Our last Founders You Should Know showcase was really special to me because May marked the two year anniversary of running the show in person. And it was our “season finale” – our next show will kick off our fall season at the end of August.
Taking you behind the scenes of the very first FYSK, I remember being scared no one would show up. I begged my friends to come so the room wouldn’t feel empty. Many investors gave me feedback that helping talent and companies connect was already well served. Every venture firm already has recruiters and platform services teams. But we believed Founders You Should Know could be a new way to serve the startup ecosystem. Instead of building a platform service or a recruiting agency, we would come together to build a community. Community members would help us find breakout companies to feature, as well as refer friends to join these companies. Together, we’d accelerate the assembly of the best teams to work on some of the most challenging problems in technology.
Fast forward two years later, we have over 4,000 applications for 200 spots at our show, and we see founders and attendees flying in from across the country to attend. Each show gets bigger and better. This month we hosted over 200 attendees and made over 750 connections for the 12 founders we featured.
Two years is forever in startup time. It’s long enough that we’ve seen:
Founders we’ve featured hire talent from the community
Attendees find their dream jobs
Attendees meet at FYSK and start companies together
However, one of the coolest trends we’ve seen over the past two years is how the FYSK community derisks, to some extent, the whole enterprise of startups. Two years is long enough that we’ve seen attendees start their own companies, then come back looking for talented engineers. We’ve also seen founders come back to attend the show as jobseekers. And finally, we’ve even seen founders get some liquidity and invest in the FYSK fund as LPs.
As we’ve seen from all the transitions our community members have made over the past couple of years, startups are never certain. But what’s stayed constant is whether you’re looking for a new job, or starting a new company, or hitting escape velocity and doubling the size of your team, having a community of the most talented people who can support you is an invaluable resource wherever you are in your career.
This summer, we’re taking a short break to finish raising the FYSK fund so we can hit the ground running in the fall and invest in more of you who are starting or scaling new companies. If you’d like more information about the FYSK fund, let us know.
Below is our recap of May’s Founders You Should Know showcase. If you’re interested in meeting any of these founders, send us a forwardable email blurb so we can suggest the connection. Apply here for our next show on August 28th. Wishing everyone the most relaxing summer and looking forward to seeing you in the fall!
MagicSchool
What it is: AI platform for teachers and students
Founder: Adeel Khan
Open roles: AL/ML Engineers, Senior Full-Stack Engineer, Product Engineer, DevOps, First Product Manager, First Product Designer, Data Scientist, Head of Marketing, and Head of People
DatologyAI
What it is: Automated AI training data curation as a service
Founder: Ari Morcos
Open roles: ML Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineer, Full-Stack Engineer, ML Infra Engineer, and Research Scientist
Pair Team
What it is: Platform to coordinate and provide healthcare for patients in the Medicaid system
Founder: Neil Batlivala
Open roles: Senior to Principal Engineers, Full-Stack Al Engineer, Senior Data Engineer, and Principal Product Manager
Codeium
What it is: AI software developer toolkit
Founder: Varun Mohan
Open roles: ML Engineer, System Infra Engineer, Product Engineer, and Product Designer
HealthLeap
What it is: AI-assisted tools to identify and treat undiagnosed health conditions
Founder: Josiah Meyer
Open roles: Founding Engineer (ML or Product focused)
Markprompt
What it is: AI for customer support
Founder: Marie Schneegans
Open roles: Founding Engineers
Medra
What it is: AI-powered autonomous biology labs
Founder: Michelle Lee
Open roles: Full-Stack Engineer, Frontend Engineer, and Robotics Software Engineer
Cartesia
What it is: Real-time multimodal intelligence for every device
Founder: Karan Goel
Open roles: Product Manager, ML Infra Engineer, Research Engineer, and Full-Stack Engineer
Rad AI
What it is: AI to generate radiology reports
Founder: Jeff Chang
Open roles: Head of Al and Data, Director of Engineering, Director of Security & IT, Lead Product Manager (Platform & Infrastructure), Staff and Senior Software Engineers, ML Research Scientists, Senior ML Engineer (Infrastructure) and Senior Data Engineer
Metronome
What it is: Usage-based billing infrastructure
Founder: Scott Woody
Open roles: Software Engineers, Head of Design, and Product Manager
Rundoo
What it is: All-in-one software for paint and hardware stores
Founder: Nick Hershey
Open roles: Software Engineer and Product Manager
Freed
What it is: AI scribe for clinicians
Founder: Erez Druk
Open roles: Full-Stack Engineer, Frontend Engineer, System Engineer, AI Engineer, and Product Designer
Hi,
The link to apply for the August show is not available. Am I missing something?