TechCrunch Founder Summit Builds Boston Agenda Around Small-Group Roundtables
Six sessions led by operators from Blueprint Lab, Define Ventures and IFTTT will run alongside main-stage programming on November 4.
By Priya Marino ·
TechCrunch will hold Founder Summit 2026 at SoWa Power Station in Boston on November 4, with six small-group roundtables scheduled to run alongside its main-stage agenda. Organizers say the smaller sessions are meant for founders to bring questions from inside their own companies and work through them with peers and experts.
The roundtables begin at 10:45 a.m. with Alexandra Ames, founder and chief event strategist at Blueprint Lab. Her session addresses how early-stage companies can plan events strategically before hiring a full-time events staff, covering which opportunities to pursue, how to define success and how to stretch limited budgets.
Two sessions run concurrently at 11:30 a.m. Chirag Shah, a partner at Define Ventures, examines what happens when the largest market opportunity sits behind regulatory barriers or complex buying processes. In the parallel session, Shishir Tewari, head of enterprise data engineering at Procore Technologies, discusses how knowledge graphs and GraphRAG can add context that makes AI systems more dependable inside real organizations.
The afternoon block starts at 1:15 p.m. with Merve Kitapci, managing partner and CGO of ADIN.AI, on landing major enterprise accounts before a Series A. Her session references work with L'Oreal and Vodafone and covers long buying cycles, multiple stakeholders and the credibility that comes with a recognized customer logo. At 1:55 p.m., Andy Tang, a partner at Draper Associates, takes up products that do not fit an existing category, including how to explain them to buyers and investors.
The final roundtable, at 2:35 p.m., features Linden Tibbets, CEO and founder of IFTTT, on using AI to raise output within smaller teams, including how to structure a company built around AI tooling.
Main-stage sessions on the Build and Impact Stages cover product-market fit, hiring, founder leadership, fundraising, pitching and building companies outside the Bay Area. Toast co-founder Steve Fredette is scheduled to appear, followed by a live pitching competition titled "So You Think You Can Pitch?" Networking time is built into a Networking Lounge with Braindate and a closing reception presented by Fidelity Private Shares. TechCrunch is offering 25% off tickets for a limited time, along with a limited buy-one-get-one promotion.
