Skill Up & Network Silicon Valley

How to Make Your Pre-Seed Startup (Grant) Fundable! Tickets, Sat, Jul 12, 2025 at 9:00 AM | Eventbrite

(The login link will be sent via email to Eventbrite registrants right before the start of the event.)

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For ambitious founders juggling a full-time tech job and a startup dream — this one’s for you. Join us for an online deep dive into funding your venture through non-dilutive means, building a minimum viable company, and making smart, budget-conscious decisions to get your startup fundable.

Agenda: 50 minute webinar + up to 40 minutes Q&A

What You'll Learn:
Whether you’re building on weekends or running lean while moonlighting in tech, this webinar will equip you with a roadmap to fundability – without giving up control or equity earlier than necessary.

We’ll cover:

1. The Minimum Viable Company: The leanest version of your startup that still qualifies for serious funding opportunities.
2. Strategic Positioning: Presenting your team, tech, and timing to align with what grant agencies and review panels expect.
3. Fundability While Bootstrapped: How to make your startup attractive to grantors and funders, even on a limited budget and while holding a 9-5 job.
4. Outsourcing on a Shoestring: Smart ways to contract out non-core but critical work (without hiring a full team).
5. Example for outsourcing: scalable contract shops to get you started on your AI-powered tech startup.
6. Protecting Your IP on a Budget: Essential tactics to safeguard your innovation early without draining your runway.
7. Non-Dilutive Funding 101: Non-dilutive seed- and pre-seed grants don’t cost you equity.
8. Anatomy of a grant-fundable project: SBIR and other opportunities, common mistakes that get applications rejected — and how to avoid them.
9. Global Advantage: Opportunities in international partnerships to access funding and research collaboration.

Why Attend?
Startups like Qualcomm and Amgen got their first big breaks through federal grants. But getting funding isn’t just about great ideas — it’s about understanding how to navigate the system.
Let us help you cut through the noise and position your venture for success with insights you won’t find in a Google search.

About Jurgen Zach:
Jurgen Zach, Startup Funding Coordinator at Ekvacio, is a scientist and entrepreneur who wants to raise awareness and recruit new applicants for this important, merit-based funding opportunity that is oftentimes overlooked in Silicon Valley and other startup ecosystems. He has been guiding startups to successful grant awards for the past six years, and has over twenty years of experience in R&D across energy, sensor technology, and medical devices, and has consulted with many startups in technical projects, grant applications, and as a fractional CTO and business development officer. He has a PhD and MA in physics, is a serial inventor holding over 30 granted or pending patents and has a publication record with dozens of publications across multiple disciplines.

About Ekvacio:
Ekvacio is a US-based consulting firm offering comprehensive services to startups and ventures seeking growth and international success. Our expertise includes grant services, seed- and pre-seed growth consulting to optimize fundability, and cross-border joint venture consulting to access international capital. We have a growing network of partners that includes contract software-development and -R&D firms, patent law- and accounting firms, and others. Our business model is such that over 90-95% of our compensation is tied to our customers’ successful non-dilutive funding.

For more info on Idea to IPO events, visit:

www.idea-to-ipo.com (our main meetup group among 160 meetup groups globally)
www.youtube.com/ideatoipo (videos of in-person events)
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@ideatoipo

AI Email Outreach Workshop @ Stanford · Luma

Our meetup members get 50 PERCENT OFF!

Use promo code:

IDEATOIPO50

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​These days, cold outreach is broken. Inboxes are flooded. People ignore messages—even good ones—because they feel templated, irrelevant, or inauthentic. What works now isn’t volume; it’s resonance. The best outreach feels warm—even if it’s your first message—because it’s tailored, thoughtful, and clearly comes from someone who gets it.

​That kind of outreach starts before you ever hit “send.” It begins with building a brand people can’t ignore. When you’ve got a clear message, a distinct tone, and a reason people should trust you, your emails don’t feel like cold calls. They feel like welcome introductions.

​Once you’ve built that brand, you can assemble a contact list that actually wants to hear from you—not just a spreadsheet of names, but a community of potential collaborators, customers, mentors, or investors who are more likely to open, engage, and respond.

​This workshop will show you how to do all of that—and how to automate it, responsibly. We’ll build a tool that uses AI to take your message, understand your tone, research your contacts, and generate bespoke emails that match what each individual recipient actually cares about.

