Boston Summit Schedules Six Strategy Sessions for Founders

TechCrunch will host its Founder Summit 2026 at the SoWa Power Station in Boston on November 4. The event brings together founders, investors, and operators for a full day of programming. Organizers added six specific roundtables to the schedule to facilitate detailed, small-group discussions on operational challenges.

Participants are invited to bring their own questions and share observations from their companies. These sessions aim to solve shared problems with experts and peers. Topics range from enterprise sales and vertical strategy to artificial intelligence and lean team management.

Alexandra Ames, founder of Blueprint Lab, leads the first session at 10:45 a.m. She will discuss how early-stage companies can use events strategically without a full-time events team. The conversation covers selecting opportunities, defining success metrics, and stretching limited budgets.

Two sessions run concurrently at 11:30 a.m. Chirag Shah, a partner at Define Ventures, will address the difficulties of entering high-potential but complex markets, such as regulated industries. In the parallel session, Shishir Tewari of Procore Technologies will explain how knowledge graphs and GraphRAG improve the reliability of AI systems in real-world organizations.

Merve Kitapci, managing partner at ADIN.AI, begins the afternoon block at 1:15 p.m. She will examine how founders can secure major enterprise customers early in their lifecycle. Her session references closing deals with L'Oreal and Vodafone before a Series A round, focusing on long buying cycles and stakeholder management.

Andy Tang, a partner at Draper Associates, follows at 1:55 p.m. He will guide founders whose products do not fit established market categories. The discussion includes how to explain these novel offerings and how to help investors understand the underlying opportunity.

Linden Tibbets, CEO of IFTTT, concludes the roundtable series at 2:35 p.m. He will explore how smaller teams can leverage AI to increase speed and output without adding headcount. The session addresses hiring strategies and structuring companies around AI capabilities.

The roundtables complement the main programming on the Build and Impact Stages. Those sessions cover product-market fit, fundraising, and scaling outside the Bay Area. Steve Fredette, co-founder of Toast, is among the leaders scheduled to share insights. Attendees will also compete in a live pitching contest called So You Think You Can Pitch. TechCrunch is currently offering 25 percent off tickets and a buy-one-get-one deal for a limited time.