
Mike Vernal
Partner Sequoia Capital
Margit Wennmachers
Operating Partner, Marketing Andreessen Horowitz
Laurie Yoler
General Partner Playground Global
Adam Zagaris
Stephanie Zhan
Partner Sequoia Capital
Lior Zorea
Partner Nixon Peabody
Asher King-Abramson
Founder Got Users
Rahul is a lead technical product manager at Boomi, a cloud-based data platform company and the latest addition to the Dell Technologies portfolio. At Boomi, Rahul led the launch of a new product line geared at the enterprise global software market. He is now responsible for defining the product vision, delivering the product roadmap, and executing the global go-to-market for one of the product services of the platform. Before Boomi, Rahul worked at Sequoia Capital-backed companies in India and SE Asia, where he worked on building and launching new software and physical products
Rahul's Sessions
How to achieve product led growth (Dell for Entrepreneurs)
The enterprise technology market is a crowded place now with rapid consolidation and dominant players. How does one attempt at starting a software company in these times, yet alone scale it? The answer lies in using product led growth to ensure solid customer success. In this session we will tackle some hard-hitting questions such as how to design your go to market, which role to hire first, which function – product or sales or marketing to focus first and how to build a culture to ensure growth. We will use real-life examples from the software and internet industries with high applicability in other settings as well. Brought to you by Dell for Entrepreneurs.
Baris is a General Partner at AV8 Ventures. He joined AV8 from Google, where he served as the Head of Global Strategic Business Development in Media & Entertainment industry vertical, covering AI and infrastructure technologies. Prior to Google, Baris was the CFO at Anvato and led the acquisition by Google. Earlier, Baris was an investor at Intel Capital, covering global consumer and enterprise investments. While there, he invested in companies like Yume (IPO), OpenFeint (acq by Gree), Crowdstar (acq by Glu), Sense Networks (acq by YellowPages), and Caring.com (acq by Bankrate), many of which were acquired or went public during his time there. As a product manager and engineer, he held leadership positions at Calix and Alcatel. He received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his B.S. in electrical engineering from Istanbul Technical University.
Baris's Sessions
Creating and Protecting IP Value in Connection with VC Financings (Perkins Coie and AV8 Ventures)
How do venture capital investors value formal Intellectual Property (IP) rights in connection with a decision to fund a technology or life sciences start-up? How do they conduct IP due diligence? How do investors and founders, post-funding, ensure their start-ups are pursuing an IP strategy that optimizes exit valuation for all? Perkins Coie partners Michael Glenn (Patent Prosecution) and Matt Oshinsky (Emerging Companies Venture Capital) will be joined by Baris Aksoy of AV8 Ventures to discuss these and other questions regarding safeguarding IP rights and maximizing the value of all technology development activities. Brought to you by Perkins Coie.
Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives.
Sophie's Sessions
How to hire globally (and how to make immigration work for you)
Dealing with a tricky visa situation? Troubleshoot the many snags that can affect early-stage startups who are trying to bring talent into the country, with top Silicon Valley immigration expert Sophie Alcorn.
Cyan Banister is a partner at Founders Fund, where she invests across sectors and stages with a particular interest in augmented reality, fertility, heavily regulated industries and businesses that help people with basic skills find meaningful work.
Cyan's Sessions
How to get your first yes
Fundraising can be a bit like dominoes. Once you get one investor on board, it’s much easier to bring others along for the ride. But getting that first ‘yes’ can be the most difficult part. Hear the do’s and don’ts of hyper early stage fundraising from Cyan Banister, seed-stage investor and partner at Founders Fund.
Katherine Boyle, a former reporter with The Washington Post, is an investment associate at General Catalyst.
Katherine's Sessions
Launching in regulated industries and growing fast nonetheless
Regulated industries are often the most ripe for disruption, but can also be some of the most challenging markets to enter for a startup. Not only does a company have to handle all the same hurdles as any other startup, but it must navigate a tangly web of regulation and governance. Hear from General Catalyst partner Katherine Boyle about how to tackle those challenges without losing momentum.
Josh is a Venture Partner based in New York City. Prior to joining WTI in 2017, Josh was the founder and CEO of Pronoun, a venture-backed ebook publishing platform acquired by Macmillan Publishers, where he subsequently served as President of the division. Previously, Josh was the first employee at Media Rights Capital LP, a film and television financing firm backed by Goldman Sachs, AT&T, and WPP. Earlier in his career, Josh worked in the corporate development group at William Morris Endeavor, the Hollywood talent agency. Josh received his MA and BA from the University of Chicago and his MBA from Columbia Business School.
Josh's Sessions
How and when to take debt
As tech takes over more and more industries, debt is becoming not only a viable option for some startups, but, in some cases, an optimal financing path. Hear from WTI Venture Partner Josh Brody on how to evaluate equity vs. debt, the right and wrong ways to take on debt, and how to pick a lender that understands and embraces the inherent risks associated with lending to early stage businesses.
As Design Partner at Sequoia, James Buckhouse works with founders at every stage as they design their companies, products, cultures, and businesses. James got his start in film, lensing shots, crafting character arcs, and punching up story for movies, including the Shrek, Madagascar, and Matrix franchises. He regularly lectures on Story-Driven Design at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and d.school. Prior to joining Sequoia in 2014, James was the Senior Experience Architect at Twitter. He has a B.A. in Visual Art from Brown University.
James's Sessions
Start with your customer
How do you design a product that people love and a business that endures? You start with your customer and work backward to the product. For nearly 50 years, Sequoia has partnered with founders who have gone on to create category-defining, enduring businesses by solving customer needs. Hear from Jess Lee and James Buckhouse as they provide, for the first time, a taste of the product methods gleaned from Sequoia-backed founders on how to build the foundation for an enduring company from the start.
