Your vote matters! Decide which Audience Choice sessions will make it to TechCrunch Founder Summit
Your vote matters! Decide which Audience Choice sessions will make it to TechCrunch Founder Summit
你的投票至关重要！快来决定哪些“观众之选”议题将登上 TechCrunch 创始人峰会
Each year, we get a huge influx of applicants to speak at TechCrunch’s events, and this year’s Founder Summit in Boston on November 4 will be no different! We want to thank everyone who applied to take part in our programming and to help share their expertise with the startup community. After careful review, we have 11 finalists who are vying for four slots within this year’s event agenda, and each one showcases the kind of practical, essential insights that can only be delivered by those who have built, iterated, and succeeded.
每年，我们都会收到海量的申请，希望在 TechCrunch 的活动中发表演讲。今年 11 月 4 日在波士顿举办的创始人峰会（Founder Summit）也不例外！我们要感谢每一位申请参与我们议程并分享专业知识的创业者。经过仔细筛选，我们选出了 11 位决赛入围者，他们将角逐今年活动议程中的 4 个演讲席位。每一位入围者都带来了只有亲身经历过构建、迭代并取得成功的创业者才能提供的实用且核心的见解。
You can vote via this link to weigh in on which sessions ultimately make the cut. Submissions will close on September 4. If you’re voting and haven’t already gotten your Founder Summit tickets this year, what are you waiting for? On November 4 in Boston, you’ll get the chance to learn directly from the experts in intimate, exclusive sessions that can put you ahead of the competition or set you up to play a pivotal role in developing the next era of innovators. We still have discounts running on tickets that can save you up to $100 right here!
你可以通过此链接投票，决定最终哪些议题能够入选。投票将于 9 月 4 日截止。如果你在投票的同时还没有购买今年创始人峰会的门票，还在等什么呢？11 月 4 日在波士顿，你将有机会在私密且独家的会议中直接向专家学习，这些内容能让你在竞争中脱颖而出，或为你成为下一代创新者中的关键角色奠定基础。我们目前仍提供门票折扣，点击此处最高可节省 100 美元！
With that said, let’s dive into our Disrupt Audience Choice nominees, and remember: The voting takes place via this form, so take a look and then submit your vote!
话不多说，让我们来看看本次“观众之选”的候选议题。请记住：投票通过此表格进行，请仔细查看并提交你的选票！
How to Build Events Strategy Before You Can Afford a Full-Time Events Team
在雇得起全职活动团队之前，如何制定活动策略？
Alexandra Ames: Founder and Chief Event Strategist, Blueprint Lab
Early-stage founders approach events one of two ways: say yes to every opportunity, or avoid them entirely because the ROI feels impossible to justify. Neither is smart. Events can build your audience and credibility before product-market fit but only if you’re strategic about which ones deserve your time and budget. We’ll discuss how to think strategically when resources are tight, including how to maximize ROI from founder events like this one. You’ll leave with frameworks for prioritizing stage-appropriate event investments, tactics for proving value without complex tools, and clarity on when events make sense and when they don’t.
早期阶段的创始人通常有两种处理活动的方式：要么对所有机会来者不拒，要么因为觉得投资回报率（ROI）无法衡量而完全避开。这两种做法都不明智。在实现产品与市场契合（PMF）之前，活动可以帮助你建立受众群体和信誉，但前提是你必须有策略地选择哪些活动值得投入时间和预算。我们将讨论在资源紧张时如何进行战略思考，包括如何从像本次峰会这样的创始人活动中最大化投资回报率。你将获得一套优先考虑适合当前阶段活动投资的框架，学习无需复杂工具即可证明价值的策略，并明确哪些活动值得参加，哪些则不然。
How to Build a “Made in the USA” Hardware Company and Actually Scale It
如何打造一家“美国制造”的硬件公司并实现规模化？
Hannan Happi: CEO and Co-Founder, Exowatt
Domestic manufacturing is back in the spotlight, but building hardware in the U.S. is still widely seen as too expensive to scale. This session explores how founders can design hardware companies that make “Made in the USA” economically viable from day one. We’ll break down supply chain strategy, cost structure, factory partnerships, and how policy tailwinds like the IRA and CHIPS Act change the equation. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for evaluating when domestic manufacturing can become a competitive advantage — not just a branding decision.
本土制造再次成为焦点，但人们普遍认为在美国制造硬件的规模化成本过高。本次会议将探讨创始人如何设计硬件公司，使“美国制造”从第一天起就具备经济可行性。我们将剖析供应链策略、成本结构、工厂合作伙伴关系，以及《通胀削减法案》（IRA）和《芯片与科学法案》（CHIPS Act）等政策红利如何改变这一局面。与会者将获得一套实用的框架，用于评估本土制造何时能成为一种竞争优势，而不仅仅是一个品牌营销决策。
Build Something We Don’t Have a Word for Yet
构建一个目前还没有定义的新事物
Andy Tang: Partner, Draper Associates
Pitches that change industries rarely fit existing categories — and most investors will pass on them for exactly that reason. This talk explores why the most fundable startups are often the hardest ones to describe, and what that means for how you build and position yours. Founders will leave with a clearer sense of the difference between a market insight and a market-creating idea, and what it actually takes to get a pattern-matching investor to bet on something genuinely new — before the rest of the world has a name for it.
