👋 I’m Justin. I run The SF Grind, The LA Grind, and scout for Headline. I live in LA but spend a lot of time in San Francisco meeting founders, hosting gatherings, and enjoying the wonderful city.
Happy Monday! It’s kinda crazy to say this, but even with the Ambition Summit less than 4 months away, I’m starting something new. I can't say much more just yet, so yes, this is a tease, but I'll be sharing more soon, including some behind-the-scenes in my personal newsletter. It ties into ambition, fits within my interests, and is something I’ve been thinking about for a very long time. More to come.
Sponsorships. I currently have sponsorship opportunities available in this newsletter (3,700+ subscribers), for Ambition (Curated 150-person summit), and for upcoming events. I'm prioritizing ongoing partnerships over one-offs, as this is more aligned for both parties. If interested, reply to this email and I'll share more.
Let’s get to it.
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🌁 Upcoming Event We’re Hosting 🌁
🗓️ June 12: SF Startup Community Coffee Meetup. SoMa. 9 - 11 am.
🗓️ June 17: The SF Grind: Founder, Investor, & Operator Mixer. Mission District. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ June 18: The SF Grind: Founder, Operator, & Investor Dinner. Marina District. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ June 19: SF Startup Community Coffee Meetup. Union Square. 9 - 11 am.
🗓️ June 22: The SF Grind: Deep Tech Week Coffee Meetup. Union Square. 9 - 11 am.
👋 This Week in SF 👋
🗓️ June 8: Design Chat with Joel Lewenstein. South Beach. 4:30 - 6 pm.
🗓️ June 8: ⌘ + AI + Design: How to prompt like a designer. SoMa. 5:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 9: [AI Founders & VCs Mixer] Come meet VCs, Founders & talk AI. Book Launch. Mid-Market. 5:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 9: Banking on Startups: An Evening with Immad Akhund. Embarcadero. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 10: Founder Breakfast. Union Square. 9 - 11 am.
🗓️ June 10: Cafe Cursor San Francisco. Fisherman’s Wharf. 10 am - 6 pm.
🗓️ June 10: Building in the AI Era. SoMa. 5:30 - 7:30 pm.
🗓️ June 11: ClickHouse + Hex AI hackathon. SoMa. 9:30 am - 7 pm.
🗓️ June 11: Build with Cursor: San Francisco. South Beach. 5 - 9 pm.
🗓️ June 11: Female Founders Demo & Mixer. Belden Place. 5 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 11: Immigration for Founders (with Path Law). Mid-Market. 6:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 11: Artificial Analysis Coding Agent Benchmarks. South Beach. 6 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ June 11: Founder Dinner. Pacific Heights. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ June 12: Harness Engineering Hack. Financial District. 9:30 am - 7:30 pm.
🗓️ June 12: Summer Baseball Game - SkyDeck Founder Night. Oracle Park. 7 - 9:30 pm.
👀 Events Coming Soon 👀
🗓️ June 22: SF Founders & Operators in Stealth Dinner. Fillmore District. 6:30 - 9:30 pm.
🗓️ June 23: AI Champions Dinner. SF. 6 - 9 pm.
🗓️ June 24: Welcome to the Stratosphere (feat. Cheat Codes). SF. 7 - 11 pm.
Reply to this email to submit an event for consideration in the next edition.
Top 5 SF Startup Jobs
Senior Product Manager @ AtoB
Senior Full Stack Engineer @ Sphere
Agent Success Manager @ Kastle
Founding Designer @ Cardboard
Technical Recruiter @ Salient
👋 Hiring? Reply to this email to feature your job in this newsletter.
Other Opportunities
Know a founder or investor in SF who is raising capital or searching for a co-founder? Reply to this email with more details that I could share with the 3,500+ subscribers of this newsletter.
This week’s SF Grind Q&A is with John Weiss, founder of The Boom, a non-profit organization on a mission to transform at-risk teens into homegrown engineers, entrepreneurs, and tradespeople.
What’s the backstory of your business?
I was a gifted kid, but I struggled with academics. Mentors saved me. Dad was my first mentor, teaching me to build a morse code key when I was 8 yrs old. I designed and built a quadrophonic mixer when I was a teenager, designed theater sound, launched a 30-year music festival, developed software for global leaders like Apple Computer, established a community radio project in Bayview Hunters Point, and created electronic music. I studied Child Development & Psychology at Hampshire College, and taught music tech to kids, teens, and elders.
Today, I'm passionate about breaking down barriers for at-risk teens, by giving them the transformative benefits of skills-mentoring. I built this personal vision from concept to reality, implementing youth mentoring, engineering, and partnerships. My previous experience in tech, education, and the arts uniquely qualifies me. I ran the youth recording studio at the Bayview Hunter Point YMCA in 2010. Through that experience, I discovered the incredible raw brilliance and enthusiasm of neighborhood teens. There are visionaries in the hood: fledgling inventors, future entrepreneurs, problem solvers, craftspeople and trades-people. But they lack adequate development opportunities. This project is intended to help fill the gap.
