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From Toast to Bessemer: Who founders will hear from at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026

Building a startup means making decisions before you have all the answers. When should you scale? How do you know you really have product-market fit? What does it take to land enterprise customers? How do you build the right team? And when you finally get in front of an investor, how do you make sure your pitch earns another conversation? On November 4 at SoWa Power Station in Boston, TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 will bring together founders, investors, and operators who have tackled those questions from different sides of the table.

创办一家初创公司意味着要在没有得到所有答案之前就做出决策。你应该何时扩大规模？你如何确定自己真正实现了产品与市场的契合？赢得企业客户需要什么？你如何组建合适的团队？当你最终站在投资者面前时，如何确保你的推介能赢得下一次对话的机会？11月4日，TechCrunch 2026 创始人峰会将在波士顿的 SoWa 发电站举行，届时将汇集从不同角度处理过这些问题的创始人、投资者和运营者。

Hosted by TechCrunch in partnership with Fidelity Private Shares, the full-day event goes beyond fundraising and AI to explore the realities of finding customers, building teams, sharpening a pitch, developing founder leadership, and scaling companies both inside and outside traditional startup hubs. Save 25% on your ticket today, and bring a colleague along for free with our limited BOGO deal.

本次全天活动由 TechCrunch 与 Fidelity Private Shares 合作举办，内容不仅限于融资和人工智能，还将探讨寻找客户、组建团队、打磨推介、培养创始人领导力以及在传统初创企业中心内外扩大公司规模的现实情况。立即购票可享 75 折优惠，并可通过我们限时的“买一送一”活动免费携带一名同事参加。

Some of the speakers founders will hear from in Boston: Steve Fredette on building a company that keeps reinventing itself. Boston founders do not have to look far for an example of what can happen when a startup finds its market and continues evolving with its customers. Steve Fredette, president, co-founder, and director of Toast, takes the Impact Stage for “Building a Company That Keeps Reinventing Itself.” Toast’s story offers founders a compelling case study in identifying a customer problem, finding product-market fit, winning customers, and ultimately scaling a Boston startup into a public company.

波士顿的创始人将有机会听到以下嘉宾的分享：Steve Fredette 将探讨如何打造一家不断自我重塑的公司。波士顿的创始人无需远求，就能看到一家初创公司在找到市场并随客户不断进化后会发生什么。Toast 的总裁、联合创始人兼董事 Steve Fredette 将登上“影响力舞台”，分享“打造一家不断自我重塑的公司”。Toast 的故事为创始人提供了一个引人注目的案例研究，展示了如何识别客户问题、找到产品与市场的契合点、赢得客户，并最终将一家波士顿初创公司发展成为上市公司。

But reaching scale does not mean the work is finished. Fredette’s conversation will look at what it takes to continue evolving a company as customer expectations, technology, and the market change around it, while staying connected to the needs that helped create the business in the first place.

但达到规模并不意味着工作已经结束。Fredette 的对话将探讨当客户期望、技术和市场发生变化时，公司需要做些什么来持续进化，同时保持与最初促成业务发展的需求之间的联系。

Kent Bennett on knowing when product-market fit is real. Growth can be exciting. Growing too early can be expensive. Kent Bennett, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, will lead “Finding Product Market Fit Before You Scale,” focusing on one of the most important questions an early-stage founder can answer: Are customers actually telling you that you are ready to grow? The session will give founders a chance to think more critically about the signals that matter before adding headcount, increasing spend, or accelerating go-to-market efforts. It is a useful counterpoint to startup culture’s constant pressure to move faster. Sometimes the smartest next move is making sure the foundation is actually there.

Kent Bennett 将探讨如何判断产品与市场的契合度是否真实。增长固然令人兴奋，但过早增长可能会付出高昂代价。Bessemer Venture Partners 的合伙人 Kent Bennett 将主持“在扩大规模前找到产品与市场的契合点”，重点讨论早期创始人需要回答的最重要问题之一：客户是否真的在告诉你，你已经准备好增长了？本次会议将让创始人有机会在增加人手、增加支出或加速市场推广之前，更批判性地思考那些重要的信号。这是对初创文化中不断要求“更快行动”的一种有益制衡。有时，最明智的下一步是确保基础确实稳固。

Rudina Seseri on when to scale and when to hit the brakes. That same tension takes center stage with Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner of Glasswing Ventures. In “When to Scale and When to Hit the Brakes,” Seseri will explore how founders can distinguish between the moments that call for acceleration and the moments when restraint may protect the business. Founders are constantly making trade-offs between growth and discipline. Knowing when not to scale can be just as consequential as knowing when to go all in.

