San Francisco is arguably the BEST place on Earth to build a startup, but most of the early-stage entrepreneurs we speak to even in this entrepreneurially iconic city are largely unaware of the tremendous wealth of local resources available to help them.

With applications for the San Francisco Founder Institute now open, we are excited to release the San Francisco Startup Ecosystem Canvas, which is currently in Draft v1 below! It was developed by the San Francisco Founder Institute and local leaders Ron Flavin, Asya Bradley, and Cory Wang.

This is just a DRAFT, and while we spent many hours on this research, more input is needed. Please leave your comments on this collaborative Google document to help us complete the list. There are definitely omissions on this current version. 

Are you looking to build a startup in San Francisco? Then apply to the San Francisco Founder Institute today!

Text version included below, for ease of searching:

Startup Stages

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There is no one right way to build a technology company, but for the sake of simplicity we have outlined a basic, common, sequential framework.

1. Idea Stage

This is where new entrepreneurs get inspired, learn best practices, develop skills, validate ideas, and begin to build their team and product.

A. Inspire

• Startup Media: Centralized local information, listings, and news. (i.e. startup blogs/ publications/ lists/ FB groups/ newsletters, Startup Digest)

1. Jason Calacanis - Blog
2. San Francisco Startups List
3. SFGate Technology
4. Startup Digest Silicon Valley/San Francisco
5. TechCrunch San Francisco
6. Xconomy San Francisco

• Inspirational Events: Open, inclusive, beginner startup events (i.e. Startup Weekend, idea fairs, and inspirational meetups)

1. 2019 StartUp Health Festival
2. AI & Deep Learning Enthusiasts
3. Bay Area Women in Machine Learning & Data Science
4. DATAx SF
5. Disrupt SF 2019
6. Empowered Tech (Inspiring Women for Success in Tech)
7. Figma SF
8. Girl Develop It San Francisco
9. Girls in Tech
10. Learn to Code | Thinkful San Francisco
11. R-Ladies San Francisco
12. San Francisco Internet of Things Meetup
13. San Francisco Women in Data
14. SF Ethereum Developers
15. Startup California Bay Area
16. Startup Weekend San Francisco
17. Tech in Motion Events: San Francisco
18. Voice UX
19. Women Who Code SF
20. Write/Speak/Code SF

B. Educate

• Best Practices: Beginner knowledge-sharing events. (i.e. beginner events that serve to educate more than inspire, like 1 Million Cups, Startup Grind, Startup Founder 101, etc).

1. 1MillionCups San Francisco
2. Bay Area Agile Leadership Network
3. Bay Area Julia Users
4. Bay Area MLflow
5. Bay Area Spark Meetup
6. Bay Area useR Group (R Programming Language)
7. Blockchain Startups Club
8. Cambrian Fintech
9. Deep Learning Study Group (San Francisco)
10. GoSF
11. Hyperledger San Francisco
12. Learn Web Development @ Rithm
13. Machine Learning & User Experience (MLUX)
14. Microsoft HoloLens and Mixed Reality
15. Mobile Growth SF Bay Area
16. Practical Artificial Intelligence - SF
17. PyLadies of San Francisco
18. ReactJS San Francisco Bay Area Meetup
19. Rust Bay Area
20. San Francisco Kubernetes Meetup
21. San Francisco Netlify Meetup
22. San Francisco Python Meetup Group
23. San Francisco Reliability Engineering
24. Serverless
25. SF Bitcoin Devs
26. SF Globalization
27. SF Product Management Speaker Series
28. SF Scala
29. SFHTML5
30. SFNode
31. Startup Founder 101 San Francisco
32. Startup Grind San Francisco
33. Twitch Engineering
34. University of San Francisco Seminar Series in Data Science
35. WebAssembly SF

• Training & Feedback: Skill & Idea development. (Ex. bootcamps and comprehensive training programs, like Founder Institute, General Assembly, Lean Startup Machine, code camps, etc)