​If you’re excited to learn how to use AI to actually do something for you—not just chat—I hope you’ll join my upcoming hands-on virtual workshop, where you’ll build your own AI-powered outreach tool using Google Suite and custom scripts. Heads up that you’ll also need to create an open router API which will cost you $5. Instead of sending generic content to everyone with classic “mail merge,” you’ll be able to craft one message and oversee AI as it customizes the content you’ll send out to each individual recipient.

Sound helpful? Let’s build it together.

***

​This workshop is for you if:

• ​You’ve felt stuck reaching out to people—even when you know they should be interested.
• ​You’re sitting on a contact list you’ve never really activated.
• ​You’re curious about how AI cannot just help write, but actually research and personalize at scale.

​You’re a great fit if:

• ​You want to connect more effectively with collaborators, investors, potential customers, or mentors.
• ​You like the idea of AI helping you write—but you want it to do more than spit out bland templates.
• ​You want to teach AI your tone, not just rely on generic prompts.
• ​You’d rather build something useful today than just talk about what’s possible.

​You might be:

• ​A startup founder gearing up to fundraise or sell
• ​A solo consultant trying to grow your pipeline
• ​A nonprofit leader looking to activate your network
• ​A curious technologist or creative excited about real-world automation

***

​In this interactive session, expect:

• ​Real tools, real use cases. You’ll set up a working script that connects to Google Sheets, learns your voice, researches contacts, and sends smart, personal emails.
• ​Live scripting and debugging. You’ll see behind the curtain. No black boxes—just transparent, vibe-coded AI magic using Google Apps Script and prompt engineering best practices.
• ​Beginner-friendly pace. No coding experience needed. If you’ve ever used Google Sheets and written an email, you’re good to go.
• ​A bit of laughter and experimentation. We’ll have fun, get creative, and learn to trust a process that feels more like collaborating with a smart assistant than filling out a rigid form.

***

​By the end, you’ll be able to:

• ​Identify and assemble a quality contact list
• ​Train AI to write in your voice
• ​Automatically research contacts and tailor messaging accordingly
• ​Generate and send custom outreach at scale, with subject lines that actually get clicks
• ​Receive a certificate upon completion of this workshop

​This isn’t just an email tool. It’s a confidence builder and a relationship accelerator.
If you’ve got a message worth spreading, we’ll help you make sure it lands.

About the Speaker

​I’m Alec Walker (Founder & Co-President at Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs Texas Chapter). I help run executive education sessions at Stanford’s d.school and at Google, and I help run a part of the Stanford Alumni Association focused on matching startups with angel investors. I’ve started and sold a couple of data science startups, and I’ve helped execute AI projects at companies like Dow, Intel, GM, and Chevron, among others.

To attend, please register here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/5-secrets-to-landing-your-next-job-with-linkedin-tickets-1404514784529?aff=ideatoipo
Most people scroll past their next opportunity without even knowing it. On the world's largest professional networking platform, LinkedIn, this can easily be thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In this session, we'll show you how to turn your existing LinkedIn connections into warm leads for jobs, clients, or partnerships, without cold outreach. Led by HR leader Leslie Lulham, she'll combine her experience in hiring employees with the strategies that her best candidates have used to land opportunities.

You will learn:

• How to uncover hidden job opportunities through your existing LinkedIn network
• The right way to message for warm intros (without feeling awkward or salesy)
• Profile and positioning tips that make people want to refer you
• Treating your job search like a pipeline, and managing it like one
• A quick peek at how Introly can support identifying roles at companies you're already connected to
• And much more!

About Leslie Lulham
Leslie Lulham is the founder of SunUp Operations where she is a fractional HR leader, COO, or Chief of Staff for startups and small businesses. She helps bring order to the chaos of building: developing scalable systems, aligning people and priorities, and creating operational clarity during moments of high growth.
She also recently launched Introly, a tool designed to surface real opportunities hiding in plain sight. Whether you're looking for clients, collaborators, or your next big role, Introly helps you uncover the warm paths that already exist in your network: no scraping, no spam, no guesswork.
Connect with her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslielulham/

Startup Fundamentals 3: Understanding the "Terms" in Term Sheets Registration, Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM | Eventbrite

Take advantage of early responder pricing!