Rudina Seseri 将探讨何时扩大规模以及何时踩下刹车。Glasswing Ventures 的创始人兼管理合伙人 Rudina Seseri 将重点讨论这一矛盾。在“何时扩大规模，何时踩下刹车”中，Seseri 将探讨创始人如何区分需要加速的时刻和需要克制以保护业务的时刻。创始人在增长和纪律之间不断进行权衡。知道何时不该扩大规模，与知道何时全力以赴同样重要。

Lior Div on building for AI from day one. AI is reshaping how new companies think about products, operations, and teams, but adding AI to an existing process is different from building a company around it from the start. Lior Div, CEO and co-founder of 7AI, will tackle that distinction in “Built for AI From Day One.” For founders building in the current technology environment, the conversation provides an opportunity to think beyond AI as a feature and toward how it can influence the architecture and operating model of an entire company.

Lior Div 将探讨从第一天起就为人工智能而构建。人工智能正在重塑新公司对产品、运营和团队的思考方式，但在现有流程中添加人工智能与从一开始就围绕人工智能构建公司是不同的。7AI 的首席执行官兼联合创始人 Lior Div 将在“从第一天起就为人工智能而构建”中探讨这一区别。对于在当前技术环境下进行构建的创始人来说，这次对话提供了一个机会，让他们不再将人工智能仅仅视为一项功能，而是思考它如何影响整个公司的架构和运营模式。

Chase Garbarino on the Boston founder playbook. The startup world does not begin and end in Silicon Valley. Chase Garbarino, CEO and co-founder of HqO, will take the Impact Stage for “The Boston Founder Playbook,” examining what it means to build and scale a company from Boston. For founders across New England and the broader East Coast ecosystem, the conversation offers a particularly relevant perspective on talent, customers, capital, and community outside the Bay Area. Combined with Fredette’s Toast story, it also gives this year’s Summit a strong local through line: Ambitious companies can be built in Boston, and founders here do not need to copy Silicon Valley to do it.

Chase Garbarino 将探讨波士顿创始人的成功秘籍。初创世界并非始于硅谷，也非终于硅谷。HqO 的首席执行官兼联合创始人 Chase Garbarino 将登上“影响力舞台”，分享“波士顿创始人秘籍”，探讨在波士顿建立和扩大公司意味着什么。对于新英格兰地区及更广泛的东海岸生态系统中的创始人来说，这次对话提供了关于湾区以外的人才、客户、资本和社区的特别相关的视角。结合 Fredette 的 Toast 故事，这也为今年的峰会提供了一条强有力的本地主线：雄心勃勃的公司可以在波士顿建立，这里的创始人无需模仿硅谷也能做到。

Dave Balter on the pitch that gets you another meeting. A pitch does not have to close the deal. It has to make someone want the next conversation. Dave Balter, venture partner at True Ventures and CEO of Edisyl, will explore that idea in “Your Pitch Has to Earn the Next Conversation.” For founders accustomed to explaining their companies every day, the session is a reminder that knowing your business and communicating its story are two different skills. Later in the afternoon, attendees will see that theory put into practice.

Dave Balter 将探讨如何通过推介赢得下一次会议。推介不一定要达成交易，它必须让对方想要进行下一次对话。True Ventures 的风险合伙人兼 Edisyl 首席执行官 Dave Balter 将在“你的推介必须赢得下一次对话”中探讨这一理念。对于习惯于每天解释自己公司的创始人来说，这次会议提醒人们：了解自己的业务与讲述业务故事是两种不同的技能。当天下午，与会者将看到这一理论的实践。

Watch founders pitch live. At “So You Think You Can Pitch?,” founders will put their stories to the test live on the Build Stage. Balter will be joined by Chirag Shah, partner at Define Ventures, and Simran Suri, principal at Maveron, as startups make their cases in front of an investor judging panel. For attendees, it is an opportunity to watch what happens when founders have limited time to make an idea connect, and to hear how investors react in real time. It is one of the most interactive parts of the Founder Summit program and a chance to learn from both the pitches that land and the ones that leave questions unanswered.

观看创始人现场推介。在“你认为你能推介吗？”环节中，创始人们将在“构建舞台”上现场测试他们的故事。Balter 将与 Define Ventures 的合伙人 Chirag Shah 以及 Maveron 的负责人 Simran Suri 一起，听取初创公司在投资者评审团面前的陈述。对于与会者来说，这是一个观察创始人在有限时间内如何让创意产生共鸣，并实时了解投资者反应的机会。这是创始人峰会中最具互动性的环节之一，也是从成功的推介和留下疑问的推介中学习的机会。

More than one startup conversation. The rest of the program stretches across many of the decisions founders are facing right now. Hunter Worland of NEA will explore why distribution may become a startup’s next competitive advantage. Vineet Edupuganti, co-founder and CEO of Cogent Security, will discuss building 10x teams. Tina Tosukhowong of TDK Ventures will examine the hidden signals that can identify cat.

不止于初创公司的对话。其余的议程涵盖了创始人目前面临的许多决策。NEA 的 Hunter Worland 将探讨为什么分销可能成为初创公司的下一个竞争优势。Cogent Security 的联合创始人兼首席执行官 Vineet Edupuganti 将讨论如何打造十倍速团队。TDK Ventures 的 Tina Tosukhowong 将研究能够识别潜在风险的隐藏信号。