Events

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Propel member testimonials

This event is being hosted by Propel's co-founder Emily and current Propel members. It's for prospective Propel members to learn more about what it's like to take the leap as part of the Propel community. All prospective members are asked to attend this live session and then schedule an interview with us in order to join the community, so we hope you can attend this one! For more information or inquiries, email hi@propel.run.

Propel Ideas Dinner

This event is being hosted by Propel's co-founder Emily and a few current Propel members. It's for prospective Propel members to learn more about what they will gain and give by being part of the community. All prospective members are asked to attend this live info session or schedule an interview with us in order to join the community, so we hope you can attend this one! For more information or inquiries, email hi@propel.run.

Propel Info Session 🚀

Propel Info Session - April 8th 🚀

Propel Info Session - April 12th 🚀

Propel Info Session - April 13th 🚀

Propel Info Session - April 14th 🚀

Propel Info Session - May 12th 💥

Propel Info Session - June 8th 💥

This event is being hosted by Propel's co-founder Emily and two current Propel members. The session is for prospective Propel members to learn more about what they will gain and give by being part of the community. All prospective members are asked to attend this live info session or schedule an interview with us in order to join the community, so we hope you can attend! 

For the replay or more information, email emily@propel.run

Prospective Member Info Session - July 21st 💥

Whether it’s building a company, team, or idea, we know the power of connection with peers that are navigating similar experiences. As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.”

Come meet other Propel members and friends of Propel over a meal at Stream Club’s office. 

By RSVP'ing, you confirm you're vaccinated. The dinner will be inside.

This event is being hosted by Emily (Co-founder of Propel) and Paul (Co-founder of Stream Club).

Propel SF Builders Dinner 🤝

Interested in joining the Propel community? We'd like to invite you to a 40-minute group interview and info session with Emily, Co-founder and Head of Propel. We'll learn more about you, share details about the Propel experience, and answer any questions you have about the community.

New Member Info Session 🤝

Founder AMA: User security and conversion with Reed McGinley-Stempel, Co-founder & CEO of Stytch

Propel Builders Bootcamp 01: Validate Your Idea

Come meet other Propel members and friends of Propel over a meal at Wefunder’s office. 

This event is being hosted by Emily from Propel and Eric & Mariel from Wefunder.

Propel SF Builders Dinner with Wefunder 🤝

Propel Builders Bootcamp 02: Towards Product Market Fit

. Too many startup founders struggle to make the inevitable transition from founder to CEO that comes as your company scales. Most founders feel like they’re playing constant catch-up, struggling to focus on what’s most important, and barely keeping their head above water - there just never seems to be enough time to do everything their company needs!

Propel & Foodboro - Leadership Coaching Workshop with Mindmaven

, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of haircare brand 

. Hairstory's a company dedicated to helping people rethink everything about hair in a world where the old rules don’t apply. 

Hairstory's core product, New Wash, cleans hair without any detergent, ending what the company sees as a vicious cycle of over-cleansing created by shampoo. The company's foundational belief is that cleansing without shampoo is healthier for the hair and scalp while also safer for the environment. The cult brand has built a loyal following of enthusiasts as New Wash has helped to change their relationship with their hair.

Eli has spent over 25 years building consumer businesses and his experience includes co-founding a consumer venture-backed technology startup (

), building a growth business (Bumble and bumble) and re-energizing a turnaround (Jurlique). Prior to co-founding Hairstory, Eli spent five years investing in global consumer companies at D.E. Shaw & Company, a $50+ billion global investment and technology development firm.

You can read more about Eli in the article 

: "5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO."

Hairstory's mission is to recreate everything about hair:

1. By creating healthier, more sustainable hair care products that respect the environment and your hair's ecosystem and

2. By changing the way hair products are sold and empowering hairdressers to participate in e-commerce and profit from their influence.

Propel AMA: Eli Halliwell - CEO, Hairstory

Join some of the Propel NYC crew for a holiday dinner at Teddy Seem's home. In lieu of organizing a potluck, we plan to charge each attendee $20-$25 to cover cost of food and drink. You will get invoiced through Stripe upon RSVP'ing. Reach out to Emily with any questions!

