Toast President Opens Boston Founder Summit on November 4

TechCrunch confirmed the speaker lineup for its Founder Summit 2026, scheduled for November 4 at the SoWa Power Station in Boston.

The event, co-hosted with Fidelity Private Shares, will run a full day of sessions for founders, investors, and operators. The program addresses practical business decisions, including customer acquisition, team building, and pitch development. It moves beyond standard fundraising and artificial intelligence topics to cover founder leadership and scaling strategies for companies located outside traditional tech hubs.

Steve Fredette, president and co-founder of Toast, will open the Impact Stage with a talk titled "Building a Company That Keeps Reinventing Itself." The session will examine how Toast evolved from a local startup into a public company while adapting to changing market expectations. Fredette will discuss maintaining the core needs that created the business as technology and customer demands shift.

Investors will lead two sessions focused on the balance between expansion and caution. Kent Bennett, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, will present "Finding Product Market Fit Before You Scale." His talk will identify the signals founders need to observe before increasing headcount or spending. Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner of Glasswing Ventures, will address "When to Scale and When to Hit the Brakes." She will explore how to distinguish between moments requiring acceleration and those where restraint protects the company.

Lior Div, CEO of 7AI, will present "Built for AI From Day One." The session contrasts adding AI features to existing processes with designing a company's architecture and operating model around the technology from the start. Chase Garbarino, CEO of HqO, will also speak on the Impact Stage about the "Boston Founder Playbook." He will detail how to build and scale a company in the city, focusing on talent, capital, and community resources available outside the Bay Area.

Dave Balter, a venture partner at True Ventures, will lead a session on making pitches that secure the next conversation. In a later afternoon event, founders will present live to a panel on the Build Stage. The panel will include Chirag Shah of Define Ventures and Simran Suri of Maveron. Other scheduled speakers include Hunter Worland of NEA on distribution advantages and Vineet Edupuganti of Cogent Security on building high-performance teams.

The day concludes with roundtables, networking, and a reception presented by Fidelity Private Shares. TechCrunch currently offers a 25 percent discount and a buy-one-get-one offer for event tickets.