1. Analytics & Data Science by Dataiku San Francisco
2. App Academy
3. Auth0 Online Meetup
4. AWS San Francisco
5. Berkeley Boot Camps
6. Cascade Experience Designers
7. CodePath
8. Codify Academy
9. Coding Dojo
10. Deep Learning with Apache MXNet San Francisco
11. Dystopia Labs SF Blockchain Workshops
12. First Step Coding
13. Founder Institute
14. Galvanize
15. Game Developers Conference
16. GDG Cloud - San Francisco
17. General Assembly
18. Hack Reactor
19. Hackbright Academy
20. Holberton School
21. Holberton School Meetup
22. IBM Developer SF Bay Area
23. Lean Startup Circle
24. Lean Startup Machine San Francisco
25. Lean Startup Night
26. Level
27. Make School
28. Metis
29. Metis: San Francisco Data Science Meetup
30. NGINX Meetup
31. Product School San Francisco
32. ProductTank SF
33. Reboot
34. Rithm School
35. San Francisco AI Meetup
36. San Francisco Deep Learning Meetup
37. San Francisco Entrepreneurs & Startups
38. San Francisco Java User Group
39. San Francisco School of AI
40. SF Big Analytics
41. SF DevOps
42. SF DevOps for Startups
43. SF Growth Hackers
44. SF Startup: Idea to IPO
45. SSW Firebootcamp
46. Startup Traction SF
47. The Data Incubator
48. The San Francisco Android GDG
49. The Startup Club
50. Thinkful
51. Tradecraft
52. Uber Engineering Events - San Francisco
53. UX San Francisco
54. VetsInTech/Startup Veterans
55. Virtual IoT
56. Women Talk Design (San Francisco)

C. Validate

• Team Formation: Resources for teaming up. (i.e. events or other resources that facilitate early-stage recruitment and cofounder matching)

1. AWE Nite SF
2. BackerKit Hosted Events
3. Bay Area Research in NLP and ML
4. Beer and UX
5. Beers, Ad Ops, & Ad Tech SF
6. Blockchain Founder Club SF/SV
7. Cannabis Entrepreneurs
8. CoFoundersLab
9. Designers + Geeks
10. Founder2be
11. FounderDating
12. Products That Count
13. San Francisco Bitcoin Meetup
14. San Francisco Data Science #ODSC
15. San Francisco Startup Entrepreneurs
16. San Francisco Startup Socials
17. SF Beta: Startup Mixers
18. SF Content Creators
19. SF New Tech
20. SF Startup
21. SF Startup, Tech & Conference Connection
22. SF Tech Happy Hour
23. Silicon Valley Space Startups & Satellites
24. Starfish Mission
25. Startup Basecamp: Community and Events
26. Startup Co-Founder Matching: Find the Right Partner in San Francisco
27. Startup Development
28. StartupBlink San Francisco
29. StartupZ : Silicon Valley & World Startup Networking
30. UC Davis Business Analytics (BAx) Meetup
31. Unity User Group: San Francisco
32. WIST: Women in Security and Tech San Francisco
33. Women in Infrastructure

• Build First Product: Hackathons & resources to build. (i.e. hackathons and other builder-focused events and resources)

1. 20Mission
2. BCH Hackathon Series
3. Blockchain Hackathon: Enterprise Ready
4. BUIDL San Francisco [Blockchain Hackathon]
5. Code for San Francisco - Civic Hack Night
6. Code for Venezuela SF
7. d3.sf("Data Dive")
8. Data Hackers: San Francisco
9. DeveloperWeek Hackathon
10. Double Union
11. EOS Hackathon
12. Erlang & Elixir SF
13. Free Code Camp - Bay Area
14. Hack 'n' Sleep
15. HackMentalHealth 2019 at UCSF
16. Hardware Developers Didactic Galactic!
17. Maker Studio SF
18. Minerva Hackathon
19. Noisebridge Hackerspace
20. Robot Developers Group - Bay Area
21. San Francisco Raspberry Pi Meetup
22. SF-Bay Area Design Sprints
23. SF Code & Coffee
24. SF Hardware Startup Meetup
25. SFHacks
26. SFSSNNATI Hackathon
27. Startup + Hackathon // SF Bay
28. The Archery
29. TheShop
30. Time Series SF

2. Launch Stage

In this stage, entrepreneurs establish and formalize the company, develop the product, get feedback from customers, and prepare for the next step.