We're looking forward to introducing you to other Propel members over dinner!

Dec 9th Holiday Dinner (Propel NYC)

Join some of the Propel NYC crew for a holiday dinner at Propel member Hardy Farrow's office (WeWork!). In lieu of organizing a potluck, we plan to charge each attendee $20-$25 to cover cost of food and drink. You will get invoiced through Stripe upon RSVP'ing. Reach out to Emily with any questions!

Hardy's number to get up to the WeWork is: 

Dec 14th Holiday Dinner (Propel NYC)

Come meet other Propel members and friends of Propel over happy hour at Quinn's office.

By RSVP'ing, you confirm you're vaccinated.

This event is being hosted by Emily (Co-founder of Propel) and Nik & Coleman (Co-founders of Quinn).

Propel SF Builders Happy Hour 🤝

15 Propel members and founders will connect with 5 Gen Z panelists on their use of social media, how they build online presences, and how they find and interact with their favorite brands.

Gen Z Panel: Building your brand's social media presence

Join some of the Propel NYC crew for a dinner at Sophia Wronsky's home. In lieu of organizing a potluck, we plan to charge each attendee ~$30 to cover cost of food and drink. You will get invoiced through Stripe upon RSVP'ing. Reach out to Emily with any questions!

Feb 24th Dinner (Propel NYC)

We're excited to help founders, leaders, and operators that are looking to hire or to be hired. On March 8-10, 

 is hosting a Talent Bootcamp with the support of VC firm 

 and speakers from up and coming startups across tech and ecommerce (pre-seed through Series A companies like 

Highly relevant and educational workshops will be led by startup recruiting experts from companies like 

Whether you're part of the Propel community, a founder or hiring manager of a growing startup team, or in your job search, we'd love to have you join as many sessions as possible.

Further detail on speakers and schedule will be shared out at least a week prior to the sessions. If you think we should feature a speaker or founder, email us! 

Full list of companies and founders being spotlighted:

Hiring and Being Hired - Propel Talent Event Series

We're excited to start our event series off with a day focused on job searchers.

Whether you're actively searching or open to opportunities, this workshop will help you prepare and position yourself for startup jobs. 

Laura's spent 25 years in recruiting and currently recruits key team members for venture-backed startups that have recently secured Seed, Series A, Series B or Series C funding. She works with clients in: crypto, gaming, fintech, adtech, martech, health, insurance, and DTC.

Ianuly’s recruiting approach is fast, flexible and transparent. We recruit key leaders and complementary teams for venture-backed startups that have recently secured Seed, Series A, Series B or Series C funding.

Disruptive startups all share a common challenge: recruiting enough talented people, fast enough, to achieve their vision before a competitor gets there first. 

Our focus on collaboration accelerates scalability by finding the right people for the right positions, right now.

How to kick-start your job search with Laura Ianuly, CEO of Ianuly Talent Accelerators

Whether you are exploring new opportunities, documenting your professional growth, or trying to land new speaking or board opportunities- your LinkedIn profile can help you with your goals. Let's work together to put your best foot forward. This will be a workshop with tips from talent expert Alex and a peer review session in breakouts.

Lady Bird Talent is on a mission to help 1,000 women in tech level up their careers by securing tech & leadership positions. Our community connects women with mid-senior peers, business resources, events, and interview opportunities for leadership roles in emerging tech companies

Preparing your LinkedIn profile and resume for recruiting with Alex Annale-Kinne, Talent Acquisition Lead at Lady Bird Talent

Baton is angling to be the Zillow for SMB acquisitions by helping business owners prepare for exits and empowering buyers to make acquisitions.

Altis is on a mission to build a b2b, privacy-minded, ML-enabled web platform so every organization can effortlessly learn through having conversations with the community they serve.

Today, learning from talking with representatives of a community is a manual, expertise-heavy, time-intensive, people-powered process. So our mission is to use modern technology to automate the expertise or labor-intensive parts of the process.

Quinn finds ways to save you time and keep you focused.

Building for the future of work & business

Know someone interested in attending? Have them RSVP via the link above!