Exclusive AMA with Sequoia
Note: This session is by application only. Registered founder ticket holders will receive link via email to apply. Join Sequoia partners for an intimate discussion on how to increase your odds of success from the start. Come prepared with your most pressing questions, from how to seek capital and create an enduring culture to how to develop a differentiated product and make your customers love you.
Konstantine Buhler is a partner at Sequoia Capital, where he focuses on seed and early-stage investments. He is involved with a number of portfolio companies, including AppAnnie, CaptivateIQ, Ethos and Verkada. Prior to Sequoia, Konstantine was an investor at Meritech Capital, where he focused on enterprise software and data-first businesses. He’s also worked at RelateIQ, McKinsey, and The Pritzker Group, and previously founded and ran a non-governmental organization for seven years. Konstantine earned his BS, MS and MBA from Stanford University, where he helped launch several classmates’ startups. He is passionate about the potential of artificial intelligence, especially the practical applications of machine learning.
Konstantine's Sessions
Exclusive AMA with Sequoia
Note: This session is by application only. Registered founder ticket holders will receive link via email to apply. Join Sequoia partners for an intimate discussion on how to increase your odds of success from the start. Come prepared with your most pressing questions, from how to seek capital and create an enduring culture to how to develop a differentiated product and make your customers love you.
Dalton is Managing Director, Architect and Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of imeem (acquired by MySpace in 2009), and the co-founder and CEO of App.net. He has a BS in Symbolic Systems and a BA in Psychology from Stanford University.
Dalton's Sessions
How to get into Y Combinator
The seed-stage venture firm has come to form its own startup economy over the years, with its network of companies and founders interconnecting across the tech industry and beyond. Find out how Y Combinator works today, and how you can become a part of it, in this discussion with head of admissions Dalton Caldwell.
Priti brings more than twenty years of corporate and business development experience to her role as a partner on Norwest’s consumer Internet team. Prior to Norwest, Priti spent nine years at Facebook in executive roles in corporate development and business development, where she led M&A efforts for the company, negotiated key partnerships, and served as a strategic advisor to product leadership teams across Facebook. Before her time at Facebook, Priti spent six years at Google in strategic partnership roles. As director of distribution partnerships, she led deals for Google applications such as Toolbar and Chrome and negotiated transformative search partnerships with companies such as Apple and Mozilla. Top-line revenue from these deals grew from $0 to $4 billion under her stewardship. Earlier in her career, Priti earned her startup chops in strategy and management roles at two fast-growth companies, one of which was acquired by Inktomi in 2001 and the other went public in 1997. Priti holds an MBA with honors from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in architecture and communications.
Priti's Sessions
How to get your company acquired, not sold
Learn how to think about M&A as a possible exit opportunity from a former Facebook corporate development executive turned investor. Understand what acquirers are looking for and what questions you should be asking. Create optionality for yourself as you build and grow your company.
Jeff Clavier is Managing Partner at Uncork Capital, a seed-stage venture firm in Palo Alto and San Francisco. He founded Uncork Capital in 2004 (then called SoftTech VC) to provide active support and capital for companies in their first 18 months of life. Jeff has helped numerous companies reach successful outcomes, including Eventbrite (NYSE:EB); Sendgrid (NYSE:SEND); Fitbit (NYSE:FIT); Vungle (Blackrock); and Mint.com (Intuit). His current investments include Vidyard, Postmates, Molekule, Shippo and Front. Jeff was born in France, and graduated from Université Paris Descartes with an MS in Computer Science. He was formerly the CTO and an early employee at Effix, a fintech startup that sold to Reuters. In 2000 he immigrated to the U.S. and joined RVC, Reuters’ $450 million corporate venture capital fund, as a general partner. He recently wrapped up his 4-year term on the board of the National Venture Capital Association.
Jeff's Sessions
Seed funding tips and tricks
There are now a thousand micro-VCs entrepreneurs can raise capital from, creating confusing market dynamics. Learn tips and tricks on fundraising from Uncork Capital’s Managing Partner, Jeff Clavier.
James Currier is a co-founder and partner of NFX Guild, an early-stage fund with a three-month program for marketplace and network businesses.
James's Sessions
How to move fast and find the right VC investors
Learn the right and wrong ways to find and approach the right investors for your startup. Discover the 6 elements VC’s look for that will make your process fast, in this lightning talk with James Currier, investor in over 130 startups and Managing Partner at NFX Capital.
Casey Ellis is the CEO and founder of Bugcrowd.
Casey's Sessions
How to prioritize security at your startup
Security is one of the most important things for a startup to focus on, but many struggle to dedicate time, resources, or budget to protect against something you never want to happen. How should startups prioritize security, and what do emerging companies need to know?
Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch’s weekend columnist since 2010.
Jon's Sessions
How to build a tech stack that can go the distance
The beautiful flower of your tech stack starts with a seed, and a series of decisions. What fertilizer will you use? How often should you water it? Where can you give it the right amount of sunlight? Every decision you make about your tech stack affects how it will hold up, and evolve, over time. Hear from HappyFunCorp’s cofounder and CEO Ben Schippers and CTO Jon Evans about how you can avoid regretting those decisions., The beautiful flower of your tech stack starts with a seed, and a series of decisions. What fertilizer will you use? How often should you water it? Where can you give it the right amount of sunlight? Every decision you make about your tech stack affects how it will hold up, and evolve, over time. Hear from HappyFunCorp’s cofounder and CEO Ben Schippers and CTO Jon Evans about how you can avoid regretting those decisions.
Dylan Field is the co-founder and chief executive of Figma, a cross-platform design and collaboration tool. Before starting Figma, Dylan interned at LinkedIn, Flipboard, and O’Reilly Media.
