Startup Conversational Roundtable and Troubleshooting
There is a huge turnout for this event. Really nice to have everyone here. New faces. Everyone goes around the room and talks about what they’re building.
Who you are, what you’re working on, how long you’ve been working on, waht you need help with, and what you can help with
1st guy: longtime software engineer for startups (i met him before and he seemed to want to ask me out, but then chickened out. Well, also I told him let’s just talk on linkedin (instead of giving my number) Now we keep seeing each other) - he needs help finding a job
2nd woman: Currently working on an AI chatbot that is an immigration adivosir. Been working on it for the past 3 weeks. Needs help with immigration, law, and legal advice around it. Background is software engineer. And AI engineer fo rthe last three years.
3rd guy: working on a voice recorder that is always on and it can inject, transcribe, and summarize in one step. Needs help to turn it into a presentation. He’s a pipe fitter and was a marine and teaching himself to code. He can help you get started from zero to architect software with AI assistance.
4th guy: software engineer. Workign on a recipe app. Needs help with vision LLM s and how to verctorize that.
5th guy: a lawyer, just launched a podcast to help startups get information. not legal advice to get goign with your startup. he’s also a tech builder
6th guy: he works at amazon and is a SD and passionate about agents. automation agents
7th guy: has a finance background and recently got into starting own company, building out the infrastructure for autonomous robos taxis.
8th guy: building an app to share info about raquet sports. he’s looking for someone strong on the business side to help with marketing and take it to the next level
9th guy: the help for booign a barber for apps.
10th: software engineer at microsoft
11th woman: software engineer in transportation. Climate, data art, and communications
12th: working on an exciting event that we’re all invited to. He’ll share about it in a bit. He can help with going to market, communications, and community partnerships
13th: working on a project to do engineering and dev ops in private equity
14th: data science at an ad agency, in the idea stage. does a lot of pitch work at his job. pretty good at that.
15th guy: working as a product manager at a startup. wants a new role can help with if someone is building a product and needs someone to look at it from a product manager’s perspective, can give feedback
16th guy: the founder of this place (as a way to help each other) recently retired. app to tell your story and history of travels with images, maps, and stories. also building an app for learning words. looking for beta testers.
17th guy: guy working for streaming solution for pool room or volleyball field, US open, etc. Trying to think of fundraising ideas can help with mentoring about some stuff. Agencitc coding. Engineering.
18th guy: startup coach and business consultant. can connect you with the Chinese community. Chinese students and startup founders, he was a coach and the team he coached got 1st place.
ME: working on an edtech platform similar to companies I worked for in china. Mostly focused in teaching financial literacy + entrepreneurship for kids. I need help just figuring out the steps and process to build what I know i want to build. I can help with teaching you how to recruit interns.
19th lady: girl from out of town working on innovation and entrepreneurship and developing startups.
20th guy: software engineer + built a mobile app in the auto industry, been out for 6 yeas, trying to integrate it with AI
21st guy: operations guy, anager. Work in global trade. Working to bridge the gap of computerization and tech offered to african businesses. Enabling the tech company to rent and lease computers to businesses and institutions. Just want to connect with people and entrepreneurs
22nd guy: Next guy doesn’t talk in front of groups - produces events for some of the arts groups and workign to bring together independent producers and synchronizing events. Need help wthmapping tech, blockchain, and building a ticketing app.
23rd guy: next guy started a company on data, realized its importnat to get user feedback early. from humans is harder and from AI is easier. so this allows you to create personas that represent your target users and have attributes of their pain points, so you can walk in their shows and get feedback. If you want to be atester for their copaony, thats what he needs. HE can help with entrepreneurship, always ives back to others but loves to coach for connection and community. Need early entrepreneurial advice.
24th guy: software engineer. Mostly work with backend engineering, cloud computing and setint gup CIC piplines. Looking to connect and is visiting this city for 4 months.
25th guy: cloud engineer for a free market signal app so you don’t ahve to look at 20 screens in one time and into agentic AI security
26th guy: machine learning engineer. can help with genral advice, love meeting peopel and talkign about problems. needs help meeting people (i like/know this guy and have written about him before)
27th guy: a guy that can help you figure out if you want to do this decision right now for humans or AI. he can help with anything - his background is more on product education. the full lifcycle or tryingto figure out how to set up a customer discovery script.
SO, this floor has a whole shared workspace and its ready for anyone who wants nad needs to joina nd be a part of entrepreneurs. This is also an entrepreneurial ecoystem builder. They want to make the most autnetic vibrant community of early-stage founders. We want to continue to be an enabling part of its growth. This event is part of that.