Noula is for women and birthing parents who want to better understand and take care of their bodies in their motherhood journeys. Noula makes personalized, reproductive health information and support more accessible through at-home testing and digital care plans. También en español. 

Noula is a venture-backed early stage company on a mission to reshape reproductive healthcare for good.

Beautyocracy is a platform where women of color discover and shop beauty, together. We see people of color as the future of beauty. 

We envision a world where anyone — no matter what their skin tone or hair type — can open up an app, engage with products and content perfectly tailored to their identity, experiences, and preferences, then easily shop what they love. 

We’re venture-backed and crazy passionate about inclusive beauty; our team is composed of grads from Stanford GSB and Wharton and professionals from powerhouses in the beauty space including Estée Lauder, MAC and The Detox Market.

Nothing Special is a food science and media company. After three+ years of stealth R+D, we have developed the world’s first tasty and efficacious bottled fresh kava beverage that we’ll be launching as an alcohol alternative later this year.

Building better access and outcomes: health, beauty, & family

Saddle is an automated market maker (AMM) designed to enable efficient trading between pegged value crypto assets. Saddle is launching with a tokenized bitcoin pool, allowing users to trade between and provide liquidity for tBTC, WBTC, sBTC, and renBTC.

Celestia is a modular data availability layer built for rollups to utilize. Celestia doesn’t function like a typical layer 1 blockchain. Its only job is to order transactions and verify that the data being published is available. By taking this approach, Celestia achieves properties of scalability, flexibility and interoperability unmatched by previous blockchain designs.

: DOOMSDAY X is a creative technology studio for Web3 artists and fans, focused on redefining culture on-chain.

Superspace is an NFT community platform that empowers owners of character NFTs to collaborate and create the future of their characters.

How to pivot into  crypto and web3

Know someone who would be a good fit for this session? Have them RSVP via the link above!

It can be advantageous to both the interview candidate and your hiring team to see completed work as part of the interview process, whether it be in the form of a case study, homework, or an assessment. But, when is the right time to incorporate these forms of testing? And how do you fairly evaluate the deliverables?

Loren will discuss this topic and provide an exercise for you to iterate on your own interview process. 

Loren oversees Talent at VC firm M13 (focused on pre-seed through Series A investments), supporting their portfolio companies as they build out their teams. She was previously the Interim Head of People at Toast, Director of Talent Acquisition at Digital Ocean, and Director of Talent Acquisition at Yesware.

How to design a robust interview process

Most founders run point on selling in the early days of building a product or service. Once you have an MVP and/or capital to go to market, you'll build a hiring roadmap that likely will include a sales person to secure early customers.

Roxana's team at CloserIQ has deep experience in talking to great sales talent. In this session, we'll cover:

CloserIQ empowers sustainable growth by helping innovative companies build high performing sales and engineering organizations. They've worked with big tech companies like Hubspot, WeWork, Sisense, Datadog, and growing tech companies like Oscar, Justworks, Asana, and more.

When and how to hire your first seller

We're excited to start our second day of the series with a day focused on recruiting and creating an effective interview process and pipeline.

, Founder & CEO of Mercury Constant and Interim Head of Talent at Assembled and Ribbon Health

Building brand awareness for your startup while making sure you're optimizing your tools 

nurturing your talent pipeline is a lot of work in the early months. In this session you will work with Nicole to plan the best ways to:

Nicole is the founder of Mercury Constant, a recruiting consultancy that partners with early-stage founders to help build their recruiting functions from scratch. She combines her background as an engineer and a PM to set up the infrastructure required to scale rapidly and helps teams grow responsibly.

Building your recruiting "stack" and nurturing candidates

Julia has helped college students and the Gen Z generation land internships and "gigs" for the last 5 years - whether as brand ambassadors, social media strategists, focus groups participants, administrative assistants, or other types of part-time jobs.

When you're building a company, you need help on a wide variety of tasks - many of which could be completed quickly with the help of a contractor or intern.

Come to this session to learn more about how to source, support, and set up interns and part-time teammates for success. We'll also talk specifically about social media marketing and consumer insights-related support.

