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SF IRL - Sept 29th, 2025

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

Author

Jonathan Chang
September 29, 2025

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 #165.

I'm Jonathan, the creator of SF IRL. I've been a Bay Area resident all my life and moved into San Francisco about 4 years ago. My full-time job is at Brex where I meet founders and VCs while trying to create a community in the city. 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 9000+ subscribers. As we keep growing, if you enjoy reading these, please share this with your friends so we can hit 10,000 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!

Day ZeroMeeting the top folks in tech, find your next cofounder, and your next role

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6:30-9pm

What: Join us for our Brex Supper Club, a special evening with a small group of peers and friends from the startup community.

​Enjoy an evening of delicious food, inspiring conversation, and meaningful connections. Come hungry, bring your curiosity, and enjoy an evening designed for connection around the table.

October 9 · San Francisco

Growth is messy. AI is moving fast. And most events just add to the noise.

ApolloNEXT is different. Picture 1,000+ founders and operators who've actually scaled through this transition, sharing what's working right now.

Get hands-on with Apollo's AI GTM platform, hear real plays from teams at Anthropic, Glean, and Apollo who went from $10M → $150M ARR in just 4 years.

Plus Corporate Bro (Ross Pomerantz) is hosting, so at least it won't be boring.

October 9 · San Francisco

50 founders. One room. Real conversations.

We're hosting something we've never done before during SF Tech Week.

Picture this: mini-chats with Apollo CEO Tim Zheng and execs who scaled us from $10M → $150M ARR. No stage. No panels. You sitting close enough to ask the questions that actually matter.

  • Frameworks that broke through every revenue ceiling

  • Pivots & mistakes that cost us months (so you don't repeat them)

Growth is messy as hell. AI is moving fast.

We want to be in the trenches with you, trading what's actually working.

For Seed+ to Series A founders in growth mode.

This is how we're building our founder community at Apollo. Here’s how to get your spot:

  • Step 1: Register for ApolloNEXT

  • Step 2: Apply here for the lunch

  • Step 3: Keep an eye on your inbox for updates

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

Sept 30th, 2025 - SF Founders Brew Mixer

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6:30-9pm

What: We are bringing together some of the most ambitious people in San Francisco.

​Give a quick intro about what you're working on, meet other people and cool down with some of the best drinks in the city!

​No entry fees, no corporate agenda, just vibes.

​The perfect way to end the night.

​Look forward to seeing you there!

Sept 30th, 2025 - Agents for Web Dev

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: Join us at our monthly All Things Web meetup for two exciting talks and plenty of time to hang out with the AI and web builder community in San Francisco at Mintlify's brand new office!

​This month's theme: Agents for Web Development

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-7:30pm

What: We're excited to bring together the best engineers in SF who are building in AI!

​Whether your playing around with the most recent open source models, hacking on an AI side project, looking for cofounders or exploring something new, come hang out and discuss the latest in AI and engineering.

Location: Menlo Park

Time: 6:30-8:30pm

What: Great products are built at the intersection of bold ideas, sharp minds, and the right room of people.

​That’s exactly what this curated dinner is designed for - a hand-picked gathering where product leaders, founders, and builders come together to share, challenge, and co-create.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: ​Love APIs and dev tools? Building something cool with AI?

​Come eat tacos, have a drink, and meet new folks! 🚀

​Hosted by your friends at WorkOS. 💙

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9:30-6:30pm

What: ​Come hack with us! Join the Supabase team the day after Supabase Select for an all-day hackathon with great prizes, great food, and a great vibe.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: San Francisco Tech Week is packed — AI demos, founder meetups, late-night mixers, and fifteen Discords lighting up at once. But sometimes, the best moments are when you slow down, grab a drink, and actually connect with the people building the future.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8:30pm

What: Join us for the third edition of Funded Female Founders, hosted by Superconnected and Startup Grind, at the most scenic venue of SF Tech Week, 46 floors above San Francisco in the Salesforce Tower.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 8:30-11am

What: Join us in kicking off Tech Week with breakfast bites and conversations on the future of physical AI, covering embodied systems, intelligent hardware, autonomous robotics, and the infrastructure powering them.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What: Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving—and women are shaping the future. Join us for an evening of conversation, connection, and collaboration as leaders in AI share their perspectives on the next frontier: agentic AI systems.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 8:15-9:15am

What: Kick off SF Tech Week with a Barry's class with fellow finance and ops leaders!

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What: ​Dual-Use Advantage: Winning Capital & Contracts in Defense

Meet us at #SFTechWeek!
Tech Week (presented by a16z) brings together the startup and VC ecosystem with events across the city. As part of SF Tech Week (Oct 6–12), we’re hosting Dual-Use Advantage: Winning Capital & Contracts in Defense.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What: The AI revolution is being shaped at two levels: the infrastructure that powers it and the applications that bring it to life. This panel brings together serial founders, technical pioneers, and researchers who’ve scaled unicorns, built transformative AI products, and advanced the science behind them.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6pm

What: We’re bringing another standout healthcare-focused event to SF Tech Week — designed for builders, researchers, and investors shaping the future of health.

Oct 13th, 2025 - Overnight Success: Notion

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9:30-6:30pm

What: ​Ivan Zhao and Simon Last spent a year in Kyoto coding 18 hours a day and eating instant noodles. They were starting from scratch, borrowed $150,000 from Ivan's mom, and moved to Japan because they couldn't afford San Francisco anymore.

​Three years into building Notion, they had to face the truth: nobody wanted their app-building tool. The whole thing was built on Google's Web Components, which turned out to be a disaster. It crashed constantly.

​Today Notion has 100 million users and is worth $10 billion. But back then they were just two guys who didn't speak Japanese, living in a tiny house with a paper screen between their bedrooms.

​Ivan and Simon will share:

  • ​Why they thought everyone wanted to build their own apps (they didn't)

  • ​The day they decided to let go of their friends and start over

  • ​What it was actually like coding in Kyoto for a year straight

  • ​How they went from 1,000 users to 100 million

  • ​Why they turned down investors even when they were broke

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