Welcome to Bloombites - a weekly brain and heart dump from the front lines of community building and investing.
Here’s who I’ve been connecting with and what I’ve been up to this past week:
Wrapped up the long weekend in the San Gabriel Mountains—peace, calm, and family time.
Kicked off the short week with a sync with Lorna Karanja from my Athena team.
Met Dianna Raedle of Deer Isle Group, thanks to Megan Gjovig, for a great conversation about family offices investing in early-stage VC. TL;DR: it’s still tough out there.
Lunch catch-up with Martyn Gross - lots of opportunities ahead in agtech.
The Brant Cooper Leadership Fund team connected with Aras Sheikhi of Janus Innovation Hub to learn how he’s supporting first-gen founders—and where we can plug in.
Hosted the Carlsbad Life In Action Tech Coffee with Matt Sanford and Rachel Maltz of the City of Carlsbad Economic Development team to bring together north county tech builders.
Got a phone call from an excited Jared Criscuolo of Upcycle about a new field trial launching and commercial activity starting to emerge.
Launched the summer SDSU ZIP Launchpad In Flight advising sessions with student founders including Itzel Estrada, Robert Sanchez, and Sky Soltero. Know any diabetes tech companies hiring new grads? Let me know.
Tim Ryan and I hosted Startup 101 session 4 - Early Founder Mistakes where guest speaker Brian Dirkmaat of Rimon Law walked us through common legal pitfalls in early-stage startups.
Caught up with Seth Merritt CEO of Welby Health, on their fast-paced growth—congrats, team!
Met with Brian Cunningham and Zoiner Tejada from the Foundation LLM team to talk all things enterprise AI, thanks to intro from Richard Antonorsi.
Reunited with OG Cox Communications crew: Jared Ruth, Charla Batey, Todd Backus, and Colleen Dillaway - to celebrate Charla!
Our Brant Cooper Leadership Fund team also met with Pravardh Mishra to hear about his deep tech community building abroad and at UCSD - excited to already be collaborating!
Joined Jayla Siciliano on her Seed Money Podcast for a great convo - thanks for having me!
Joined a Shark Tank roleplay session in preparation for Sarah Fox of Ripetie, organized by Vidya Dinamani with Craig Lauer and Cathy Pucher - let’s go, Sarah!
Planning another SDSU ZIP Launchpad 4-hour ideation-to-sales startup bootcamp with Erica Charlonis and Cameron Brock —this time, every team tackles the same problem area to show how execution influences solutions.
Dropped the latest Tacos and Tech Podcast interview with Jesse Taylor.
Enjoyed meeting Anya Schiess of JP Morgan Healthcare Ventures, thanks to an intro from Spencer Hutchins.
Coffee with Eugene Goldberg to discuss the San Diego med device ecosystem.
Caught up with Mike Glanz of Talitha—exciting progress in bringing good coffee to more people.
Deep dive on AI monetization with Brett Crosby and Spencer Bardsley of AdZen alongside longtime online ad expert Todd Ulise and Al Bsharah.
Closed out the week with a Steak 48 dinner.
Grateful to build community with so many of you—see you out there.
Cheers,
Neal