About Startup Grind

What is Startup Grind?

Startup Grind was founded in Palo Alto, California in 2010 by Derek Andersen. It’s now a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs and is powered by Google for Startups.

Startup Grind hosts monthly offline events in 500 cities spanning 125+ countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies.

Startup Grind’s Values:

• We believe in making friends, not contacts.
• We believe in giving, not taking.
• We believe in helping others before helping yourself.

We are truly passionate about helping founders, entrepreneurs and startups succeed. We intend to make the startup journey less lonely, more connected, and more memorable.

How does Startup Grind support entrepreneurs in communities around the world?

Through monthly fireside chats, we help make local connections and establish a community that is built to support its members, from early stage founder to well-known investors.

Through our partners, startups have access to Google for Startup programs and other tools and resources that help startups do everything from setting up offshore entities to cloud systems and discounts to help founders along the path to success.

Anyone could do a fireside chat in their community, what is the value of doing it through Startup Grind?

There are several reasons:

1. You get to be part of a global community of directors that connect with each other and help each other creating a global network.
2. You are associated with a brand known to help entrepreneurs and, as such, it’s much easier to book speakers at your events.
3. You’re seen as a local ecosystem developer and rockstar and eventually get invited to amazing events as you help your ecosystem grow.
4. You have friends in over 500 cities around the world (local directors network).
5. All directors join each other at the Global Conference and meet face-to-face.
6. As one former director said last week, “Thank you Startup Grind, directly because of my involvement with Startup Grind I was hired as CTO of a company backed by Bosch.”

It’s not just you hosting a fireside chat in your city — it’s the global community and all the things we do around it. Fireside chats and events are just a gateway to all the cool things we do as a global (and local) community.

There have been many “copycat events” over the years, but they have quickly faded away. A combination of both the director-attendee community, and the passionate and authentic directors set Startup Grind apart and keep people coming back for more.

As Chapter Director Brian Park from Washington, D.C. says, “I love this community because the people you meet here become your family.”