About us
Startup Founder 101 brings together aspiring and experienced tech entrepreneurs to discuss, meet, and collaborate to build great new startups, and to push the local startup ecosystem forward.\
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This group hosts numerous free events throughout the year where you can learn the best practices of starting a company from people who have been there and done that. You’ll have the opportunity to meet local founders and investors, exchange ideas with experts, get feedback on your idea, participate in startup workshops, and more.\
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Typical startup event topics include:\
• Coming up with a strong startup idea\
• Startup legal basics\
• How to pitch your startup\
• Starting a company without quitting your day job\
• How to raise funding for your startup\
• And much more!\
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Join the group to be invited to our next event!
Upcoming events
3
How to Choose the Right Startup Idea Before You Build
·OnlineOnlineThe hardest part of building a startup isn't execution. It's choosing the right problem to solve. Too many founders build ideas based on excitement, trends, or assumptions, only to discover there's no real demand. In this interactive workshop, Jonathan Greechan (Co-Founder and CEO at Founder Institute) shares the frameworks used to help over 10,000 founders stress-test, refine, and validate their startup ideas early. You'll learn how to think like an investor, pressure-test your concept, and identify opportunities others overlook. If you're serious about building in 2026, start here.
❯ What You'll Learn:
- How to identify real, painful problems worth solving
- How to pressure-test your startup idea before building
- A simple scoring framework to evaluate idea strength
- How to align your idea with your skills and unfair advantages
- How to gather meaningful early feedback
❯❯ RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/23360 to get your link and join us live!
❯ Featured Speaker:
- Jonathan Greechan - Co-Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute - Jonathan Greechan is the Co-Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator. Since 2009, he has grown and scaled the organization to chapters in over 200 cities and over 100 countries, producing over 8,900 portfolio companies with nearly $2BN in venture funding. In his long career in tech and marketing, Jonathan has advised thousands of startups on marketing, growth, and product strategy and has spoken at startup conferences on four continents.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- First-time founders exploring ideas
- Builders pivoting from a weak or unclear concept
- Entrepreneurs preparing to apply to accelerators
- Anyone looking to start something meaningful in 2026
❯❯ Don’t miss this live, interactive online event packed with valuable insights! RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/23360 to get your link and join us live!
5 attendees
How to Tell Stories That Win Clients and Investors with Lubna Forzley
·OnlineOnlineYou have a strong idea. But every time you explain it, people nod and move on. The problem is almost never the idea. It is the way the story is being told. Pitching persuades. Storytelling connects. Knowing which one to use, and when, is the skill that separates founders who close deals from those who keep refining their deck with no results. In this live session, Lubna Forzley, 2x TEDx Speaker and Founder of Stories, shares the exact framework she has used with executives at Coca-Cola, Google, and Microsoft. Register now and leave with a structure you can apply the same day.
❯ What You'll Learn:
- When to pitch and when to tell a story instead
- The story structure that builds trust without losing credibility
- How to use AI to build your narrative without sounding generic
- The storytelling mistakes that cost founders deals with investors
- How to craft a positioning statement that works across every channel
❯❯ RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/24741 to get your link and join us live!
❯ Featured Speaker:
- Lubna Forzley - Founder and CEO @ Stories: Lubna is a 2x TEDx Speaker, and an ICF-accredited coach who has spent 20+ years advising executives at Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and the United Nations. She has shared stages with Steve Wozniak, hosted global roundtables with world leaders, and built an AI-powered brand tool that gives founders in 15 minutes what agencies used to charge $100,000 for. She helps founders and leaders cut through the noise, own their story, and win clients and investors before they ever open a pitch deck.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- Experienced Professionals ready to start a company
- Solo founders who have an idea but struggle to explain it clearly
- AI-curious professionals who want to build their brand using AI
- Anyone preparing to pitch to investors or first customers
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❯❯ Don’t miss this live, interactive online event packed with valuable insights! RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/24741 to get your link and join us live!6 attendees
What It Takes to Get Funded: Live Investor Q&A w/ Maayan Teper
·OnlineOnlineDo you want to ask questions to startup investors about fundraising in a friendly, judgment-free environment? Are you looking to raise funding in the future, and want to learn what investors look for and how they evaluate potential investments? Then join us for this live, interactive Q&A event featuring Maayan Teper, Investor at Resilience VC. Don't miss this opportunity to expand your network and ask in-depth questions.
❯ What You'll Learn:
- The key metrics investors evaluate in early-stage startups
- What makes founders stand out during fundraising
- How investors assess traction, market opportunity, and risk
- The differences between angels, VCs, grants, and other funding sources
- Practical ways to prepare before raising your next round
❯❯ RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/23991 to get your link and join us live!
❯ Featured Speaker:
- Maayan Teper is Investor at Resilience VC, a seed-stage fintech fund backing embedded financial technologies that expand economic access for low- and moderate-income Americans and small businesses. Before Resilience, he evaluated investments at Better Ventures across climate, healthcare, and the future of work, and worked as a senior associate at Social Finance. Maayan has spent his career at the intersection of capital and impact; and brings a rare combination of financial rigor and mission-driven perspective to every conversation about what makes an early-stage startup worth backing.
❯ Featured Host:
- Chris Foltz is a Global Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Founder Institute and Managing Director of Responsible Solutions, a Silicon Valley-based global strategy firm. He advises founders, executives, and policymakers across 6 continents on brand storytelling and go-to-market strategy. Named to the IRG100, an annual list of the world's top 100 CMOs and change agents, Chris brings a rare, unfiltered perspective shaped by a career that has spanned partisan politics, personal adversity, and a remarkable reinvention.a seed-stage fintech fund backing embedded financial technologies that expand economic access for low- and moderate-income Americans and small businesses.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- Founders preparing to raise their first round
- Early-stage entrepreneurs seeking insight into investor decision-making
- Aspiring founders planning to fundraise in the future
- Anyone curious about how investors evaluate startups
About the FI Venture Network
The FI Venture Network is an exclusive network of investors actively funding pre-seed and seed-stage startups before anyone else. Learn more by visiting the FI Venture Network page.❯❯ Don’t miss this live, interactive online event packed with valuable insights! RSVP now at https://fi.co/startupwebinar/23991 to get your link and join us live!
2 attendees
Past events
415