Dylan's Sessions
How to take your time as fast as you can
Figma spent six years in stealth before ever launching a product. But when it finally did come to market, its industry was in the midst of a paradigm shift. Entire organizations started participating in the design process, and conversely, designers became empowered, asserting more influence over the direction of the company and the products they built. We’ll hear from Figma founder and CEO Dylan Field on how he stayed patient with product development and sprinted towards growth.
Michael Glenn is a partner with the firm’s Intellectual Property practice with a focus on patent prosecution. He represents clients in all aspects of intellectual property law and at all phases of patent prosecution, including handling IP audits and strategy, opinions of counsel, pre-litigation patent defense and assertion, appeals, reissues and reexaminations. Michael has experience with the following representative technologies: telecommunications, information technology, business methods, medical devices and mechanical inventions. Called a “standout performer for prosecution in the high-tech space” and “highly experienced,” Michael Glenn is ranked in the IAM Patent 1000. Crediting his ability to develop “robust but elegantly structured portfolios,” the 2020 guide recognizes Michael for providing “solid, no-nonsense advice.”
Michael's Sessions
Creating and Protecting IP Value in Connection with VC Financings (Perkins Coie and AV8 Ventures)
How do venture capital investors value formal Intellectual Property (IP) rights in connection with a decision to fund a technology or life sciences start-up? How do they conduct IP due diligence? How do investors and founders, post-funding, ensure their start-ups are pursuing an IP strategy that optimizes exit valuation for all? Perkins Coie partners Michael Glenn (Patent Prosecution) and Matt Oshinsky (Emerging Companies Venture Capital) will be joined by Baris Aksoy of AV8 Ventures to discuss these and other questions regarding safeguarding IP rights and maximizing the value of all technology development activities. Brought to you by Perkins Coie.
Talia Goldberg invests in internet and software businesses from the Bessemer Ventures Partners San Francisco office. She is particularly interested in marketplaces, mobile video, self-serve software platforms, networked communities and real estate tech.
Talia's Sessions
Pitchdeck teardown!
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top early stage investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Sarah Guo is the Founder and Managing Partner at Conviction, a venture capital firm founded in 2022 to invest in intelligent software, or “Software 3.0.” Prior, she spent a decade as a General Partner at Greylock Partners. She has been an early investor or advisor to 40+ companies in software, fintech, security, infrastructure, fundamental research, and AI-native applications. Sarah is from Wisconsin, has four degrees from University of Pennsylvania, and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two daughters. She co-hosts the AI podcast “No Priors” with Elad Gil
Sarah's Sessions
How to raise a successful series A
Raising money from a top VC is all in the details, and no one knows those details better than Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo, GPs at Greylock. These seasoned experts will discuss the non-obvious things investors look for when they write a Series A check. With consumer and enterprise fields equally represented, their advice will be valuable to all entrepreneurs looking to raise a Series A.
Travis Hedge is the Co-founder & Chief Revenue Officer of Vouch Insurance. Vouch Insurance is a new kind of insurance company for startups, built by founders for founders. The company provides insurance products and risk assessment tools to permit digital insurance coverage. Prior to founding Vouch in 2018, Travis was an investor with SVB Capital, focused on early-stage tech companies. Notable investments during his time at SVB include Root Insurance, Earin, and OpenDoor. Travis earned a B.A. from Ohio State University, where he also briefly served as an adjunct professor in startup finance.
Travis's Sessions
How to protect your startup: What founders need to know about litigation and fraud in uncertain times (Silicon Valley Bank)
Is your startup protected from litigation or fraud? Are your directors and officers personally covered? Liability coverage is critical for any startup founder. Travis Hedge, co-founder of Vouch Insurance, and Lewis Hower, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Bank, will guide attendees through the various types of strategies available to founders and why they’re needed at each stage of growth. Brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank.
As editorial director at Message Lab, a fast-growing agency that’s reinventing branded editorial, Miguel oversees content initiatives for clients like Airbnb, Eventbrite, Silicon Valley Bank and others. He is an award-winning journalist who covered the tech industry for 20 years at publications including The New York Times, Fortune, the Industry Standard and the San Jose Mercury News. Before joining Message Lab, he was the Technology Editor at Forbes. Miguel also worked as a software engineer at Sun Microsystems and as a professional mountain guide, leading climbing expeditions around the world.
Miguel's Sessions
Be the best at preparing for the worst
Inevitably, something will go wrong – from product recalls and lawsuits to executive firing and sexual harassment allegations, so you better be prepared. Hear from Margit Wennmachers, operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a co-founder of The OutCast Agency and Miguel Helft, editorial director at Message Lab and former Forbes technology editor, about how to develop a framework for crisis and withstand through tough times.
Emily Heyward is the Co-founder and Chief Brand Officer at Red Antler, the leading brand company for startups and new ventures. Emily works closely with founders to develop purposeful, strategic visions for their business idea and has led branding efforts for top companies such as Casper, Allbirds, and Brandless.
Emily's Sessions
How to get people obsessed with your brand
During her 12-year tenure running Red Antler, one of the leading brand company for startups and new ventures, Emily Heyward has launched more brands than anyone. In this session for TechCrunch Early Stages, she’ll share the modern rules of brand building, breaking down the traditional notions of how modern brands look, feel, and behave. Covering a few case studies and tactical applications, Emily will outline the best practices for driving obsession from day one while also building a foundation for longterm growth.
