
Founders Network’s mission is to connect Seattle Founders with global resources that they don’t have access to in Seattle. Based in Silicon Valley, Founders Network is a mentorship program that supports Founders with a global network of peer mentoring and investment opportunities. Seattle members can find the strength of a global network behind them.

I'm building Hopscotch, an early literacy platform grounded in how children actually learn. This is my second time founding. I previously co-founded an AI startup, and before that spent 14 years in product design and strategy, at Optimizely and my own studio, N5, where I worked with teams at Google and Cisco. I hold a master's in psychology from Harvard, where I went deep on child development and learning science. Much of my work sits in the impact space. I advise early-stage startups, and I partner with institutions and nonprofits across education, well-being, and mental health. I've also mentored founders through organizations like 500 Startups.

I love to help businesses grow by employing the latest technology. Most of my professional experience has been online - working to achieve this goal. I love this line: in order to be successful at work, you have to like who you work with, and you have to believe that what you do truly helps others. I am presently working on a startup to automate waiting lists, which I believe will increase efficiency for scheduling appointments in virtual every vertical. David Plonsky https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=16156706

Seattle’s startup ecosystem was valued at $96 billion for 2023 to 2025 in Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2026, nearly four times the global average of $25 billion.
Seed and Series A funding in Seattle tech startups totaled $3.3 billion over the same period, against a global average of $554 million per ecosystem, and exits reached $34 billion from 2021 to 2025. The city is known for the engineering talent that Amazon and Microsoft have drawn there.
Founders Network is a peer mentorship community for tech startup founders. Members get mentorship from other founders, chapter events, and introductions to investors and founders across a global network.
The Seattle chapter is run by volunteer member leaders, who are listed on this page. Members in the area meet at chapter events.



Membership is by nomination and approval. Request an invitation and we'll review your background. If it's a fit, we arrange a nomination and invite you to the Nominee Preview Q&A, a 30-minute Zoom where current members walk through how Founders Network works and take questions. The next one is Thursday, November 19 at 9:30 AM PT.
Request an invitationAlready nominated? RSVP to the Nominee Preview.
Chapter events are open to guests by invitation. The Seattle chapter has met in person a couple of times in the last year, so most of what members here do happens in the weekly online program, and local events pick up as the chapter grows. Request an invitation and we'll send you the next local date. Your first event is on us with a one-time guest pass. Upcoming dates in every city are on the events page.
Listen to our podcast. It features the network's most successful members telling the story of how they built and sold their companies. Most members are somewhere along that journey, from first-time founder to serial founder, and the episodes show the kind of founder they are learning from.
Global. Founders Network started in San Francisco in 2011 and now has city chapters and sector groups around the world, with the largest concentration of members in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Most of the program is online and runs every week: facilitated peer roundtables, live expert sessions, moderated founder forums, and 1-1 introductions to members in any city. Members meet in person at the annual conferences, fnIRL and fnSummit. The Seattle chapter adds local meetings on top of that, and they are a small part of the whole. The full program is on the mentoring tracks page.
Founders of tech startups at every point on the journey, from a first company getting to market to serial founders who have exited. Each is nominated and approved, and what we select for is alignment with the network's values and vision rather than stage or sector. Members join to find customers, raise their first rounds, hire co-founders and early teams, and work through the hard parts of running a company with peers who have done it.
Founders Network can make you a more competent and better-connected fundraiser. It can't guarantee funding. The Scale plan is built for founders getting to market and raising seed: 1-on-1 pitch mentoring from VCs, a curated investor directory with warm opt-in introductions, and a pass to fnIRL, the annual San Francisco conference. On every plan you can ask the forums and get introduced to members who have raised at your stage. Plan details are on the membership page. Pricing is shared on approval.
Membership is by nomination and approval. Request an invitation and we'll review your background. If it's a fit, we arrange a nomination and invite you to an info call with current members. All memberships are annual, and we never take equity.
Founders Network is an invite-only peer mentorship community for tech startup founders. Drop your email — we'll take it from there.
No spam. We review every request individually.