The Startup Ecosystem Map

The not-so-secret secret: most startup events, founder dinners, demo nights, and hackathons are posted on lu.ma, not Google. If you only bookmark one thing, bookmark this. Search your city and your topic.

Where a lot of the more casual founder parties and meetups send invites. Worth checking alongside lu.ma.

The classic. Still strong for local tech and founder meetups outside the lu.ma crowd.

The hub for AI founder and engineer events, demo nights, summits, and hackathons. Their events page is a feed worth following.

The -1 to 0 community for figuring out what to build. Member Residency plus a Founder Fellowship that funds you to start.

The original accelerator. Funding, a brutal-in-a-good-way network, and Demo Day.

Ali Partovi's mentor community and accelerator for exceptional young technical talent.

Hands-on pre-seed and seed accelerator with a strong technical bent.

Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross program funding AI-native startups with compute and a network.

Talent investor that builds teams from individuals, before there is even an idea.

A 42,000 sq ft hacker campus with a hardware lab and media studio. Builder-heavy.

A live-in residency for repeat builders. Heads-down building with peers for a few intense months.

One intense week, $10k with no strings, and a tight alumni network that outlasts the money.

Founder fellowship and a famously well-connected peer network.

Talent network and early-stage fund. Contrary Research is also a great free resource.

Cohort-based founder community and cofounder matching for people deciding what to build.

Day-zero investor. Cofounder matching plus first cheque, even before you have an idea.

Global accelerator network with mentor-heavy programs in many cities and verticals.

Early-stage fund and accelerator with a global footprint and a growth focus.

Sequoia's company-building program for early founders.

Hands-on AI builder meetups and demo nights in many cities. Very high signal.

Deep programs for growth, product, and go-to-market operators.

Community for go-to-market and revenue leaders. Strong for hiring and GTM benchmarks.

Peer-mentorship network of founders trading intros, advice, and perks.

AI matchmaking for 1:1 intros. Useful for warm connections when you have no network yet.

The forum where bootstrapped founders share real revenue numbers and what actually worked.

A decentralized week (by a16z) of hundreds of independently hosted side events. The free parties beat the badge.

The East Coast counterpart to SF Tech Week. Same decentralized side-event model.

A week of dozens of deep-tech events across the city. Hardware, bio, energy, frontier.

The conference defining the emerging AI engineer discipline. Strong technical crowd.

10,000+ B2B SaaS founders, execs, and VCs. Tactical content and an AI summit.

The flagship legacy startup conference at Moscone. Big, broad, overwhelming for early founders.

Europe's flagship founder and investor event. Famously high energy, famously dark and cold.

One of the largest global tech conferences. Sprawling; pick your tracks and side events.

Local chapters worldwide plus a global conference. A friendly on-ramp in most cities.

NYC studio running themed accelerator camps around emerging tech like AI.

Seattle studio that ideates and spins out companies with founding teams.