Five founders, five minutes each, then questions from the room. Tables on topics Los Angeles voted for, and an open hour after the stage.
Every guest is checked in at the door. Investor attendance is not guaranteed. Pitching is by application, not by ticket.
After you register
Your ticket and confirmation arrive from Eventbrite to the email you used. Right after, two emails from us: an invitation to our Luma calendar and an invitation to the Los Angeles community, which opens in Slack, in the browser or in Telegram.
Nothing arrived? Contact the team.
The evening
Five founders, five minutes each, in Los Angeles. Three reasons people come back:
01
You pick a topic the room voted on and stay there for the hour, instead of wandering with a drink looking for a gap in somebody else's conversation.
02
Five minutes each, no slides read out loud, then the room asks questions. The questions are the good part.
03
The stage ends, nobody is performing any more, and the floor stays open. That is the hour people actually remember.
After the night
Most events end when you walk out. This one hands you a link: your profile, who else is coming before you get there, a chat for this specific evening, and a recap afterwards of who you actually met. Then you land in your city's space and stay there. That is where the second conversation happens, the one you meant to have before the room got loud.
Free with your ticket: ascentvalley.com/communityWho it is for
Yes, if you are building something, anywhere from the first line of code to Series A. Or you run a function at a company that is scaling, write the code, do the hiring, or you are still deciding whether to start.
Probably not, if what you are picturing is a room full of investors. How that actually works is below, and it is better than the picture.
The stage
Five founders an evening, and we answer everybody, including the people we don't pick. Applying is free; you need a ticket for the evening you pitch at.
Never pitched before? Five minutes is short enough that it's over before the nerves have finished arriving.
Before you apply: How the five seats are filled
Straight answers
We don't
Instead
Why it's worth an evening
01Watching somebody explain their company in five minutes teaches you more about explaining yours than another evening alone with the deck.
02You'll hear the question you've been quietly avoiding asked out loud to somebody else, and watch how they handle it.
03That skill travels: to a first meeting, a performance review, and the dinner where somebody asks what you do and you have twenty seconds before their eyes move on.
So bring the friend who keeps saying they have an idea. Five minutes on that stage is the shortest distance between having an idea and finding out what a room full of strangers thinks of it.
Times in America/Los_Angeles
Name sticker on, then the table closest to what you are building. You stay for the hour.
Five minutes each, no slides read out loud, then questions from the room.
The stage is done and the floor stays open.
What brings you here?
Most asks sound like one of these. Any of them is a good reason to come.
Frequently asked
This event is for startup founders, entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals interested in startup and business networking in Los Angeles.
Yes. Investors and scouts regularly attend.
Startups can access pitching through a dedicated pitch ticket or by application.
Refunds are available up to 24 hours before the event.
Yes, the event is open to business professionals, operators, and anyone looking to connect with the startup ecosystem in Los Angeles.
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