How to source and support interns and contractors for your startup with Julia Haber, Co-founder of Home From College

We're excited to kick off the final day with a panel and Q&A session for founders and hiring managers.

Paul Klein, Cofounder of Stream Club (acquired by Mux)

Hiring the right engineers and setting them up for success makes the different between good startups and great ones. In this panel we draw upon the technical background and hiring experiences of three accomplished leaders to demystify how  and uncover best practices. We'll discuss everything you want to know about hiring engineers, partnering with a technical co-founder, and building out your engineering team in this competitive technical talent market.

Stream Club is the easiest way to design, produce, and broadcast a beautiful live stream straight from your browser. 

A small team of musicians, travel journalists, cyclists, make-up gurus who've built products used by millions at companies like Spotify, Cameo, Omni, Apple, Meraki, DoNotPay, and Twilio. 

Stream Club was acquired by Mux in December 2021.

Ethena is a compliance training platform—with informative, cringe-free content delivered through innovative methods—that actually works. Founded by two women, a military veteran and a software engineer. Ethena is backed by all-star investors and advised by some of the biggest names in the compliance game.

With it’s allocentric approach to talent acquisition, AlloHire is a glitch in the tech recruiting matrix. Based in Chattanooga, TN, AlloHire is a boutique recruiting agency built on the belief that relationships have the highest ROI. In March of 2021, Hudson Brock saw that demand for technical talent was outpacing supply and launched AlloHire to help mission-driven companies close the gap. In its first 10 months AlloHire has grown 10x by leveraging the global gig-economy and local gig-internet to build a network of technologists. “We love strategizing about how bits and bytes can build a beautiful tomorrow,” said Hudson Brock, founder.

Hiring engineers for your startup

We're wrapping up our series with a final day focuses on functional roles required at a quickly growing startup.

In this session, we'll discuss trends in consumer and retail fintech, considerations their teams are making when hiring at the Series A stage, and how they approach hiring. They recently raised their Series A and are hiring across teams and functions.

Much of their team comes from corporate backgrounds and they believe the pivot to startups can be done, no matter your work background, life stage, and experience.

Ben heads up business operations at BANYAN. Previously he worked for a large corporate company, Ciena. He also has his MBA.

Mike is Chief Strategy Officer. Previously he was at Visa and American Express.

 is a fintech infrastructure company whose mission is to harness the power of item-level receipt data to empower retailers and consumers. 

Banyan technology enables financial institutions, fintechs, and consumer apps to gain access to item-level transaction details for the first time. Their technology enables financial institutions and fintechs to increase consumers' engagement by delivering personalized experiences, while helping merchants eliminate paper receipts and create a new renewable source of revenue.

Their product informs a range of personal finance management apps, issuing banks, card linked offer providers, health and wellness apps, and other apps showing individuals their habits and patterns so they can make changes for the better.

Pivoting from corporate to startups

We're wrapping up our series with a final day that focuses on functional roles required at a quickly growing startup.

Looking to make a pivot into tech or support a growing startup in business development, growth strategy, or sales? Come to this session to learn how to best position yourself to startups.

Ian has been supporting pre-Series B startups with placement for the last 4 years. Their team is often introduced to CEOs of recently funded Series A or B growth startups scaling go-to-market efforts. The most successful partnerships have resulted in world class early GTM team buildouts with a capital allocation in future fundraising rounds.

Clients have included: Airtable, Airkit, Rippling, DataGrail, Origin, and more.

Ian's background is in B2B tech sales at Oracle and then Leanplum.

Landing go-to-market roles: sales & growth

We're excited to close out our event series off with a day for job searchers, founders, and hiring managers

Lisa LaCascia, Senior Manager of People & Talent at Milo

 was founded in Santa Monica, CA, by leaders in medicine, technology, science, entertainment, sport, and business, all united by a mission to improve the quality of midlife for ourselves and the people close to us.

We believe it's possible to go from good to great — at any age — provided you have access to the right information, tools, and expertise. By integrating at-home diagnostics, clinical-grade nutraceuticals, safe and effective hormone optimization, and expert medical support, Lifeforce delivers performance plans for your biology, your goals, and your life.

 is a mobility company for communities underserved by public transit. We eliminate transit desserts by using data intelligence.  

