Our Mission

Founders Space brings together founders, angels, VCs, advisors to help startups rock the world. Connect with Founders, see Startup Jobs, and join our Roundtables. 

    Featured Articles & Advice

    Is Your Company a Money Magnet? Show Investors How They Will Make Money with Your Startup

    Are you getting the traction you need with investors? Discover how to position your startup as a money-making machine.

    Sign up for Event!

    Presenters: Peter Craddock of Shoreline Venture Management; Bob McDonald of R.A. McDonald Company; and Philip Engelhardt of PhilQuo Ventures.

    peter_craddock bob_mcdonald

    Our panel of experts will discuss:  Read more...

    • Business models that are especially attractive to investors
    • The kind of returns investors expect to see on their investment
    • Timing expectations of investors
    • How to ask for investment based on goals
    • How to position your team as the ideal match for solving the problem

    Mentors: The Key to Funding and Success

    Sign up for Event!

    Can having the right mentors affect your ability to secure funding and build a successful company? Silicon Valley runs on shared knowledge and the collective experience. Hear from our panel of experts how getting the right advice can provide you with opportunities, funding, ideas and new viewpoints.

    Presenters: Don Butler of Thomvest Ventures; Vish Mishra of Clearstone Venture Partners; Carl Showalter of Opus Capital; and Ron Weissman, Silicon Valley venture capitalist and angel.

    don_butler vish_mishra

    carl_showalter ron_weissman

    The discussion will include:  Read more...

    • How to find the right mentors for your startup
    • How to approach potential mentors

    The Top Venture Capitalists in the World

    Here’s a short analysis of the top VCs in the world…

    How to Be the Obvious Choice

    Suzen Pettit

    Suzen Pettit

    by Suzen Pettit at Omaginarium

    “This seems like a lot of work for God’s sake. I have a website.  I have a Facebook account. I send emails. I am a busy so and so. Why do I also need to be creating all this “content”?”

    Let’s discuss amongst ourselves:  Read more...

    From Startup to $1B IPO: Why early Operations strategy matters

    by Ram Krishnan, Advisor & Retired Operations Executive

    To build a high value company, an entrepreneur must convince investors that the addressed market is large, that the company is capable of meeting market demand and that the profit margin can be maintained regardless of market conditions. In addition to the revenue and profitability requirements, such financially attractive markets are characterized by tough quality requirements and rapidly eroding average selling prices (ASP). A good example of such a market is the smart-phone market where annual volumes are in the hundreds of millions, selling prices erode at 20-25% per year and quality requirements are stringent.  Read more...

    SHARED, an Innovative Work-space for Creative People, Launches in San Francisco

    We just met Marilyn Yu, an award-winning author/artist/designer, and her new creative work-space sounds amazing.

    SHARED takes the idea of co-working and applies it to the different types of space that creative people need. It has office space, work space, and a shared work shop with tools and equipment. In addition, SHARED has space for meetings, classes, and events.

    SHARED is a space for creative people to work and collaborate together. It is based in the belief that together we can create greater things than we could individually or in isolation.

    Highlights:  Read more...


         Get Involved... Business Book Summaries

    #sfbeta :: iOS Edition — Don’t Miss It!

    Sign up:  http://sfbeta.eventbrite.com/

    Welcome to #sfbeta, Silicon Valley’s Legendary Startup Mixer.  Read more...

    • Held in the heart of San Francisco, bringing people together since 2006, #sfbeta is a quarterly startup gathering with a rotating theme.
    • 12 curated startups, fitting this event’s iOS theme, demo live throughout the night, around the venue. (Startups: apply to demo.)
    • More than 500 people attend each event: founders, makers, hackers, writers, designers, artists, activists, cyborgs, photographers, #twitterati, investors, dealmakers, and more.
    • Enjoy pitches and pints without the PowerPoint: our uniquely open, presentation-free format allows maximum time for socializing and networking.

