Scenes from SR Kickoff Week

Founders from 60+ startups convened in Los Angeles last week for the official kickoff of SR005. Here's an inside look at our startup program.

💡 This Week’s Big Ideas

🚨 We’re hiring an investor for the a16z speedrun team! To learn more about the role, check out Robin Guo’s post on LinkedIn.

👀 Streaming live from Santa Monica this Thursday, Macy Mills is hosting our inaugural First Look AI Showcase, featuring three exceptional founders from SR005. Sign up details here.

🤝 With SR005 kicking off, Jordan Mazer says he’s “drowning” in hiring requests from founders. He put together a list of 35 teams currently hiring.

💼 Join our talent network for more opportunities. If we see a fit for you, we'll intro you to relevant founders in the portfolio.

Over 10,000 startups applied to join the latest class of a16z speedrun, and just over 60 startups were ultimately selected.

Last week, those talented founders convened in Los Angeles for the official kickoff of SR005. And today, we’re bringing you a behind-the-scenes look at what the program is actually like for those participating.

Day one kicked off with an in-person presentation in the main hall of our venue (the former Venice headquarters for Snapchat where they announced their IPO).

ERAGON founder Josh Sirota and Taiyaki AI co-founders Amy Zhou and Elena Wagenmans

After the founders were fed and seated, we introduced the speedrun team and shared some tips on how best to work with our squad of investors of operators.

a16z speedrun Head of Creators Lester Chen

Week One is all about getting to know each other—and to do that, it helps to know what the other founders are making. So after a break for lunch, we reconvened for back-to-back, lightning round style elevator pitches from every company in SR005.

Gavin Purcell, co-founder (stealth) and ex-Showrunner on The Tonight Show

One after another, each founder hopped on stage and introduced themselves. By the time every company had presented, there was a growing sense of camaraderie in the air—helpful for when we needed to squeeze in together for an official class photo.

Sidebar: What are your goals for Demo Day?

So much of the a16z speedrun program is about building momentum for Demo Day. We showed the class of SR005 videos of four companies from previous cohorts successfully pitching at Demo Day.

Gavin Purcell is a former showrunner on The Tonight Show, and now a cofounder of a “next-gen AI media” company that’s participating in SR005. Here’s what he said when we asked about his own goals for Demo Day:

“One big learning was that traction is king, which I mostly expected. But seeing the videos of successful pitches was a fascinating way of thinking about how to pair traction stats with our story. We're pushing hard to get what we're building out into market for this exact reason. And since we're building something unusual that doesn't really exist in the world yet, part of the SR experience will be making sure we've got audience feedback on it before Demo Day. That way we can talk about how people responded to and engaged with what we're building.” —Gavin Purcell

Day Two offered time to get a bit more intimate, as founders split off into separate focus groups moderated by their respective cohort leaders.

A Cohort Office Hours session led by Marcus Segal

The idea behind these Cohort Office Hours sessions is to get founders used to talking about their goals and problems in an open way with other founders—and encouraging other founders to think through problems as if it’s their company too.

EverCurrent founder Ye Wang in Troy Kirwin’s Cohort Office Hours session

After lunch, the crew reconvened for a fireside chat with Airtable’s Howie Liu, hosted by Andrew Chen.

These sorts of talks and panels are a chance for SR founders to hear from some of the world’s most talented company builders and investors, as well as to ask questions.

Right of center: Vega co-founders Madeline Park and Benjamin Lee. Says Park: “I loved the way Howie Liu and Andrew Chen discussed delightful utility and that no matter what part of the company building journey you’re in, you should always be finding PMF!”

Day Two concluded with private dinners for each cohort, and Day Three brought more focus time for cohort groups, plus another excellent panel, this time with some star investors who flew in to spend time with speedrun founders.

Investors Cyan Banister (Long Journey Ventures), Daniel Docter (Dell Technologies Capital), and Jason Yeh (Patron) in a panel led by Andrew Lee.

But it’s not all work—after a long day of sessions, on Day Three the founders and operators cut loose at Santa Monica Brew Works.

Argu cofounder Shani Daniel says one big lesson from Week One of speedrun was the importance of moving fast. "Speed isn’t a nice-to-have,” Daniel says, “It’s survival. We realized that what felt ‘fast’ before isn’t even close to what’s needed."

Week One has wrapped, but there’s still a long way to go until Demo Day.

a16z's Samira Behrouzan demonstrates a proper cornhole power stance

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