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SF IRL - Jan 5th, 2026

A curated newsletter showcasing the top tech & startup events in San Francisco

Author

Jonathan Chang
January 05, 2026

Hi SF IRL! There's a ton of vibrance and energy coming back into the city and at SF IRL, we are excited to be a part of it. Excited to come with you all with some great events for Issue #176. Happy New Year and to an amazing 2026! We hope you all had a great holidays and we are excited to showcase more events this year.

I'm Jonathan, the creator of SF IRL. I've been a Bay Area resident all my life and moved into San Francisco about 5 years ago. My vision for SF IRL is simple. Showcase the best tech + startup events in SF and to connect all of our builders and investors together. We are a growing community having over 10000+ subscribers. As we keep growing, if you enjoy reading these, please share this with your friends so we can hit 11,000 readers. As always, SF IRL is one of my many side projects. If you like to be involved in helping, please shoot me an email!

Location: San Francisco, Shack15 SF

Time: 9am - 10:00pm 

What: MongoDB invites the best AI hackers to build the future of agentic collaboration. The top teams will earn an exclusive invitation to MongoDB.local SF (Use “MDBBuilder” 50% off tickets) to demo their innovative creation live in front of a panel of top industry judges. Don't miss this chance to win $30,000 in prizes. Register Now.

Location: San Francisco, Lightfield

Time: 6-8pm

What: Join Collin Stewart, author of The Terrifying Art of Finding Customers and founder/CEO of Predictable Revenue, and Lightfield for a founding sales masterclass focused on mastering the earliest stages of go-to-market. Collin will share a practical playbook for running discovery the right way, validating real demand, and landing your first paying customers - with clear milestones and benchmarks founders can apply immediately.

Finding your first customers is often the most confusing part of building a startup. This session is designed for founders navigating that messy early phase, where conversations matter more than funnels and learning happens one prospect at a time. You’ll leave with a clearer path from problem–solution fit to your first revenue engine.

I’ve made a form to connect the best founders raising with my list of VCs. If you are a founder raising your next round and want to potentially be featured to investors in the SF IRL network, please fill out this form.

I’m launching a newsletter that will feature the top founders looking to hire, founders looking for their cofounder, and operators that are looking for their next role. If you are interested in being featured, fill this form here.

You can subscribe to Day Zero here.

Events Coming Up

Location: Palo Alto

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: ​Kick off 2026 with a focused, founder-first meetup to get back into build mode after the holidays. We’re bringing together a curated group of early-stage founders and builders in the Bay Area to reset for the new year, share what we’re working on, and find collaborators for the next sprint.

​Who should come

  • ​Pre-seed / seed-stage founders

  • ​Technical builders exploring ideas in AI, SaaS, and other tech verticals

  • ​Operators, advisors, and ecosystem supporters who enjoy helping founders win

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-8pm

What: What does it take to deliver production-ready Voice AI experiences?

​Join Modal, Phonic, and Hume in an evening thinking about the real-world requirements for Voice AI. Our speakers will cover:

  • ​True Conversational Intelligence — how do build voice agents that guide conversations toward task-driven goals?

  • ​Voice-to Voice Latency — how to build a chatbot fast enough to carry a natural conversation?

  • ​Tuning Voice Models to Reality – how does data quality and scale impact the training of realistic and emotionally resonant voice models?

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9am-10pm

What: MongoDB invites the best AI hackers to build the future of agentic collaboration. The top teams will earn an exclusive invitation to MongoDB.local SF (Use “MDBBuilder” 50% off tickets) to demo their innovative creation live in front of a panel of top industry judges. Don't miss this chance to win $30,000 in prizes.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 10-11:30am

What: ​Join bio founders, investors, operators, scientists, researchers, and enthusiasts for a quick “sweatworking” session. Come get a workout in before the JPM Healthcare Conference week kicks off and meet new people in the healthcare industry. Feel free to jog and/or walk at your own conversational pace. Dogs are welcome! All fitness levels are welcome too! 

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9-11:30am

What: ​Join Pamir Ventures for an exclusive CEO & Investor Breakfast. Located high above the Embarcadero at the Norton Rose Fulbright offices, we offer a quiet vantage point to connect before the frenzy of the day begins.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 3:30-5pm

What: South Park Commons is delighted to host Tony Xu, CEO & co-founder of DoorDash as part of our -1 to Now Series!

​​​​​​Event Details

  • ​​​​​​​​3:30pm: Doors Open

  • ​​​​​4:00-5:00pm: Fireside Chat

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9:30pm

What: Builders, welcome! We’re teaming up with Moonlake AI – a frontier AI lab building reasoning models that can vibe code real-time interactive worlds – for a special evening designed to inspire, connect, and unlock your next creative realm. ​This is a first-ever collab between The AI Collective, Moonlake AI, and a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), and we’re keeping it fresh, simple, and high‑vibe. Expect deep conversations, spontaneous world-building demos, peer energy, and a space where wild ideas become playable.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: ​​Our yearly tradition. Designed for founders in the Healthcare and Bio space by LifeX and friends, we are hosting our annual event around the JPM Health Conference. Come join us for an evening of left-handed drinks and snacks at one of our favorite bars.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-8pm

What: ​Join Collin Stewart, author of The Terrifying Art of Finding Customers and founder/CEO of Predictable Revenue, and Lightfield for a founding sales masterclass focused on mastering the earliest stages of go-to-market. Collin will share a practical playbook for running discovery the right way, validating real demand, and landing your first paying customers - with clear milestones and benchmarks founders can apply immediately.

Finding your first customers is often the most confusing part of building a startup. This session is designed for founders navigating that messy early phase, where conversations matter more than funnels and learning happens one prospect at a time. You’ll leave with a clearer path from problem–solution fit to your first revenue engine.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: The AI Agent Blueprint: How to Scale AI in Customer Service

​​AI is transforming customer experience at an unprecedented pace. The AI Agent Blueprint reveals how leaders across customer service, CX, and AI transformation are deploying AI fast, scaling confidently, and achieving measurable business impact.

​​​Join fellow customer leaders in San Francisco on January 15th for an evening of networking, useful takeaways, drinks and bites. We’re bringing together industry leaders who are shaping the future of customer experience with generative AI and cutting-edge strategies.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9:30am-7:30pm

What: ​We’ve stacked real infra and real AI so your hack ships as a product, not a slide — AWS, Anthropic, and Anyscale power the models and compute; Auth0 handles identity; ElevenLabs brings voice; Retool gives you instant control panels; Cline, TinyFish, and Yutori unlock agent-native workflows; Macroscope and Tonic let you observe, test, and safely work with data; Freepik covers visuals; and Senso turns knowledge into intelligence. In one sprint, build agents, copilots, and autonomous systems that actually work end to end.

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