TechCrunch Founder Summit’s agenda revealed | TechCrunch
Short summary
TechCrunch is hosting a one-day founder conference in Boston on November 4 featuring sessions on fundraising, hiring, AI strategy, and scaling. Speakers include investors and founders like HubSpot's Brian Halligan and executives from Underscore, NEA, and Bessemer Venture Partners.
- Sessions cover concrete founder challenges: how to raise capital in today's market, evaluate investors beyond valuation, and identify when you've actually hit product-market fit
- The event emphasizes that building outside Silicon Valley is viable — one speaker scaled a company to 30+ countries from Boston without relocating
- Networking with other founders and investors happens alongside the talks, positioning the day as a way to build ongoing relationships rather than just attend sessions
Full summary
TechCrunch is hosting a one-day Founder Summit in Boston on November 4 at SoWa Power Station. The event brings together investors and experienced founders to cover the core challenges of building startups: fundraising, hiring, leadership, and AI strategy. Rather than a generic conference, it's structured around specific problems founders face at different stages—from landing first checks to navigating term sheets, building teams through rapid growth, and deciding whether to add AI features or build AI-native from the ground up.
The agenda includes sessions led by people with real operating experience. Brian Devaney from Underscore breaks down what investors actually want right now and where founders lose negotiating power. HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan covers how the CEO role changes at each growth stage. Lior Div from 7AI explores what it means to build a company where AI is foundational, not bolted on. Other sessions dig into how to pick the right investors (not just any money), how to spot companies that can dominate their category, and how to actually recognize product-market fit before you scale. Chase Garbarino shares his approach to building a $200 million company from Boston instead of Silicon Valley, which matters for founders outside major hubs.
Beyond the talks, the event is designed for networking—you're in a room with other founders working through fundraising and hiring decisions, plus investors and founders who've already done it. That peer group and access to experienced people is often where the real value happens after the sessions end.