Myles's Sessions
How to protect your startup: What founders need to know about litigation and fraud in uncertain times (Silicon Valley Bank)
Is your startup protected from litigation or fraud? Are your directors and officers personally covered? Liability coverage is critical for any startup founder. Travis Hedge, co-founder of Vouch Insurance, and Lewis Hower, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Bank, will guide attendees through the various types of strategies available to founders and why they’re needed at each stage of growth. Brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank.
An accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses. In 2003 he co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service.
In 2009 he joined Greylock. He currently serves on the boards of Apollo, Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Microsoft, Nauto, Neeva, Xapo, and a few early stage companies still in stealth. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards, including Kiva, Endeavor, CZI Biohub, New America, Berggruen Institute, Opportunity@Work, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change.
He is the host of Masters of Scale, an original podcast series and the first American media program to commit to a 50-50 gender balance for featured guests. He is the co-author of three best-selling books: The Start-Up of You, The Alliance, and Blitzscaling. He is an Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, and a graduate of Stanford University.
Reid's Sessions
How to raise a successful series A
Raising money from a top VC is all in the details, and no one knows those details better than Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo, GPs at Greylock. These seasoned experts will discuss the non-obvious things investors look for when they write a Series A check. With consumer and enterprise fields equally represented, their advice will be valuable to all entrepreneurs looking to raise a Series A.
Lewis Hower connects Silicon Valley Bank and VC/startup communities as a Managing Director with SVB Startup Banking.
Lewis's Sessions
How to protect your startup: What founders need to know about litigation and fraud in uncertain times (Silicon Valley Bank)
Is your startup protected from litigation or fraud? Are your directors and officers personally covered? Liability coverage is critical for any startup founder. Travis Hedge, co-founder of Vouch Insurance, and Lewis Hower, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Bank, will guide attendees through the various types of strategies available to founders and why they’re needed at each stage of growth. Brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank.
Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. He invests in people over product at the earliest stage of their entrepreneurial journey. Under his leadership, Precursor has raised four funds and has $250+ million under management. He has invested in 400+ companies and has supported 450+ founders, including the teams behind Bobbie Baby, Carrot, Incredible Health, Juniper Square, Modern Health, Pair Eyewear, Rad AI, and The Athletic (sold to the NY Times for $525 million in 2022). Prior to founding Precursor, Charles was a Partner at Uncork Capital where he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure, applications, and marketplaces and supported their portfolio companies on business and corporate development matters. He was also the Co-founder and CEO of Bionic Panda Games, an Android-focused mobile games startup. Charles is an active member of the VC community. He was the 2023-2024 Chair of the NVCA Board of Directors, a board member at Venture Forward, on the investment committee for Screendoor, and is on the Path Ahead Ventures Advisory Board. He is also an advisor and mentor to a number of emerging managers. Charles holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Stanford. He maintains close connections with his alma mater and was awarded the 2021-22 Governors’ Award in honor of his volunteer service to the university as a board member and volunteer. Charles is also a co-instructor for the Entrepreneurship from Diverse Perspectives course in the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Charles's Sessions
How to sell an idea when you don't have a product
It takes money to make money. But first, you must get the money on board. Hear from seed-stage investor Charles Hudson about what it takes to convert investors when all you have to show is a great idea and an understanding of the market.
Jess Lee is Partner at Sequoia Capital. She is a board director at Ironclad, Maven Clinic, Wonolo, Squint, and Flagship. In addition to investing, she is also Chief Product Officer and leads the engineering, product, design, and data science teams at Sequoia. Prior to Sequoia, she was Co-Founder & CEO of fashion app Polyvore (acquired by Yahoo in 2015) and a product manager for Google Maps. Jess is also a founding and board member of All Raise, a non-profit dedicated to improving diversity in the tech industry. Jess has a B.S. from Stanford in Computer Science and loves manga, drawing, and cosplay.
Jess's Sessions
Start with your customer
How do you design a product that people love and a business that endures? You start with your customer and work backward to the product. For nearly 50 years, Sequoia has partnered with founders who have gone on to create category-defining, enduring businesses by solving customer needs. Hear from Jess Lee and James Buckhouse as they provide, for the first time, a taste of the product methods gleaned from Sequoia-backed founders on how to build the foundation for an enduring company from the start.
Exclusive AMA with Sequoia
Note: This session is by application only. Registered founder ticket holders will receive link via email to apply. Join Sequoia partners for an intimate discussion on how to increase your odds of success from the start. Come prepared with your most pressing questions, from how to seek capital and create an enduring culture to how to develop a differentiated product and make your customers love you.
Rebecca Lynn is co-founder and general partner of Canvas Ventures.
Rebecca's Sessions
How to structure your fintech startup
With the disintermediation of banks, and financial services more broadly, startups that are well structured can really have major advantages entering those markets. From benchmarking growth metrics that matter to navigating regulatory changes, learn more about Canvas Ventures partner Rebecca Lynn’s approach towards evaluating founding teams and equipping companies with what it takes to make the most of opportunities in fintech.
Vlad Magdalin is co-founder and CEO of Webflow, a no-code software development company.
Vlad's Sessions
The business of bootstrapping
Webflow was bootstrapped and profitable for seven years before co-founder and CEO, Vlad Magdalin trusted Accel’s Arun Mathew as their first institutional investor. Hear how Magdalin designed a sustainable, high-growth business without institutional investment, and the surprising factors that led him to take VC investment.
Caryn Marooney is general partner at Coatue Management and sits on the boards of Zendesk and Elastic. In prior roles she oversaw communications for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus and co-founded The OutCast Agency, which served clients like Salesforce.com and Amazon.
Caryn's Sessions
Why should anyone care? (Making your brand stand out)
Startups often struggle to create a narrative that stands out. As a General Partner at Coatue, former head of Comms at Facebook, and co-founder of the OutCast Agency, Caryn Marooney has seen it all. Come learn the brand and messaging framework that can help your company stand out (while staying true to yourself.)
