Colton Kaplan

Host of Change with Colton🎙 Podcast | Operations | Strategy | Lean Six Sigma | Supply Chain | Eliminating loneliness on the founder journey | Growing Founder Social Club Community

I am the founder of Founder Social Club, a community built to eliminate loneliness for founders by bringing them together with mentors, investors, and peers through intentional events, content, and conversation.

Over the past year, I have hosted 60 plus events and grown the community to over 26k founders, investors, and operators.

Founder Social Club is focused on signal over noise, real relationships, and creating environments where trust and long term thinking can compound.

I also host the Founder Social Club Podcast, where I sit down with founders and operators to talk candidly about product, growth, hiring, fundraising, failure, and what it actually takes to build.

My background spans operations, supply chain, and scaling teams at high velocity. I previously helped launch next generation automated fulfillment centers at Walmart eCommerce and have worked closely with cross functional teams to drive execution at scale.

Today, my focus is on building Founder Social Club into a multi city ecosystem across events, media, and membership while partnering with aligned sponsors and investors who care about founders and long term impact.

Always open to thoughtful conversations and partnerships.

In my free time, I enjoy reading, listening to podcasts, spending time with my wife, and playing with my Shih Tzu Mila.

Founder and Product Manager

• Developed UI/UX interface and integrated software automating and optimizing efficiency for the customer
• Created process flow and built product roadmap launching 5 products in six months increasing revenue by 50%
• Identified pain points of target market, conducted market research and launched MVP going from 0 to 1
• Implemented agile and scrum methodologies executing sprints resulting in 30% response rate for outreach
• Prioritizing tasks of managing CRM, sales cycle, product marketing, and product and business development
• Executed data-driven analysis of competitor landscape resulting in iterating pricing models and monetization strategies

Had a fantastic time hosting a Founder & Investor Happy Hour with ImagineArt last week!

Good food, real conversations, and a thoughtful group of founders & investors.

Thanks to Ahmed Abubakar and Shawal Fida for co-hosting and partnering.

Looking forward to the ImagineArt launch party this Friday in SF.

RSVP link in the comments.

#LaunchParty #SF #content

Founder Social Club

Podcast Host 🎙️| Founder Social Club | Eliminating loneliness for founders | VC Scout @ Headline

Building a company in the United States often brings immigration decisions into company structure, fundraising timing, and hiring earlier than expected.

Next week we are hosting Startup Immigration Playbook with Manifest Law covering visa options founders and startup teams often work through:
O-1, H-1B, EB-1A, EB-2

Some are temporary work visas while others are permanent residency paths. We will walk through when each is typically used, common approval mistakes, and what founders should start preparing early based on traction. There will be time for live questions as well.

Useful for founders, future founders planning a move, and teams working with global cofounders or hires.

Founder Social Club

#ManifestLaw #foundervisas #o1 #h1b #eb1a #eb2 #startups #immigration

When the right people are in the room, good things tend to happen.

Tomorrow Founder Social Club is co-hosting the Tech Career Showcase in SF at SVB with manny duenas 🛳️ (Intern Ship), and Steph Minaya & Jhillika Kumar (Mentra)!

Here are the teams joining us:

Trillboards, CEO - Sneh Dhruv
Building interactive real-world advertising experiences that connect physical spaces with digital engagement.

Currently Hiring:
• Account Executive
• Software Engineering Intern
​
SUN (a16z Speedrun), Co-founder & CEO - Artin Bogdanov
AI-powered audio learning app. AI podcasts and book summaries from a single prompt.

Currently Hiring:
• Founding Full-Stack Mobile Engineer (Flutter/Dart)
• Founding Back-End Engineer (Python, AWS, Supabase, LLMs)
• Social Media Content Creator

JigsawStack - Founder - Yoeven D Khemlani
Developer platform helping teams integrate AI workflows and automation into real products faster.

Currently Hiring:
• Founding Growth
• GTM Engineer

Azentic AI - Pradeep Padala & Aashish Parikh
Building AI agents that automate sales execution across CRM, meetings, and workflows.

Currently Hiring:
• Software Engineer
• AI/ML Engineer

​FUSE HEALTH INC 
Currently Hiring:
• CTO / Founding Engineer

Mentra
A San Francisco–based neurodivergent hiring platform and network. Mentra is building a future where neurodivergent talent is valued, supported, and matched with workplaces that truly understand ND needs.

Hiring for Microsoft roles: 
• Data Center Technician
• Critical Data Technician

GitHired - Krishna Oza
Sourcing early engineers and builders for high signal startups working on frontier AI and developer tools.

