There isn’t a single manual to read or prompt to give an LLM that can equip you with the skills and knowledge to build a company. But on November 4, TechCrunch Founder Summit gives founders the next-best thing: A packed day at Boston’s SoWa Power Station, where investors and operators share how they’ve navigated crucial decisions. The Founder Summit’s agenda is built around core questions every founder eventually has to answer about capital, leadership, and what they’re actually building toward. And each session is designed to build upon each other. Like your startup’s founding team, these sessions work together to drive outcomes.
This is a breakdown on how the full event agenda fits together, and what you can expect to learn by attending. Keep in mind that tickets are at their lowest price point before they increase on October 16, so this is the ideal moment to grab your seat. You can save $200 on both Investor and Founder passes up until that deadline.
For a limited time, you can also get a second ticket for 50% off, and for even larger groups, there are bundle discounts available to groups of four or more.
Capital: How you raise, and who you raise from
Fundraising advice often stops at “How do I get the term sheet?” This track goes further, because getting a yes is only half of the equation. The other half is making sure it’s the right yes.
Underscore partner Brian Devaney opens with a candid read on today’s fundraising climate, including what investors are actually screening for right now, how founders can differentiate in a crowded market, and the specific moments where founders give up leverage without realizing it.
That’s the part most founders obsess over — as well as who ends up on the cap table once the round closes. This is where Vineet Edupuganti, co-founder and CEO of Cogent Security, picks up the thread. After raising an $11 million round, he learned firsthand that not every check is equal. He’ll walk through how to actually evaluate investors and navigate those trade-offs before you sign, not after.
This all frames fundraising as a two-part decision. First, win the leverage in the room, then spend it wisely on the right partners. Founders who only solve the first part often find themselves fighting their own cap table later.
Grab your pass and get all these fundraising insights. Bring your co-founder at 50% off.
Leadership: When the job changes, so does the team you need
No founder stays the same kind of leader forever. After all, the skills that get a company to its initial customers rarely match what’s needed when its customer list expands and the employee count grows. This track tackles that shift from two angles: the founder’s evolution, and the decisions on employees that either support or sabotage it.
HubSpot co-founder and Sequoia partner Brian Halligan has experienced this arc many times, first by building through HubSpot’s own stages of growth and now by advising founders doing the same from the investor’s seat. He’ll unpack how the CEO job transforms at each stage, the leadership habits that stop working once a company outgrows them, and how to keep reinventing yourself without losing what made you effective in the first place.