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Slots are limited!

Venue:

5 Palo Alto Square
Ground Floor Event Center
3000 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, CA 94306

Unlock Your Startup’s Potential: Join Our Essential Workshop!
Are you an entrepreneur ready to transform your vision into a successful, fundable startup? Access Silicon Valley invites you to join us for an invaluable 3-hour workshop designed to equip you with the legal and business tools and insights necessary to build a fundable and scalable startup and thrive in the startup ecosystem!

This is the last of three workshops in the Access Silicon Valley Startup Fundamental Series for startup founders, startup executives, entrepreneurs, innovators, and developers. While advantageous to have attended all 3 workshops, this is stand-alone content. You can still attend this program if you missed the first.

Thank you to our event sponsor, Snell & Wilmer.

In this third workshop of the Startup Fundamentals series, Roger Rappoport, a former entrepreneur, founder of Access Silicon Valley, a partner at Snell & Wilmer and co-leader of its Emerging Growth and Venture Capital practice group, will conduct an interactive, informative session with in depth content on the terms and term sheets for a seed, angel, convertible debt, Safe (pre-money and post-money) and Series A round.

This session will cover:

• When and from whom to take money
• When is an amount raised too much or too little, and the perils of both
• The anatomy of a term sheet
• Understanding the structure of, and the provisions that will most likely be included in, a convertible debt, Safe, angel and venture financing term sheet
• How to arrive at a realistic pre-money valuation
• The impact of term sheets on existing shareholders
• The provisions that will impact control of major and day-to-day decisions at your startup
• The most recent trends relating to: liquidation preferences, participation rights, anti-dilution provisions, pay-to-play provisions, redemption rights, registration rights, rights of first refusal, drag along rights, co-sale rights, among others

Materials:

A comprehensive 50-page digital workbook with an actionable step-by-step guide will be distributed to all registered event attendees on the day of the event.

Agenda:

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Dinner and networking
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Speaker and sponsor introductions
6:15 PM - 7:30 PM - Startup workshop Part A
7:30 PM - 7:45 PM - Intermission
7:45 PM - 8:45 PM - Startup workshop Part B
8:45 PM - 9:00 PM - Q & A

Seating is extremely limited, so reserve your seat now.

About the Speaker:

Snell & Wilmer Partner Roger Rappoport, Co-Leader of the Emerging Growth and Venture Capital Practice Group, is a seasoned advisor to startups and emerging growth companies and the investors who finance them, guiding clients from inception through exit. With over two decades of experience in the startup ecosystem, Roger focuses on venture capital and angel investor financings, including convertible notes, SAFEs, and other debt financings. His knowledge extends to mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, distribution, development, manufacturing, and licensing transactions, as well as executive compensation and the establishment of equity incentive plans.
He has extensive experience in advising startup and well-established emerging growth companies, primarily in the software, information technology, Internet, fixed and mobile communications technology, cleantech and life sciences sectors. Roger is the co-author of “Investor Agreements in a Financing Transaction” a chapter in Financing California Businesses,” California Continuing Education of the Bar, Co-author of "Considerations for Angel and VC Funded Startups and Emerging Growth Companies Considering a Loan Under the Paycheck Protection Program," and Co-author of “Changes in Convertible Instruments for Early Stage Financings.”

Roger is a frequent speaker and panelist on topics and issues related to the development and implementation of a company's formation and funding strategy.

Before attending law school, he was the founder of a technology company with $10 million in revenue.

Roger is very connected with investors in Silicon Valley and beyond and is an active angel investor. As an attorney, he has been involved in hundreds of transactions such as merger and acquisition transactions, private equity and venture capital financing transactions, and complex restructuring transactions.

Roger is also the founder of Access Silicon Valley, a platform for entrepreneurs, on a global basis, to gain access to Silicon Valley's best and brightest Venture Capitalists, "been there done that" entrepreneurs, and experts. Take a closer look at the Access Silicon Valley Video Fireside Chat Series hosted by Roger, with representatives of some of the Valley's most high profile VCs, such as Andreessen Horowitz, Foundation Capital, Floodgate, Venrock, Canaan Partners and more.

Questions?

Email:

Alex Levine

alevine@swlaw.com