​Currently Hiring For Roam, Caddy, and The Token Company

Roam – Applied AI lab building world models for real time 3D environments (SF)
• Member of Technical Staff — Agents & Diffusion
• Applied AI/ML Developer

​Caddy (YC F25) – Agentic productivity platform working directly with founders (NYC, in person)
• Software Engineer — Core Systems

The Token Company (YC W26) – ML lab focused on state of the art LLM input optimization (SF, pre seed)
• ML Engineer — Early Team

See you tomorrow.

Let’s get people hired 🚀

Founder Social Club is launching a new series called The Reserve on Wednesday 2/25!

Excited to partner with HubSpot (Mahir Kumar Singh) & Azentic AI (Pradeep Padala & Aashish Parikh), this is a small, curated room for 20–25 founders & investors.

The goal is simple: create a space where people can slow down and actually get to know the people in the room.

Every guest is intentionally selected so the conversations feel natural.

This first edition includes a margarita making class and live cooking demo. Shared experiences just make conversations easier.

For founders doing $500K+ ARR or $500K+ raised, and investors actively backing companies.

Approval required. Location shared after acceptance. 21+.

If this sounds like your kind of room, message me.

#FSC #HubspotForStartups #Azentic

Another fun week ahead at Founder Social Club.

Tomorrow we are hosting a Co-working & Lunch at SVB from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm. Come get work done, meet great people, and have real conversations.

Thank you Baargav Duggirala from Chargebee and Viet Andy Nguyen from SVB for partnering with us on this one.

Also, excited to co-host the Tech Career Showcase on Thursday 2/19 with my friends manny duenas 🛳️ from Intern Ship and Steph Minaya from Mentra.

We have strong talent across engineering, GTM, product, design, and other functions exploring their next role.

We have a few hiring table spots left for startups actively hiring full-time roles.
If you are hiring full time, DM me.

RSVP links in the comments.

#Startups #coworking #hiring #events #sf

Excited to bring together founders and investors tomorrow in San Francisco for the Global Founder & Investor Summit.

Founder Social Club and Venture Bridge Hub are gathering ecosystem leaders from Africa, London, Europe, and Silicon Valley for an evening focused on cross-border connections, startup pitches, and real conversations.

Featured Speakers
• Marsha Wulff — Co-Founder LoftyInc Capital
 • David Hubert — VP of External Relations EuroCham - Association of American European Chambers of Commerce and Business Associations
 • Borja Palma Huarte — Business Development Manager @ London & Partners
 • Alfredo Coppola — Co-CEO @ US Market Access Center

Startup Judges
• Evan Buhler — Founder + General Partner @ Talok Capital
• Ulvi Rashid — Founding Partner @ Traction Fund
• Pasquale Zaccarella — Shareholder & Investor @ Eden ventures

Grateful to Daniel Fidanque and the team at Manifest Law for partnering on the event and supporting founders building across borders and to Bryan & Viet Andy Nguyen at SVB for hosting us.

Should be a great room of founders and investors building across borders.

Should be a great room.
See you tomorrow in San Francisco.

Excited to bring 4 more companies hiring!!! Join us later today at SVB.

Trainsit - The AI-first platform to allow businesses to optimize and convert their supply chain towards rail, the better option for the environment and wallet. 
• 2 Founding Engineers

SigIQ.ai - Democratizing Personalized 1:1 Learning for Everyone
• Senior Product Designer
• Senior Full Stack Engineer

NexDiscovery - Agentic AI that monitors enterprise data, uncovers hidden insights, and takes action before teams even know to ask.
• Founding Enterprise AE
• FDE / Solutions Architect
• Pilot Program Lead
• Chief of Staff
• Partner Channel Sales

​Regulis AI - Developing AI products for the transportation industry. 
• Software Engineer
• AI/ML Engineer

RSVP here: https://luma.com/s396by7m

If you’re a new grad or early career right now, you know jobs are hard to get.

That’s why I’m co hosting my third hiring experience with Colton Kaplan - Founder Social Club, Steph Minaya and Jhillika Kumar - Mentra to help people find opportunities. (Link to register in the comments)

This isn’t a traditional job fair.
Smaller room.
Founders introducing themselves.
Human conversations.

And I’ll say it clearly:

Startups are one of the most powerful pathways into a career right now.

When you join early, you get proximity, ownership, speed, and real reps.

Here are the teams pitching and hiring today:

🚀 Trillboards  
CEO: Sneh Dhruv 
Building interactive real-world advertising experiences that connect physical spaces with digital engagement.