In NYC, Dollaride provides an app-based shuttle service between first/last mile transit gaps in the outer boroughs. Clients of our B2B service include large employers, universities, business improvement districts, and commercial property owners. Dollaride provides their daily commuters access to jobs, housing, healthcare, and other venues through our affordable and reliable commuter shuttle service.

 is on the mission to build a digital bank providing financial solutions for global and crypto consumers.  Reimagining the way global consumers access credit and financial services in a borderless world, we are the first digital home lending solution for global consumers and investors to buy or cash out on their US real estate.

, a Techstars-backed company, built a dating app that helps music lovers find relationships by matching people with similar music tastes. Music influences everything from what you believe, to how you dress, to the way you talk and studies show it is proven to be one of the best predictors for relationship success; over 45% of daters say "bad music taste" could be a relationship deal breaker. With Beatmatch, you simply connect your Spotify or Apple Music account and we match you with compatible music lovers in your area based on your listening history. You can also plan your first dates by browsing recommended concerts and music festivals, seeing who’s interested, and buying tickets directly in the app. The company is founded by Chudi Iregbulem, former Amazon and ESPN product manager and software engineer as well as nightclub DJ. To date, Beatmatch has raised capital from Techstars, Warner Music Group, Concord Music, Visible Hands VC, and angel investors and launched its beta on January 29th in Seattle, WA.

Joining a mission-driven startup 

During this session we'll cover what to know about evaluating offers at early-stage companies. This conversation will be targeted toward job searchers though informational for hiring managers and founders that are trying to provide transparency and value to their interview candidates.

Annie currently supports all portfolio companies at the seed and Series A stages at Forerunner. Previously, she was VP of Operations and People at future of work startup Humu for 3.5 years. She's also been on the People teams at Gusto and Etsy.

Forerunner is a venture capital firm focused on understanding the mindset of the modern consumer and identifying the people poised to deliver what they need. They've supported trailblazing brands like Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, Hims & Hers, and dozens more.

Evaluating opportunities
at early stage startups

Want to discover qualified candidates for your startup in a few hours and chat directly with them to streamline the interview process?

 workshops in March, we're partnering with 

 to host a session on streamlining and shortening the time to get in touch with incredible startup candidates.

For founders, small business owners, and many job seekers, the frustration with current hiring and recruiting methods is all too real and continues to grow. Competition for top talent, the lifeblood of startups, is dominated by the deep pockets and brand recognition of established, well-funded companies. For candidates, the interview process is typically overly drawn-out, rife with obscure communication and confusion, and often results in being ghosted altogether.

Founders and job seekers have enough problems to solve without having to blindly navigate through stressful, outdated hiring and recruiting processes that take weeks and, at times, even months. Now, Hirect has the solution right in our hands.

This discussion will cover the evolution of the hiring process and how Hirect is pioneering a new strategy that connects job seekers and hiring managers instantly, reducing the hiring time to just a few days. 

Stephanie Lovell is the Head of Marketing for Hirect, the first and only hiring app specifically for founders. Prior to Hirect, she held senior level marketing roles at fintech decacorn, Brex, and global asset manager, State Street Global Advisors, a division of Fortune 500 company, State Street. She also worked as a commercial producer at ION Television, a top 10-ranked U.S. entertainment network, supporting major brands such as PepsiCo, AT&T, and Procter & Gamble. Lovell’s expertise spans the full marketing spectrum, ranging from building and scaling teams to producing largescale creative campaigns from ideation to completion.

Streamlining your startup's interview process

Join some of the Propel NYC crew for a 10-person dinner at two different Propel member's homes. One will be in UES and the other in West Village.

And we welcome you to bring a +1! Anyone who might be a good fit for Propel would make a great +1.

In lieu of organizing a potluck, we plan to charge each Propel member ~$30 to help cover cost of their and their guest's food and drink. You will get invoiced through Stripe upon RSVP'ing.