Tell me the story of how you got your first customer.
I showed up one afternoon at the City of Dreams community center, in the heart of one of San Francisco's most dangerous neighborhoods, Bayview Hunters Point. I carried a backpack full of soldering irons, construction materials, and electronic parts. I saw teenage boys chilling in the neighborhood, and invited them to build speakers. They said "Yes!". I continued working with teens in the hood for three years. Now I'm building a hybrid for-profit/nonprofit social impact project.
How has the growth strategy evolved since then? What was one thing that worked surprisingly well to help you grow?
Winning enthusiastic participation from SF's most at-risk teens has been surprisingly easy. Winning financial support in a city which prides itself on social impact through tech and innovation has been surprisingly difficult. By consciously developing a repeatable curriculum, we will be able to offer a mentoring franchise to communities around the world. We have cultivated enthusiastic interest in Pakistan, Colombia, Kosovo, India, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and more.
What's something most people either don't know or misunderstand about how businesses in your industry actually make money?
Some people think nonprofit projects are a big scam, without realizing most projects are small, and struggle to survive. Most funders want nonprofit projects to be low-risk, so they fund large, established "anchor" orgs, without realizing that innovation requires risk -- and a tolerance for failing up. Most people don't understand that a nonprofit mission can be structured to generate revenue through for-profit products, without compromising the social mission.
What's one important part of the business model or strategy that you've changed your mind on since starting?
I was originally committed to a pure nonprofit corporate structure. But nonprofit funders aren't stepping up -- they don't seem to understand our strategy to increase our self-sufficiency by developing tech products to fund our youth activities. So I've changed my mind about corporate structure. Now, to attract investment funds, I'm preparing to create a hybrid for-profit/nonprofit structure. I don't really want to give away any of our equity, but I'm not seeing another option forward.
What are the 2-3 AI tools you use the most? Why?
I'm highly skeptical of AI. There's so much hype. It's not actually smart. It makes mistakes, it lies, it contradicts itself, it hallucinates. I use perplexity.ai, but I often find that I spend hours fighting with it to get really comprehensive, well-supported results. I'm concerned about reliance on a flawed tool, but isn't that the story of humanity?
What's a favorite under-the-radar spot in SF that you keep going back to (and why)?
Any restaurant owned by Kristin Houk - All Good Pizza, Tato and Cafe Alma. She's a fantastic restaurateur. An original twist on local flavors, with quality ingredients, reasonable prices, clean environment, awesome staff!
What's one part of your life outside work that you're most proud of, and why?
I don't need a "life outside work". My work is my life, my passion, my pride.
Collate, a developer of AI-powered document automation software for the life sciences sector, raised a $95M round led by co-founders Surbhi Sarna (CEO) and Nate Smith.
Generalist AI, a developer of embodied robotics intelligence and foundation models, raised a $400M round led by Radical Ventures.
Supabase, a provider of an open source Postgres development platform, raised a $500M Series F led by GIC with participation from Accel, Y Combinator, Craft, Felicis, Peak XV, and Coatue.
Opal Security, a provider of an AI-native access governance platform for every identity, raised a $23M round led by Greylock and Battery Ventures.
Town, a provider of a personalized AI assistant service that learns how people work across the tools they already use, raised a $55M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Lassie, a company building autonomous systems for small businesses, raised a $35M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Terra AI, an artificial intelligence platform provider helping solve subsurface uncertainty for mineral and energy development, raised a $20M Series A led by Khosla Ventures.
Forage, a financial infrastructure platform provider, raised a $40M in Series B led by Mouro Capital.
NewLimit, a developer of cell reprogramming and epigenetic longevity medicines, raised a $435M Series C led by Founders Fund.
Westmag, a manufacturer of drone motors and robot actuators, raised a $11M Seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Subtle Medical, a developer of AI-powered medical imaging software, raised a $33M Series C led by funds managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.
Sekai, a provider of developer of a consumer creation platform for AI-generated software, raised a $26M Seed and Series A co-led by Khosla Ventures and Connect Ventures.
Human Archive, a provider of developer of a data platform modeling human embodied intelligence, raised a $8.2M Seed round backed by Wing Venture Capital, NVP Capital, and Y Combinator.
Celito Tech, a company that provides regulatory, compliance, and IT services designed for biotech and life sciences companies, received an undisclosed amount investment from Achieve Partners.
Anthropic, a provider of developer of frontier artificial intelligence systems and the Claude AI model, raised a $65B in Series H led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, and co-led by Capital Group, Coatue, D1 Capital Partners, GIC, ICONIQ.
Featured Location
Penny Roma. Lively Mission pasta spot with great cocktails, shareable plates, and a fun date-night/group-dinner atmosphere. Stylish, approachable, and consistently busy.
Fun Events
See you next week,
Justin