Currently Hiring:
• Account Executive
• Software Engineering Intern

🎧 SUN (a16z Speedrun)

Co-founder & CEO: Artin Bogdanov
AI-powered audio learning app. AI podcasts and book summaries from a single prompt.

Currently Hiring:
• Founding Full-Stack Mobile Engineer (Flutter/Dart)
• Founding Back-End Engineer (Python, AWS, Supabase, LLMs)
• Social Media Content Creator

🧩 JigsawStack 

Founder: Yoeven D Khemlani
Developer platform helping teams integrate AI workflows and automation into real products faster.

Currently Hiring:
• Founding Growth
• GTM Engineer

🤖 Azentic AI

Pradeep Padala & Aashish Parikh  
Building AI agents that automate sales execution across CRM, meetings, and workflows.

Currently Hiring:
• Software Engineer
• AI/ML Engineer

🏥 FUSE HEALTH INC  
Currently Hiring:
• CTO / Founding Engineer

🧠 Mentra  
A San Francisco–based neurodivergent hiring platform and network building a future where neurodivergent talent is valued and supported.

Hiring for Microsoft roles:
• Data Center Technician
• Critical Data Technician

🔎 GitHired – Krishna Oza 
Sourcing early engineers and builders for high-signal startups working on frontier AI and developer tools.

Currently Hiring For Roam, Caddy, and The Token Company:

Roam – Applied AI lab building world models for real time 3D environments (SF)
• Member of Technical Staff — Agents & Diffusion
• Applied AI/ML Developer

​Caddy (YC F25) – Agentic productivity platform working directly with founders (NYC, in person)
• Software Engineer — Core Systems

The Token Company (YC W26) – ML lab focused on state of the art LLM input optimization (SF, pre seed)
• ML Engineer — Early Team

(See the rest of the companies hiring in the comments.)

Smaller sessions.
Deeper conversations.
Space to engage at your pace.

We’re creating human first hirng experiences.

Let’s get people hired 🚀

Join manny duenas 🛳️ and the Intern Ship talent network. Things are coming. 👀

#talentnetwork

I’m super happy to announce…



I’ve decided to launch the best talent community the world has ever seen!

Welcome to the 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤!

Join to get access to a hidden job market and more human first IRL hiring experiences.

This is personal for me.

When I started the Intern Ship, I was a University Recruiter at Intuit helping students land jobs there.

Which meant every time someone walked up to me at one of my Intern Ship events asking me to help them find a job - I had to tell them

“Oh sorry I can only hire for Intuit.” Which often times wasn’t even hiring yet.

That happened A LOT. It was literally one of the biggest reasons people kept coming to my events - they wanted to meet recruiters.

I heard them loud and clear. I just couldn’t do anything about it.

UNTIL I LEFT.

Now that I’m free from corporate and any conflicts of interest I’m locked in to helping my community find more opportunities.

Drop a 🛳️ in the comments, like and I'll send you the link to join.

Follow me so I can send you a DM!

Jon Spiesman

Freeing Execs to work ON their business instead of IN their business.

You finally have time set for that romantic dinner date with your spouse.  Her favorite location, the smell of butter, garlic, and wine wafting from the kitchen as you imagine a plate of Veal Parmigiano.  The maitre’d seats you and you open the menu as you feel a familiar buzz from your jacket pocket….
Your phone ringing.  It's work…again.

You missed another of your son’s soccer games.  His dejected gaze at his shoes when you explain, it carves at your soul.  That look from your wife….all too familiar.  

You can see that your strategy is outdated, opportunities laying lonely on the table like those magazines articles you keep meaning to read.  

You just need time…you need to get ahead of a few things.  You need freedom to work on your business, not stuck feeling trapped in your business.

You sacrificed much to build your business.  You deserve success….you also deserve to live your life and enjoy what you have built, not be a slave to it.  You can regain your treasured personal time, you can pursue those business opportunities and catalyze the next level of growth.

If you recognize yourself here….there is hope.  You grew your business career one block at a time…the way out of this situation is the same….to grow out of it. 

I use proven coaching frameworks to target measurable improvement areas for your leadership.  True organizational change starts through courageous change with senior leaders like you.  I’m so confident in this process that I offer a results guarantee.  You will see measurable improvement or you don't pay.  What do you have to lose?

Managing Owner

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast" - Peter Drucker.  I help leaders intentionally build the culture of their organizations and exceed their goals.  Tala Peak Leadership works with leaders to analyze their situation and create a specific plan to shift the culture of the organization and create measurable results.

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Colton Kaplan

Jon Spiesman

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