They hope by the end of 6 weeks, (25 founders) we hope that at the end, they’ve made a decision about the idea they’re exploring now. Whether they’ve found they validated the customer, problem, maret - and whether it's something they’re going to be passionate enoguh to pursue. If not, they can cycle through again.
invite all of you to check out soundstartups.org
I’ll totally check it out!! This may be super amazing and helpful and righ twhat I’m looking for. I really want to do this!!!!!!!!!
surround yourself with a fantastic group of advisors, get started with friends and comradeary. What’s the goal?
the goal is to reduce the amount and level of failure by at least half.
yayyyy!!! i’m going to apply tonight probably.
Okay anyone in the room want to pitch or present? It doesn’t have to be polished, you can expand on waht you’ve already discussed. The point is to get more comfortable with what you’re working on, how to present it - and then everyone in the room be thoughtful about what could improve its idea or presentation. Sometihng you know about that is relevant and you can share and have discussions about.Five minutes sharing + five minute Q&A
BROOO I AM SO EXCITED TO JOIN THIS GROUP. I THINK IT WILL BE PERFECT. not to get my hopes too hgiht. But really it's like exactly what I’ve been manifesting. I was literally thinking of this just a few days ago at the Open Claw event. Like I literally talked about how I wonder if they have something I can join here - and then - hello!!! They are just finishing up with their first cohort, and you know what hey say? First is the worst, and second is the bestttt
Hundreds of people will be here from all over the world. But what happens after the final whistle? Are we going to have a bunch of dirty streets with trash to clean up?
let the children play soccer during FIFA. together we can participate with that.
first let’s zoom out and talk about why that mission is so imporant.
1600+ K-12 schools in seattle.
They are safe and structured environments
. They have loving adults,
amazing teachers, friendships, social skills,
knowledge, confidence, and belonging.
Schools are like safe havens for kids. but what about after the bell rings.
that’s when they’re back in the streets, parks, negative influences, crime, loneliness, much more
If you’re a parent and working hard on your startup, your kid is lonely.
You have to work with schools in Seattle to provide meaningful after-school programs. Make sure the kids are in safe and structured environments. etc.
We have to provide schools with funding and put our money where our mouths are.
We have to facilitate community engagement. How can we get the big brands to support these small schools? Elementary, middle, and high school to get the same support as colleges.
These programs will launch with FIFA - owned by the school, free for the kids and families.
schools running and operating the program.
practices, games, and special events held after school hours.
We can provide checks to the schools to pay for coaches.
Free app platform/tech for schools to connect with the local community. Partners.
Full soccer uniform, jersey, shorts, and socks with the name on the back. Everything they need to have a soccer team.
So how can we help? With a check - money. Let’s fundraise it together.
not a gala or fancy dinner with a cost. No. We’re going to create a fundraising mechanism aligning with the current business model. They agreed to donate a percentage of every membership back to the schools.
June 11-July 19th activations and people coming in here. A percentage of everything will go back to the school. Let’s make it exciting. Why come here at this time? When you can watch it and come here, so… a day pass is $35
free breakfast, lunch, and happy hour.
live tv with every game, streaming here.
he should advertise this to people from out of town -
his friends from Europe will be here, 100+/day
They’ve got a one-week pass for $150 - 7 days, breakfast, happy hour, tv + custom jersey with your name and number on the back.
Last one is for the month - $300 - daily breakfast, snacks, jersey, peers, etc.
Imagine eery time you’re having breakfast, connecting with someone, eery time you open your beer and drink it (he drinks a beer) a kid gets his soccer uniform. Fucking amazing hey. Who wants to be a part of that? (a bunch of peopel raise their hands)
sounds super fun.
He has built lots of programs with huge corporations for after-school programs.
Okay, next person is up. I don’t feel like typing. I’ll take a break.
Designing good experiences is not easy. Designing an intervention is required by outliers or else the experience will be mediocre.
Human-centered design is cost-prohibitive
You can sign up at his website to try it out. You generate the pain points of your target users and it’ll generate archetypes. Data Disco is our website.
I know someone who can TOTALLY use this website. My friend from Open Claw that goes here. lol.
You can take the persona and give it a prompt or goal and it’ll go through the app and watch it simulate.
Next guy is giving a presentation on robotaxis
he spoke for liek 30 minutes or more and then it was nonstop questions from the audience but suddenly i finally spoke up cause i’d gone to go and get water and i realize we’d forgotten about one guy who was also supposed to give a speech too. so then i was called on and said, “im a teacher, i todl you guys - so now i’m gonna be a teacher, we only have 9 minutes left and he still needs to present” LOLLLL - and then a bunch of people thanked me hahahha. hahahah omg. i love this place.
So this next guy does livestreaming for sports
He’s talking about doing twitch but for live sports.
gameplan broadcasting.
I have anohter party to go to soon, so i’ll talk to the founder and ask if i’m a good fit for that program - if so, i’ll apply to join
This guy presenting right now is a good preseter and sweet hahah. cool. Okay. i’m closing my laptop.
