One of the most valuable resources in the tech startup community is mentorship. Founders, tackling brand new challenges and adapting to a rapidly changing world, can sometimes feel like no one understands what they’re going through.
But alas, the Early Stage SF event in April will most certainly prove them wrong. Early Stage will bring together seasoned operators and experts across a wide variety of topics that fall under the broad umbrellas of funding, marketing and operations.
How do you secure funding? How do you get to your first yes? How do you identify the right investors? And the right lead investor? How do you negotiate a cap table that makes sense for you and your team? How do you get from seed to Series A? These are some of the questions our speakers will answer, and that’s just on the topic of funding.
We’ll also hear from experts in the legal arena, wizards of the tech stack, leadership coaches, brand design geniuses, growth hackers, and more!
Today, we’re pleased to announce four more breakout session leaders: Sophie Alcorn, Rebecca Lynn, MG Siegler, and Garry Tan .
Each of these experts will lead 40-minute breakout sessions, including a brief presentation followed directly by a Q&A session with the audience.
How to Make Immigration Work For You – Sophie Alcorn
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.
How to Structure Your FinTech Startup – Rebecca Lynn
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’ approach towards evaluating founding teams and equipping companies with what it takes to make the most of opportunities in fintech.
Time Isn’t on Your Side. So Timing Better Be. – MG Siegler
We live in an era of app and services inundation. The problem for early stage startups isn’t a lack of good ideas, it’s a lack of time that users have to try such things out, let alone implement them into their lives. M.G. Siegler will go through some ideas and trends that could be interesting entry points for startups to break through.
How to Avoid 1000 Landmines – Garry Tan
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.
Early Stage SF will have approximately 50 different breakout sessions covering a wide variety of startup core competencies. The hope is that early stage founders can come in with a blank notebook and leave with a semester’s worth of insights and information on how to tackle the challenges of the future.
Obviously, there is only so much time in the day and it would be impossible for an attendee to participate in every single breakout session. But fear not! Transcripts from every breakout will be made available to attendees.
And there’s one more thing!
Our speakers have graciously agreed to spend part of the day at the show participating in CrunchMatch. CrunchMatch allows founders, investors, etc. to fill in information about who they’d like to meet — for example, a D2C startup founder might want to meet with brand design experts and ecommerce VCs — and set a time and place for a quick meeting right at the event.
Here’s the fine print. Each of the 50+ breakout sessions is limited to around 100 attendees. We expect a lot more attendees, of course, so signups for each session are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Buy your ticket today and you can sign up for the breakouts we are announcing today. Pass holders will also receive 24-hour advance notice before we announce the next batch. (And yes, you can “drop” a breakout session in favor of a new one, in the event there is a schedule conflict.)
So get your TC Early Stage: San Francisco pass today, and get the inside track on the sessions we announced today, as well as the ones to be announced in the coming weeks.
Possible sponsor? We have some very nifty ways to bring sponsors in on the show flow, so please contact us here!
