Chia-Lin S.

Founders build companies. Ecosystems build founders. 🚀 Behind every "overnight success" is a powerhouse of support, the people who provide the capital, the coaching, and the connections to bridge the gap from a raw idea to a fundable venture. The Reed Smith LLP ROCKY Award by Tech Coast Venture Network (TCVN) is our way of recognizing these pillars of our community. As a Founder’s Choice Award, it is unique because the winners are chosen by the entrepreneurs themselves and the TCVN board. Who we celebrate: We honor the "rock-solid" individuals who help founders become investor-ready, including: * Angel Investors: For providing the critical early-stage belief and capital. * Mentors & Advisors: For guiding founders through the highs and lows of the journey. * Community Champions: For building the infrastructure that makes our ecosystem thrive. By honoring our champions, we ensure the next generation of innovators has a foundation to build upon. Watch this video for a behind the scenes look at the pre-show set up. 👉 Want to see who's leading the way? Check out the full press list to see this year's incredible winners and nominees. #TCVN #ReedSmith #StartupEcosystem #AngelInvestors #Mentorship #FoundersFirst #CommunityChampions

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Some great thoughts from my friend Neal Bloom🎩 about the critical importance of Founders in the starting and building of companies, and a startup ecosystem in a community. Sometimes we lose sight of this important fact. Service providers, non-profits, Angel investor, and venture capitalists are here to service the startup companies, and they are anchored by founders. He references a great book written by Brad Feld, “Startup Communities”. For those that don’t know, Brad is an entrepreneur, author, blogger, and venture capitalist at Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mendelson. #sandiego #startups #venturecapital

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Project Vend reads less like a capability story and more like a governability story. Phase two improved because institutional scaffolding (tools, procedures, role separation) reduced predictable judgment failures—persuasion, compliance blind spots, boundary confusion, values drift. The board-level question isn’t “can an agent run a business?” but “what governance primitives must exist before we delegate authority.” Until incentives, escalation rights, and refusal boundaries are structurally enforced—not merely prompted—agents remain high-performing managers, not autonomous executives.

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When VCs start encouraging founders to build factories, you know the industry is changing. Fast. In the past few weeks, I’ve heard from multiple VCs who are open to founders building their own factories in the U.S. They believe it will be a real differentiator and a competitive advantage. Just a few years ago, building domestically was a non-starter; China was the default for scale and expertise. Also, multiple startups are building and expanding manufacturing capacity. This is a big shift and the early sign of manufacturing capacity returning to the U.S. But before this becomes reality, operations teams (especially in electronics manufacturing) will face constant geopolitical change. They will need to rebuild their supply chains multiple times in the next few years. Teams will also have to adapt to various strategies of  1) Near-shoring. 2) friend-shoring. 3) On-shoring No matter the strategy, the common theme is change and if your teams are designing and running production planning and operations design in Excel, you are in for a tough ride. One way to adapt quickly is to strengthen your foundations in industrial engineering. Build a clean data platform that runs your day-to-day operations with your contract manufacturing partners. When you own the data and it’s automatically labeled you gain speed, accuracy, and control. Teams that invest in fundamentals will be the ones ready to adapt to the changes. Are your teams preparing for this kind of change as well? I’d love to hear your perspective.

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AI isn't just powering software. BrightAI just raised $51 million to automate inspection and other hardware-based AI capabilities. As Alexa von Tobel, co-founder of Inspired Capital put it: “So many people are so focused on the future of digital AI, but we’re excited about this new layer of AI: the physical world AI.” We are in the early innings of a series of AI-fueled innovations! https://lnkd.in/enhmafvH

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