Arun Mathew joined Accel in 2009 and leads growth investments in the enterprise, security, and infrastructure markets. Arun works closely with 1Password, BetterCloud, Dealer.com (acquired by DealerTrack), ForgeRock, G2 Crowd, PagerDuty (PD), Qualtrics (acquired by SAP), ServiceChannel, Squarespace, Tenable (TENB) and Webflow. Arun also leads the firm’s Tech Council initiatives and spends time in India, where he is active with Accel’s investments in Flipkart, BookMyShow, Ola, and Freshworks. Arun is from Nashville, Tennessee and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Arun's Sessions
The business of bootstrapping
Webflow was bootstrapped and profitable for seven years before co-founder and CEO, Vlad Magdalin trusted Accel’s Arun Mathew as their first institutional investor. Hear how Magdalin designed a sustainable, high-growth business without institutional investment, and the surprising factors that led him to take VC investment.
Known for her inception stage investments that range from marketplaces to highly technical companies, Ms. Miura-Ko’s investments have earned her repeat appearances on the Forbes Midas List and The New York Times list of top twenty venture capitalists worldwide. At Stanford University—where she received her Ph.D. for her work on mathematical modeling of cybersecurity—she is a lecturer in engineering, teaching on topics from blockchain to intelligent growth for startups. In addition, she is a co-director of the Stanford Mayfield Fellows Program, which helps train undergraduates to become technology leaders. Ms. Miura-Ko is a co-founding member of AllRaise, an organization dedicated to increasing the success and prevalence of female funders and founders. Ms. Miura-Ko received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Yale. As an alumna, she has served on the School of Engineering & Applied Science Leadership Council and as a non-trustee member of the Corporation Committee on Investments. She was elected an alumni fellow in 2019.
Ann's Sessions
True product market fit is a minimum viable company
Product market fit is not the sign of a scalable business model. Without a validated value proposition, business model, and ecosystem working in concert, moving into “growth mode” is building your company on an unsound foundation. Learn whether you’ve built a minimum viable company from Floodgate co-founder and seed stage investor Ann Miura-Ko, who was one of the first investors in Lyft, Refinery29, and Xamarin. She’ll dive deeper into the three elements that are required to nail it before you scale it: Value Proposition, Ecosystem, and Business Model.
Saam is a General Partner at Greylock Partners where he partners with entrepreneurs at the seed and early stages who are focused on building companies in AI, cybersecurity, and SaaS. Since joining Greylock in 2016, Saam has built a promising portfolio spanning enterprise software, serving on the boards of security companies such as Abnormal Security, Apiiro Security and Opal Security, AI companies like Adept AI, Cresta, Predibase, Snorkel, and others still in stealth. Prior to joining Greylock, Saam founded Guru Labs, a machine learning driven startup, and previously worked in product management at RelateIQ, one of the first applied AI software companies. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University where he was a Mayfield Fellow.
Saam's Sessions
How to get your enterprise idea to product market fit
As a Partner at Greylock, Saam Motamedi invests in the next generation of enterprise software entrepreneurs at the seed and early stages, and is the first partner to entrepreneurs as they navigate product-market fit and go-to-market scale. He’ll share the three things enterprise founders should focus on to successfully get their early stage companies to product market fit, and why making early stage investments often comes down to betting on the founding team.
Mariam Naficy, Founder and CEO of Minted, is a pioneer in e-commerce and crowdsourcing. Growing up traveling the world with her family, she learned to appreciate artisanal design and exceptional craftsmanship by experiencing unique design first-hand. In 2007, Mariam saw an opportunity to leverage the internet to help crowdsource great design, starting with stationery. She founded Minted, a marketplace of independent designers, with the mission of bringing the best in independent design to consumers everywhere. Today, Minted sells wall art, stationery, and home goods designed by independent designers and artists to consumers, and also serves as a platform for sourcing design for other retailers and brands. Prior to Minted, Mariam co-founded Eve.com, the first online cosmetics retailer, in 1998 and sold it successfully in 2000. She sits on the Boards of Every Mother Counts and Williams College and on the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council. Mariam was named one of the 100 Powerful Women in 2009 and again in 2019 by Entrepreneur, one of the 100 top Female Founders in 2019 by Inc. and one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company in 2014. Mariam is a graduate of Williams College and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Mariam's Sessions
How Minted went from stationary to full speed ahead
Minted founder and CEO Mariam Naficy doesn’t just have an eye for great, unique design. The serial founder also knows how to grow a successful business from the ground up. Having raised nearly $300 million dollars and grown the team to upwards of 400 employees, Naficy is leading her company, which is generating hundreds of millions in revenue, into the 21st century. Hear how she’s gotten investors, designers, and consumers on board with her vision for the future of design.
Matt has worked in Silicon Valley’s startup ecosystem for nearly two decades and has guided a range of companies from formation to IPO and beyond. He advises and guides emerging growth companies throughout their corporate life cycles and represents a range of venture capital and private equity investors. His counsel includes extensive experience representing well-established and market-leading retail, high tech and medical device companies in financings, mergers, acquisitions and other strategic investments.
Matthew's Sessions
Creating and Protecting IP Value in Connection with VC Financings (Perkins Coie and AV8 Ventures)
How do venture capital investors value formal Intellectual Property (IP) rights in connection with a decision to fund a technology or life sciences start-up? How do they conduct IP due diligence? How do investors and founders, post-funding, ensure their start-ups are pursuing an IP strategy that optimizes exit valuation for all? Perkins Coie partners Michael Glenn (Patent Prosecution) and Matt Oshinsky (Emerging Companies Venture Capital) will be joined by Baris Aksoy of AV8 Ventures to discuss these and other questions regarding safeguarding IP rights and maximizing the value of all technology development activities. Brought to you by Perkins Coie.
