Everything we’ve learned building a values-driven company
About Event
Join us for a peer-led night of discussion and reflection about building ambitious projects on our own terms.
If you:
feel a deep responsibility to dedicate your life to making the world a better place
are incessantly bombarded by your own thoughts and are constantly trying to wrap your head around huge and giant societal issues
are full of ambition and want to do something BIG
feel slightly misaligned with a lot of the career options you see in front of you
have a little voice inside that knows you want to be a founder one day (of a startup, nonprofit, local business...)
want to talk through all of this in a light-hearted, standup-comedy-esque way...
Let's think through all of it, together. 🥳🕺💃🎉
No more spiralling about housing and city planning and the electrical grid and sustainable agriculture and energy efficiency and community building and media and healthcare and the economy all on your own.
It's time to leave the house -- this room you'll find: (hopefully) good advice, good food, a good laugh, and (maybe!) your future cofounder.
⭐️🌲⭐️🦎⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️🐢⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️
We are capping spots to build a high-trust room & reviewing applications on a rolling basis -- apply ASAP!
⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️🥬⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️🌲⭐️
This will be a casual, honest, and information-dense (but hopefully straightforward!) workshop followed by opening the floor to an audience-driven Q&A.
We will cover:
Values: how to root yourself in 'em
Cofounders: who's the right fit?
Customers: who can actually pay you?
Product: selling and getting feedback when your product straight up does not exist yet
Location: where should you build as you grow?
Revenue Models: what's the "shape" your company should be if you want to stay aligned with your values?
Venture Capital
a) Crash Course: *Quick TLDR on what VC even is, how it works, where the money is coming from, what you're agreeing to when you raise VC, what all these 'Series-es' are, what a 'valuation' is, etc. etc. etc. because no one explains it well but I finally get it and none of you need to be confused about this anymore
b) Raising Money: How to successfully raise your first round of VC (if you choose to do so)
These learnings have been hard earned -- we've wrestled with these questions at Wygo and have been running real-world experiments, trialling things from first-principles, and have come out the other side with a VC-backed startup based in Toronto.
---
Important Note:
Early-stage startup advice is crowded with assumptions: it starts with assuming you want to raise VC money, then constrains your imagination to things that fit into that box (all roads lead to B2B SaaS...) -- But there are obviously... other types of institutions... that exist in the world... that had founders... who also needed early-stage advice and peer groups and support systems.
If you are ambitious, obsessed with solving problems, unwilling to compromise on *the core thing you want to accomplish* and need thought partnership to sort through the existential question of figuring out *how to get paid to do meaningful work*, we're offering a safe haven, peer-group, and place to bounce ideas.
We'll share what we know without assuming you want to raise money, we won't meet your dreams with a "that'll never make money" attitude, but instead a "OK HOW MIGHT this make money" attitude. You already know what you care about, we're here to work through the pathway to making it your full time job.
---
Equally important Note!
Entrepreneurship is supposed to be fun.
We'll talk about serious stuff, but you WILL leave feeling lighter and (hopefully!) inspired to dive into your next big thing.
See you all soon!! 😁
Things to know
Itinerary
Special Instructions
Bring a pen 🖊️ and a positive attitude 😎☀️
Location
Register to See Address
San Francicso
About The Hosts
Wygo builds software & support systems for ambitious in-person community organizers. We're building the economic rails, professional networks, and discovery layer that will allow a new class of creators to step up and meet the exploding demand for real-world experiences.
Today, our ticketing platform is an operational home base for organizers. As we grow, we'll help hosts build their identities, strengthen their economics, and plug into resource-rich partner ecosystems so they can go from organizing one-off events to sustaining vibrant in-person communities long term.
Wygo Lore:
I (Joss!) have been building Wygo for 3 years -- my cofounder and I laid the groundwork while we were in school, started working on the business full time with ~100k of non-dilutive funding, raised a 1.5M pre-seed round 10 months after graduation, and have grown the team to 4 people
Why we're hosting this:
We want great people to START THINGS. We want more peers, and the world NEEDS new institutions -- non-profits, startups, small businesses, local establishments... we want shared information (and more importantly!) shared imagination between people who want to contribute to building a future we can be optimistic about.
You're running a startup, don't you have a million kabajillion other things to do?
Yes. Lmao. Early stage founders rarely have time to take a breath to process and share their learnings (this is kind of why there's an information void!). But sharing matters, and we need to do it while we're still early enough to remember what was hard in the beginning.
Shameless plug:
We're hiring!
Check out our internship and full-time roles. 😁
By registering for this event, you agree to share your registration responses with Wygo, the hosts, and any listed sponsors.
Photos and videos may be taken at this event for future promotional purposes. By attending the event, you consent to being photographed / filmed. If you'd prefer not to be photographed, please let the hosts know.
Hosts reserve the right to refuse entry or remove any participant who does not comply with the event rules or guidelines. Please be respectful of the hosts and other participants. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the hosts directly.