Propel April 28th Dinner (Propel NYC)

We're happy to host the first of many in-person gatherings for our Austin members and friends. Our Builders Dinners (previously only in NYC, LA, and SF) are a space for startup founders and leaders to connect, unwind a little, and catch up on what we're all working on and how we can help.

 we're now bringing the Builders Dinner format to Austin, Texas for an intimate evening somewhere scrumptious. Please register now as we confirm the restaurant details, and let us know if you would like to bring a +1. We will do our best to accommodate this.

Our community is home to current and future founders making an impact through their work. Find connection, gain accountability, and accelerate your learning as a member of Propel.

We're currently reviewing applications for our next class. Learn more about joining us 

Propel Austin's first Builders Dinner

As startups slow down and a hiring freeze grips the corporate world, we at Propel want to support talented operators to stay ahead. If you're looking for your next opportunity or have recently been laid-off come to our info session.

We'd like to invite you to a 40-minute group interview and info session with Emily, Co-founder and Head of Propel. We'll learn more about you, share details about the Propel experience, and answer any questions you have about the community.

New member info session

When food and founders meet, enlivening conversations happen! Since 2020, Propel's Builders Dinners have been a space for entrepreneurs and startup leaders to connect, unwind a little, and catch up on what we're all working on to see how we can help.

 we recently hosted Propel Austin and are excited to now host 🗽 Propel NYC! 🗽 Please register now as we confirm the restaurant details. Seating is limited.

Propel NYC: Builders Dinner

Enjoy your first drink on us and light bites at Propel NYC's Happy Hour. Come meet fellow builders and startup operators in New York! You'll be hosted by our Community Manager Ahrif Sarumi in a relaxed location with a section reserved for our members. 

please have the person RSVP so we can plan accordingly

Propel NYC: Happy Hour

​Please join M13 and Propel for lunch in SF! RSVP in advance as we determine an ideal meeting place for the group. 

​This is a small-scale event intended to allow people to forge real connections. Therefore, we please ask that you register for admission and not forward this invite without inquiring first. We look forward to meeting you!

M13 x Propel SF Lunch

This event is for "non-technical" founders who want to level-up the current/future version of their website. 

 will lead a discussion for build engaging products and share how non-technical founders can avoid missteps when building and designing their product. At this event, founders will better understand how to create software that embraces business strategy, design, and project management. 

 will be included in the presentation and have priority over live questions. 

Thanks and feel free to share with people in your network who would be interested!

Demystifying Software Development for Non-technical Founders

 (Director of Operations at Refine Labs, 3x Chief of Staff and Chief of Staff On Deck Fellow) will share her playbook for VP and Director-level operators and offer valuable insights for those who plan on becoming the operational glue in their companies. 

Highlights from the workshop will include: 

Come with your questions and get ready to learn!

[Workshop] Scaling Startups Through Strategy & Operations

This session will focus on your company’s purpose and beliefs. Setting guiding principles in your company early and thoughtfully has a powerful impact on what you are creating, on your results, and on your ability to react in a dynamic and complex environment.

[Workshop] Discovering Your Guiding Principles with Erich Nussbaumer

This session will focus on a modern way for founders to raise capital from everyday people. Join this virtual event to learn the impactful details of how startups can let thousands of their customers, users, & fans invest alongside VCs and angel investors. 

Raising Capital From Your Customers

In this session we talk about how to leverage your personal and professional brand to scale your business, career, or influence. 

The Social Soul: Mastering Your Personal and Professional Brand with Authenticity and Intentionality

 and will share how he has built global networks and has success scaling a startup global, fundraising, exiting a company, and more through leveraging social connections.

Mastering Personal and Professional Brand with Rob Napoli

Esmé is a three-time founder turned community builder. Approaching 25 she was a college-dropout rethinking her career choices after 7 years building businesses in fashion, professional development, and wellness.

In this session she’ll share more about the impetus behind pivoting from entrepreneur to operator and how she navigated her experience.In this session we'll cover:

How to Navigate a Quarter-Life Crisis

Registration approval is required for this event, please check your emails for confirmation of attendance. Please arrive starting 5:00pm -- 5:30pm latest!

 are co-hosting an intimate social event for early-stage founders looking to build community in the Bay Area! 

Propel: the community for early-stage and aspiring founders

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