Ali tries to make a career of betting on people smarter than himself. He leads Neo, a mentorship community and VC fund that backed Cursor, Kalshi, Bluesky, & more. He’s also chairman of Sway, a tech platform to reimagine democracy. Ali previously co-founded Code.org, iLike, and LinkExchange. He grew up in Tehran during the war and studied CS at Harvard. He loves climbing, snowboarding, guitar, & puzzles, and is a father of four.
Ali's Sessions
Hiring your early engineers
The first few employees determine a startup’s trajectory. Learn the dos and don’ts of hiring your early engineers from entrepreneur and investor Ali Partovi. And hear how these hiring decisions can determine not only the the type of culture you build for your employees, but also the overall success of your company.
Marissa founded Silicon Beach Talent with her Co-Founder, Max Brown, in 2015, a recruiting, consulting, and advisory board firm focused on venture backed companies in Los Angeles. SBT works primarily in the areas of frontier technology, mobility, consumer electronics, robotics, defense, e-commerce, social conscious businesses and consumer tech and focuses on executive search through high level individual contributors in the areas of Engineering (hardware and software), Product, Design, Creative, Growth and People. Prior to founding Silicon Beach Talent, Marissa was in house as a leader in Technical Recruiting and People at Tesla as well as part of the M&A team focused on strategically growing Tesla operations both domestically and internationally. Marissa started at the ground floor of Tesla and was instrumental in scaling the company to over 15k employees. She led teams in multiple locations and was responsible for several thousand employees. Marissa is on the board of advisors to the most cutting edge companies in Los Angeles, is an angel investor and is a key business strategist for high growth startups.
Marissa's Sessions
Pitch your talent like you're pitching your investors
Hear from Silicon Beach Talent founder Marissa Peretz and partner at Koller Search Kristin Tucker on how to entice the right type of talent. Defining a culture with stand-out values is only the first step. These two recruiting powerhouses will share how to close the right candidate.
Anna Pickard is the Head of Brand Communications at Slack, responsible for establishing the company’s voice and tone. Anna works across marketing, product, editorial, and customer service teams weave in moments of playfulness and delight that give Slack an authentically human feel.
Anna's Sessions
A brand personified
Anna Pickard is the Head of Brand Communications at Slack, responsible for establishing the company’s voice and tone. Hear Anna share how to bring together the various functions of your organization to create a distinctly unique brand voice that engages and delights customers.
Sam joined Sutter Hill Ventures from Twitter where he was a senior infrastructure engineer and a strategic technology advisor. He came to Twitter via the acquisition of Bagcheck in 2011 where he was co-founder and CEO. Previously Sam was Chief Technologist of Yahoo! Responsible for technology strategy across the audience organization and platform team. Before Yahoo!, Sam was Chief Architect of Borland after the acquisition of Gauntlet Systems where he was also a co-founder and CEO. Sam came to Silicon Valley to work at WebLogic where he was the first server engineer after the founders and stayed on through the acquisition by BEA Systems. He received his Master of Science degree in Physics from Northwestern University and his Bachelor of Science degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Sam's Sessions
Exploring the infrastructure of SaaS startups
A new generation of SaaS companies like Wavefront, Snowflake and Clumio has emerged to help reduce the complexity involved in managing data in the cloud. We’ll hear from Sam Pullara of Sutter Ventures, who has two decades of technology and investing experience, about how cloud infrastructure companies can compete in a cloud provider-dominated world.
Krystina Rubino is a marketing executive who leads the offline growth marketing practice at Right Side Up.
Krystina's Sessions
Growth Marketing: Podcasts as a secret weapon
Podcast advertising is widely viewed as a nascent medium, but smart companies know it can be a powerful channel in their marketing mix. Opportunity is ripe – get in early and you can own the medium, box out competitors, and catapult your growth. Krystina Rubino and Lindsay Piper Shaw have launched and scaled successful podcast ad campaigns for early-stage startups and household name brands and will be sharing their strategies for companies to succeed in this often misunderstood channel.
Amy Saper joined Accel in 2019 and focuses on companies building delightful user experiences that target consumers, businesses, and developers. Previously, Amy spent time at Stripe. As the second marketing hire, she helped build and grow the Product Marketing team, leading global product launches across Stripe’s suite of products. Prior to Stripe, Amy launched products and countries at Twitter, as she helped the company scale from a pre-revenue startup to a public company over the course of four years. Amy works closely with the teams at Gem, Middesk, Deserve, and Radar. Prior to Accel, Amy was also an active angel investor, investing in and advising early stage companies in industries including e-commerce, health and wellness, and SaaS. Originally from Palo Alto, California, Amy graduated from Stanford University and Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Amy's Sessions
Pitchdeck teardown!
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top early stage investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Jake Saper is a general partner at Emergence Capital, where he invests in early-stage B2B software companies.
Jake's Sessions
When it comes to fundraising, timing is everything
There are some shockingly common timing mistakes founders make that can turn an otherwise successful fundraise into a failure. We’ll talk through how to avoid them and how to sequence efforts from the time you close your seed to ensure you find the right partner (at the right price!) for Series A and beyond.
Ben Schippers is the co-founder and co-CEO of HappyFunCorp, a product engineering firm that helps businesses reach the cutting edge of creative software tech and create apps that don’t suck.