    Startup Tools: Visual Website Optimizer is Like a Second Pair of Eyes

    This month, as part of our Startup Tools series, we’re covering Visual Website Optimizer.

    Visual Website Optimizer makes it easy to A/B test your site. Why should you care about A/B testing? A/B testing (sometimes called split testing) is comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs best. You can compare two web pages by showing the two variants (let’s call them A and B) to visitors at the same time. Then you can measure what the visitors do on the site with heat maps and conversion goals.  Read more...

    Startup Spotlight: GoAnimate Makes Creating Your Next Video a Breeze

    Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman

    by Steve Hoffman, Cofounder of Founders Space

    This week’s Startup Spotlight is shining on GoAnimate.

    There was a time when it required a professional team and thousands of dollars to create a video for your startup. Those days are gone thanks to GoAnimate. Within minutes, not days or weeks, you can create your own animations and get them live on your site, as well as YouTube and every major social network.

    Here’s a video I created for Founders Space…

     Read more...

    How Startups Win by Providing Exceptional Customer Support

    Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman

    In today’s highly competitive world where any startup can launch a new service practically overnight and compete with you, how do you differentiate yourself?   One way is by providing exceptional customer service.

    If you run a startup, your biggest hurdle is probably customer acquisition.  It’s expensive to acquire new customers.   Most startups spend a huge amount of time worrying about how to get customers cheaply, but they often overlook what it takes to keep them.   This is where customer service comes in.  There’s no better way to retain customers and have them recommend you than by outdoing your competitors when it comes to service.  Read more...

    Join us at FailCon

    Stop being afraid of failure and start embracing it!

    FailCon is a one-day conference for technology entrepreneurs, investors, developers, and designers to study their own and others’ failures and prepare for success.

    We all have founded, worked for or invested in startups that have failed. We’re smart, we keep up with the latest in technology trends, but sometimes things just don’t go as planned. How can you predict what will work and what won’t? Well, you can’t.  Read more...

    Collaborative Development Financings

    This video was created by Richard and his daughter. Fun, creative and highly educational! For more videos like it, visit Richard’s blog at http://hsutube.com/

    Richard Hsu is a Silicon Valley Technology Lawyer who believes we are so overloaded with information that if you cannot be brutally pithy and honest, it won’t get read.

    Three Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur

    Karen Milde, CEO and Co-Founder, Reframe Marketing Inc.

    1. Belief
    Successful entrepreneurs begin their business with a vision – a dream. They act on these dream by taking small steps towards accomplishing their goals. With every step entrepreneurs get closer to attaining their ultimate goal or vision. However, not all steps are easy to take. Nothing worth fighting for is easy to attain, especially when beginning a business. Successful entrepreneurs only made it through difficult times by being strong-willed. They never let pessimism stand in their way.  Read more...

    Cyber Threats and New Rules – What Has Changed? Why now?

    Panel Event: TOTAL ACCESS Panel Event: “Cyber Threats and New Rules – What Has Changed? Why Now?” with CloudFlare, Shape Security, BlueBox, and Wells Fargo
    Date: Tuesday, May 14, 2013
    Time: 7:15 am – 8:15 am (Breakfast & Networking)
    8:15 am – 10:15 am (Presentation)
    Location: Orrick
    The Orrick Building
    405 Howard Street
    8th Floor
    San Francisco, CA 94105
    RSVP Here
    Follow Us Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn

    Co-Hosted By:  Read more...

    Startup Spotlight: Cazoomi Helps Startups to Build Better Customer and Sales Relationships

    Cazoomi has been part of Founders Space since the beginning. Many of you will recognize Clint Wilson, Cazoomi’s CEO. He’s grown his business dramatically over the past couple years, and we wanted to feature some of the great work his startup has been doing.

    Here are some of the problems Cazoomi solves:

    Email Marketing

    Marketers know what works: email marketing. But once you email your customers, leads and prospects how do you tell which email lead to the most conversions? To answer, you need Email Marketing metrics synced back to your CRM to see the results.  Read more...