South Park Commons

Founders live for product market fit. For undeniable evidence that what you're building matters. I've seen it before at Facebook and Dropbox, and in 2024 I saw it at South Park Commons. This is what PMF looks like for -1 to 0. Nearly 17k people applied to SPC in 2024. To a community that started with 8 people around my kitchen table. Our overall acceptance rate was 2%. For the Founder Fellowship, it was well under 1%. We more than tripled the SPC community spaces in SF and NYC. Both were a big upgrade and key to everything else last year. You can't beat IRL collaboration, especially in -1 to 0. SPC went international in 2024. We opened SPC India working with Binny Bansal and were lucky to have Prateek Mehta join as Founding Partner. Visit Bengaluru if you can and see the future! We hosted 6000+ guests at events in 2024. Speakers like Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Jessica E. Lessin, Alexandr Wang & many more. Hackathons with OpenAI, AI at Meta, Luma AI. Demo Faires, Demo Nights, Demo lunches. It was an incredible year for SPC events. We plan to beat it in 2025. Aditya Agarwal and Jonathan Brebner launched the Minus One podcast. I'm an occasional guest host. Every great career has hidden -1 to 0 stories. We've hosted guests Reid Hoffman, Tyler Cowen, Kanjun Qiu & Lloyd Blankfein to share theirs. Many more coming in the new year. The most impressive proof comes from SPC members. 88 SPC companies raised a new round of funding in 2024 to keep building at the cutting edge of everything. SPC members start companies like Baseten, Luma AI, Render, Goodfire & Atlys. Build companies like Gamma & Muon Space. Lead critical teams at OpenAI & Anthropic (co-founded by an SPC alum). Get elected to the SF Board of Supervisors (congrats Bilal Mahmood!) I’ve been on a few rocket ships in my life: first at Facebook, then Dropbox. I’m now sure South Park Commons is the third. There's no better place to figure out what's next.

Curious about the future of tech outside SaaS? Last chance to register for our upcoming panel with Union Square Ventures next Tuesday – we can't wait to dive in!

Our first Request for Curiosity featured questions the SPC team is puzzling over. The second comes straight from SPC members. See which questions members are exploring and who you should contact if you share their curiosity.

Sometimes, failures are worth revisiting. Thanks Sheila Lirio Marcelo for sharing bits of wisdom from building Care.com & Ohai.ai last night at SPC! (and for reminding us to always stay curious)

Last chance to register! We're hosting Care.com & Ohai.ai founder Sheila Lirio Marcelo for a fireside chat in NYC tomorrow – don't miss it!

-1 to 0 is a permission structure for ambition. A process for suppressing loss aversion. It's choosing the new path toward the mountains before you know which mountain you want to climb. Don't go mountain climbing alone. If you're in -1 to 0, apply to South Park Commons.

Spicy opinions on AI and company building and geopolitics, so much in this fantastic Minus One talk with Alexandr Wang at South Park Commons. But I most liked hearing how he survived the brutal uncertainty in the early stages of building Scale AI.

Here's a question I had to really think about at my last event: What's one thing you wish you knew before becoming a founder? I can't think of one, so I'll list two! 1. Your Boldness is Your Superpower The biggest growth moments in my life came when I leaned into discomfort. It’s tempting to play it safe, but I’ve learned that being underestimated is actually an advantage — if you use it. At Ohai.ai, we have so many incredible women in leadership, and often, we sit on calls joking about our experiences, our struggles, and our inability to manage it all. It doesn't seem all too productive in a normal "business meeting" at first glance, but these conversations lead us to creating a product that supports the women on our team, and therefore, even more women in the community! Authentic boldness will take you further than fitting in ever will. It actually gives you some of the best business ideas! 2. Perfection is a Trap For too long, I believed I had to 'have it all together' to lead. But here’s the truth: Perfection is the fastest route to burnout. So, don't worry if you can only put on a hoodie that day! Or if you forget to brush your teeth running to your first (virtual!) meeting. We're all human, and there's no such thing as perfect. Let's be honest, there are mornings when I don't want to do my morning workout. There are days when I just want to sit inside and binge watch Planet of the Apes with my husband. There are times when I just want to sit with my baby granddaughter for hours at a time and take picture after picture. And to take it a step further, you are perfect just by being you. If you want to talk about this more, come hang in NYC at South Park Commons for a fun discussion! https://lnkd.in/e6y4hM-T

This point from Mike Krieger is important. Stop hedging. Pick a hypothesis and test it. You can always re-evaluate later, but constant multithreading is a trap that makes building conviction much harder. People misunderstand this about -1 to 0. It shouldn't be meandering. It's not Wikipedia rabbit holes. It's figuring out how to pick a question, develop and test an opinion, and repeat until you have conviction in an idea. It's about diving below surface level understanding. That's why -1 to 0 is easier in a community like South Park Commons. The pull toward multithreading is stronger alone. The more expertise that surrounds you, the easier it is to go deep on a question quickly. And seeing other people go below surface level insights motivates you to do the same. Lot more great stuff in this Minus One episode with Mike, from his time Co-founding Instagram all the way to joining Anthropic as CPO.

Last night at South Park Commons we got a glimpse into the life of a design engineer (and why it's becoming the next hottest role in tech 💻 ) with our friends Profound & Uber Design Huge thank you to our speakers Dylan Babbs (Profound), Vincent van der Meulen (Figma); Dennis Jin (Snap Inc.); ⚒️ Spencer Thurston (Uber) & our moderator Philip Peker (Uber)