Ben's Sessions
How to build a tech stack that can go the distance
The beautiful flower of your tech stack starts with a seed, and a series of decisions. What fertilizer will you use? How often should you water it? Where can you give it the right amount of sunlight? Every decision you make about your tech stack affects how it will hold up, and evolve, over time. Hear from HappyFunCorp’s cofounder and CEO Ben Schippers and CTO Jon Evans about how you can avoid regretting those decisions., The beautiful flower of your tech stack starts with a seed, and a series of decisions. What fertilizer will you use? How often should you water it? Where can you give it the right amount of sunlight? Every decision you make about your tech stack affects how it will hold up, and evolve, over time. Hear from HappyFunCorp’s cofounder and CEO Ben Schippers and CTO Jon Evans about how you can avoid regretting those decisions.
Lindsay Piper Shaw is a senior marketing consultant at Right Side Up, a leading growth marketing consultancy, where she partners with innovative brands on in-house marketing initiatives, including podcast advertising and other offline channels. Prior to joining Right Side Up, Lindsay scaled podcast campaigns for brands like quip, Lyft, and Texture, and has also worked with McDonald’s, Honda, ampm, and Tempur-Sealy, among others. She is passionate about the podcast space as a growth driver and especially loves educating newcomers in the channel and helping brands find their voice and new customers. In her free time she listens to podcasts and makes a podcast called Murder We Wrote (she really can’t get enough of podcasts).
Lindsay's Sessions
Growth Marketing: Podcasts as a secret weapon
Podcast advertising is widely viewed as a nascent medium, but smart companies know it can be a powerful channel in their marketing mix. Opportunity is ripe – get in early and you can own the medium, box out competitors, and catapult your growth. Krystina Rubino and Lindsay Piper Shaw have launched and scaled successful podcast ad campaigns for early-stage startups and household name brands and will be sharing their strategies for companies to succeed in this often misunderstood channel.
Ethan Smith is founder and CEO of Graphite, an SEO and growth marketing agency based in San Francisco. Ethan has served as a strategic advisor to Ticketmaster, MasterClass, Thumbtack and Honey.
Ethan's Sessions
Growth Marketing: How to build a high-performance SEO engine
Hear from Ethan Smith, who has worked with brands like MasterClass, Ticketmaster and Thumbtack, as he shares some of the most effective modern SEO strategies. Starting with a deep understanding of the user and their intent, the most successful modern SEO strategies focus on building a data-driven approach to drive user experience, content, and conversion to ultimately beat the competition.
Susan is a startup growth advisor and executive-in-residence at Sound Ventures. Susan started in product, moved into marketing, and the hybrid of the two became growth around the time that scaled distribution platforms started taking off. She has previously owned startup growth at Stripe, served as an in-house growth advisor at 500 Startups, and led growth marketing as the founding team member at Reforge. In addition to working with Sound’s portfolio of companies, Susan continues to advise teams from seed stage startups to public companies on growth and marketing.
Susan's Sessions
Growth Marketing: Minimum viable email
Love it or hate it, email is here to stay. But understanding where it fits into the conversion funnel, and how to maximize its impact can be arduous. Learn from Sound Ventures partner Susan Su how to optimize open rates, deliverability, unsubscribes and conversions for consumer and enterprise products alike.
Garry Tan is managing partner at Initialized Capital, a seed-stage VC firm. He was previously a partner at Y Combinator. Before that he was co-founder of Posterous (acquired by Twitter) and an early employee at Palantir Technologies.
Garry's Sessions
How to avoid 1000 landmines
When you’re starting your company, there are thousands of small, avoidable mistakes that can turn success into failure. Learn how to navigate around those and maximize your chance of success with key learnings from Garry Tan, founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital.
Lo is the Founding Managing Partner of Plexo Capital, which he incubated and spun out from GV (Google Ventures), based on a strategy to increase access to early-stage deal flow. Plexo Capital invests in emerging seed-stage VCs (led by diverse managers) and invests directly into companies sourced from the portfolios of VCs where Plexo Capital has an investment. Investors in Plexo Capital funds include Alphabet/Google, Intel Capital, Cisco Investments, RBC, Southern New Hampshire University, Home Depot, Hearst Corporation, Hampton University Endowment, JIMCO + Ford Foundation. His expertise includes investing into areas such as enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, financial technology, marketplaces, e-commerce, gaming + technology enabled consumer. In addition to managing Plexo Capital, Lo is a CNBC Contributor providing his expertise on financial markets and technology companies on a regular basis. Prior to founding Plexo Capital, Lo was a Partner on the investing team at GV, where he focused on marketplaces, mobile, and consumer products. Lo received his M.B.A from the Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley), where he completed the Management of Technology program, a joint curriculum program with the College of Engineering. Lo received his B.S from Hampton University in Virginia.
Lo's Sessions
Think like a PM for VC Pitch Success
Your pitchdeck is not just a reflection of your business, it’s a product unto itself. Your startup’s success, and avoiding the end of your runway, depends on the conversion rate of that product. Hear from Plexo Capital founding partner Lo Toney about how thinking like a PM when crafting your pitch deck can produce outstanding results.
Kristin is an executive search partner at Koller Search and based in Los Angeles. She partners with high-growth, venture backed companies on their key go-to-market and operational hires; working primarily with consumer companies — with a niche in digitally native businesses, CPG brands, marketplaces and fin-tech. Kristin’s functional expertise spans across Marketing, Operations, Finance, and Supply-Chain Logistics and helping many founders with their first key hires. Kristin has become a trusted advisor for a number of industry-disrupting companies including, Roofstock, Ipsy, Brandable, Hims & Hers, Spotify, Brigit, and Minted.
Kristin's Sessions
Pitch your talent like you're pitching your investors
Hear from Silicon Beach Talent founder Marissa Peretz and partner at Koller Search Kristin Tucker on how to entice the right type of talent. Defining a culture with stand-out values is only the first step. These two recruiting powerhouses will share how to close the right candidate.