能够改变行业的商业计划书往往不属于现有的任何类别，而大多数投资者也恰恰因为这个原因而拒绝它们。本次演讲将探讨为什么最具融资潜力的初创公司往往最难被描述，以及这对你如何构建和定位自己的公司意味着什么。创始人将更清晰地理解“市场洞察”与“创造市场的想法”之间的区别，并了解如何让习惯于“模式匹配”的投资者在全世界还没给你的产品命名之前，就敢于押注于真正创新的事物。
GraphRAG in Action: Stop Hallucinations with Knowledge Graphs
GraphRAG 实战：利用知识图谱终结 AI 幻觉
Shishir Tewar: Head of Enterprise Data Engineering, Procore Technologies
Are messy data sources causing your LLMs to hallucinate? Relational databases struggle to bridge the semantic gap for AI. Learn to build a production-ready GraphRAG pipeline that turns chaotic data into actionable insights. Actionable takeaways: Build an offline pipeline to resolve disjointed datasets into “golden records.” Translate flat records into an interconnected Neo4j knowledge graph. Deploy a secure, local LLM (Ollama) to translate natural language into validated Cypher queries. Give your AI the foundational data structure it needs!
混乱的数据源是否导致你的大模型（LLM）产生幻觉？关系型数据库难以弥合 AI 的语义鸿沟。学习构建一个生产就绪的 GraphRAG 流水线，将混乱的数据转化为可操作的洞察。核心收获：构建离线流水线，将碎片化的数据集整合为“黄金记录”；将扁平记录转化为互联的 Neo4j 知识图谱；部署安全的本地大模型（Ollama），将自然语言转化为经过验证的 Cypher 查询语句。为你的人工智能提供它所需要的基础数据结构！
The Enterprise AI Playbook: How to Close L’Oreal and Vodafone Before You Raise a Series A
企业级 AI 实战手册：如何在 A 轮融资前拿下欧莱雅和沃达丰
Merve Kitapci: Managing Partner and CGO, ADIN.AI
Most founders chase product-market fit before landing enterprise clients. We did the opposite. This roundtable covers the exact motion for closing global enterprise accounts at pre-Series A: how to structure the first conversation with a Fortune 500 CMO; why agency partnerships accelerate enterprise sales; how to price with no brand recognition; and what zero organic churn means for your fundraising story. Attendees leave with a repeatable enterprise sales framework, an early-stage AI pricing model, and the three things that make a CMO say yes before legal sees the contract.
大多数创始人在拿下企业客户之前都在追求产品与市场契合（PMF）。我们恰恰相反。本次圆桌会议将涵盖在 A 轮融资前拿下全球企业客户的具体操作：如何与财富 500 强企业的首席营销官（CMO）进行首次沟通；为什么代理商合作能加速企业销售；如何在没有品牌知名度的情况下定价；以及“零自然流失率”对你的融资故事意味着什么。与会者将获得一套可复制的企业销售框架、早期 AI 定价模型，以及在法务部门看到合同之前，让 CMO 同意签约的三个关键要素。
Lessons from 20 Years of Bootstrapping an Open Source Business to $50M+
20 年自力更生：将开源业务做到 5000 万美元以上的经验教训
Peter Farkas: CEO, Percona
Building a successful open source company without venture capital is rare — scaling it past $50 million in revenue is even rarer. This talk shares two decades of lessons from growing a commercial open source business from zero to global scale. We’ll cover product-market fit, monetizing open source while keeping the core free, building distributed teams before remote work was mainstream, and creating a repeatable go-to-market engine without outside funding. We’ll also discuss failures, hard lessons, and how to compete against well-funded alternatives while staying bootstrapped. Attendees will leave with practical strategies for scaling sustainably.
在没有风险投资的情况下建立一家成功的开源公司实属罕见，将其营收规模扩大到 5000 万美元以上更是难上加难。本次演讲将分享过去二十年里，将一家商业开源公司从零发展到全球规模的经验教训。我们将涵盖产品与市场契合、在保持核心免费的同时实现开源商业化、在远程办公成为主流之前构建分布式团队，以及在没有外部资金的情况下创建可复制的市场进入引擎。我们还将讨论失败经历、惨痛教训，以及如何在保持自力更生的同时与资金雄厚的竞争对手抗衡。与会者将获得可持续规模化发展的实用策略。
Small but Mighty: How AI Lets Lean Teams Outship the Giants
小而强大：AI 如何让精简团队超越行业巨头
Linden Tibbets: CEO and Co-Founder, IFTTT
The playbook has flipped, and we have lived it firsthand. A five-person team can now outbuild, outship, and outmaneuver companies with 500 engineers. This roundtable gets into the tactical reality of running a lean, AI-powered team: which tools are actually worth your time, how to build workflows that compound instead of bloat, and where most teams are burning cycles on AI that goes nowhere. Walk away knowing…
游戏规则已经改变，我们对此深有体会。现在，一个五人团队在构建、交付和竞争速度上完全可以超越拥有 500 名工程师的大公司。本次圆桌会议将深入探讨运营精简的 AI 驱动型团队的战术现实：哪些工具真正值得投入时间，如何构建能够产生复利而非臃肿的工作流，以及大多数团队在哪些无效的 AI 项目上浪费了精力。与会者将带着……（此处原文中断）离开。