Mike Vernal is a partner at Sequoia Capital. He loves partnering with companies starting at the earliest of stages and helping them scale over time. He currently sits on the board of Citizen, Jumpstart, rideOS, PicsArt, Rockset, Threads and Whisper. Prior to joining Sequoia, Mike was a VP at Facebook where he led a variety of product and engineering teams. He was the co-creator of Facebook Login and the Graph API and led the teams that created Facebook’s Mobile App Ads and Audience Network.
Mike's Sessions
Exclusive AMA with Sequoia
Note: This session is by application only. Registered founder ticket holders will receive link via email to apply. Join Sequoia partners for an intimate discussion on how to increase your odds of success from the start. Come prepared with your most pressing questions, from how to seek capital and create an enduring culture to how to develop a differentiated product and make your customers love you.
Margit Wennmachers is an operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a preeminent Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Best known for her ability to create market-leading brands, Margit is a16z’s chief marketer, advising the firm and entrepreneurs on their communications and marketing strategies. An entrepreneur herself, in 1997, Margit cofounded the leading marketing and communications firm, The OutCast Agency. She has been in technology marketing for 20+ years and is a mentor to countless individuals in the technology and marketing industries.
Margit's Sessions
Be the best at preparing for the worst
Inevitably, something will go wrong – from product recalls and lawsuits to executive firing and sexual harassment allegations, so you better be prepared. Hear from Margit Wennmachers, operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a co-founder of The OutCast Agency and Miguel Helft, editorial director at Message Lab and former Forbes technology editor, about how to develop a framework for crisis and withstand through tough times.
Laurie Yoler is an ambitious problem-solver and prolific connector by nature, who has decades of experience operating, scaling, and advising companies from seed startups to multinational corporations. After spending time at Accenture and PwC, Laurie worked at Visa for four years where she helped create a new division focusing exclusively on debit cards, which eventually yielded the groundbreaking Visa Check Card. Next, she was at Sun Microsystems, where she helped the company emerge as the go-to server platform for software in the internet age. Next, Laurie was a founding team member at Packet Design, focusing on incubating networking and security companies. Laurie served as a Founding Board Member of Tesla, serving on the board of directors, and later on the board of advisors as the company went public. She also served on the board of Interactive Investor International in London through taking the company public. She became a founding managing director at GrowthPoint Technology Partners, advising entrepreneurs, completing M&A transactions and raising funds. Laurie was also President of Qualcomm Labs and SVP of Business Development for Qualcomm, driving new innovation, and closing new strategic partnerships and joint ventures. In addition to Zoox, Laurie currently serves on the board of directors of Bose, Church & Dwight, and the Computer History Museum, and on the advisory boards of Accenture, Platform Science, AI4All, and the Washington State Frank Fellows Entrepreneurship Program. At Playground, Laurie is applying her decades of experience and learnings to help early-stage tech companies grow and thrive.
Laurie's Sessions
How to build a great board
A high-performing board of directors can help your company fulfill its potential, but without a plan to run a board that stays focused on strategy, you can get sidetracked. Laurie Yoler, board member and general partner at Playground Global; founding board member at Tesla and current board member at Bose, Church & Dwight, Zoox, Leaf Logistics and Lacuna, will share her perspectives on building a strong board, managing your board relationships, and maximizing the value you get from the board both in times of success and the inevitable periods of struggle that come with growing a company.
Adam Zagaris is an attorney, partner and founder at Moonshot Legal, specializing in commercial contracts. Adam helps startups close deals and move up and to the right.
Stephanie Zhan is a partner on the early-stage investing team at Sequoia Capital. She loves partnering with companies across consumer and enterprise, starting at the earliest of stages at the Seed and Series A and helping them scale over time. She is on the board of companies including Rec Room, Linear, Middesk, Sunday, and Brud.
Stephanie's Sessions
Exclusive AMA with Sequoia
Note: This session is by application only. Registered founder ticket holders will receive link via email to apply. Join Sequoia partners for an intimate discussion on how to increase your odds of success from the start. Come prepared with your most pressing questions, from how to seek capital and create an enduring culture to how to develop a differentiated product and make your customers love you.
Lior Zorea is a Corporate and Securities partner at Nixon Peabody who leads the firm’s west coast representation of emerging growth technology companies through their entire life cycle—from business formation to funding (from angel to seed to venture financing to late-stage expansion capital) to optimizing their exits. Lior also has extensive experience forming new venture capital funds as well as representing existing VCs in financings for technology startups. Lior understands that technology is a ubiquitous change agent, and he has successfully advised clients in virtually every information technology industry, including internet, consumer-interfacing and enterprise software, digital media, hardware, semiconductor, battery tech, mobile startups, health tech, fin-tech, VR/AR and cryptocurrency.
Lior's Sessions
What VCs want in a term sheet (and how you can get what you want)
Everything comes at a cost, including that whopping round of investment you’re hoping to raise. Hear from Nixon Peabody LLP partner Lior Zorea, who has facilitated countless fundraises, about how to negotiate the all-important term sheet and cap table and make sure that everybody wins.
Asher King-Abramson is the founder of Got Users, a growth agency working with the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley. He has helped drive $100M+ in revenue across 100+ startups and has led sessions on growth at Y Combinator, Village Global, and Google. He previously co-founded Demand Curve (YC S19), a well-known marketing training program.
Asher's Sessions
How to create great growth assets for paid channels
Learn about the right ways and wrong ways to create great assets for paid channels, landing pages and more in this teardown workshop with Asher King-Abramson, a top growth marketer who has worked with 100+ successful startups. Submit your landing page and ads beforehand for a chance to receive feedback live onstage.