A. Start

• Establish: Law firms & banks for startups

1. Accelerate Legal
2. Atrium
3. Bank of America
4. Bank of the West
5. Bend Law Group
6. Bridge Bank
7. Chase Bank
8. Comerica Bank
9. Davis Wright Tremaine
10. Fathom Law
11. First Republic Bank
12. Hanson Bridgett
13. Primum Law
14. Putnam Gordon, PC
15. Silicon Valley Bank
16. Springmeyer Law
17. Square 1 Bank
18. Sterling Bank & Trust
19. Sutter Law
20. Union Bank
21. US Bank
22. Walker Corporate Law
23. Wells Fargo
24. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

• Workspace: Co-working and flexible workspaces (note: “official” office space goes in 3.1.a. Infrastructure)

1. Anchor
2. Bespoke San Francisco
3. Canopy
4. Covo SF
5. DG717
6. ECO SYSTM
7. Founders Den
8. Hatch Today
9. Impact Hub
10. Industrious
11. Mindspace
12. Pacific Workplaces
13. PARISOMA
14. Radiant Workspaces
15. Sandbox Suites
16. SHARED
17. SOMAcentral
18. Spaces
19. Startup Basecamp
20. TechSpace
21. The Vault
22. WeWork
23. Werqwise
24. Workshop Cafe

B. Develop

• Formalize: Accounting, development and HR for early-stage startups.  

1. Altitude Labs
2. ArcTouch
3. asap Developers
4. Azran Financial
5. Betts Recruiting
6. Dogtown Media
7. Ejento
8. Gillingham CPA
9. HR Search Experts
10. Koombea
11. Kruze Consulting
12. Premier Talent Partners
13. Ravix Group
14. Scion Staffing
15. Source Select
16. Spinnerty and Associates
17. Spiral Scout
18. Spring Search Group
19. Startup Business Accounting
20. Tenddo
21. ThinkApps
22. thoughtbot
23. Yeti

• Prepare for Seed: Incubators and advanced mentorship. (i.e. advanced knowledge sharing, later stage events and resources for startup TEAMS, Startup Next, etc)

1. Blackbox
2. DG717 Digital Garage Incubation Center
3. e-Man Labs
4. Founders Space
5. Orange Fab
6. Runway Innovation Hub
7. Startup Next San Francisco
8. YouWeb Incubator

C. Launch

• Seed Accelerators: Seed funding mentor programs (Techstars-style programs that provide funding)

1. 500 Startups
2. Alchemist Accelerator
3. AngelPad
4. Founders Space
5. German Accelerator
6. i/o Ventures
7. Launch Accelerator
8. Lemnos Labs
9. Matter
10. Momentum
11. OneTraction
12. RocketSpace
13. Startupbootcamp Scale San Francisco
14. Tarmac SF
15. Y Combinator

• Pitch & Demo: Show local startups for investment (i.e. demo days for companies seeking seed investment)

1. 500 Startups Demo Day
2. Big Indie Pitch + PC Indie Pitch @ GDC 2019 with Game Camps
3. Canadian Pitch Night
4. Foreign Startups Mixer n Pitch
5. Galvanize SF Data Science Demo Day
6. LGBTQ Founders Demo Day
7. Make School Demo Night
8. Pitch Coach: Perfect Your Startup Pitch
9. Pitch Perfect - Practice Your Pitch At Node
10. PitchForce
11. San Francisco ElevatorPitch
12. San Francisco Investors and Startup Entrepreneurs
13. San Francisco VC Fast Pitch Conference
14. Seed Raising with Top-Tier Investors: OnePitch & Society3 March
15. SF FinTech Meetup - Demo Day
16. SF New Tech
17. Startup Battlefield
18. Startup Pitch Bootcamp: Learn from San Francisco's Top Entrepreneurs
19. Startup SF
20. Startups Showcase
21. Venture University - REVERSE DEMO DAY
22. Y Combinator Demo Day

3. Growth Stage

Here, a startup proves their utility, receives recognition, and scales up. This usually requires funding, angels, VCs, and ways to connect them to startups.

A. Recognition

• Investor Networking:  Connect professional investors with founders. (i.e. events or groups that facilitate connections with professional investors)

1. Angel Investing 101
2. Angel Investment Network USA
3. Astia Angels
4. Band of Angels
5. Bay Angels
6. Citi Ventures
7. Founders Space - Startups, VCs & Angel Investors
8. Fund Your Startup SF
9. Gaingels
10. Golden Seeds
11. Keiretsu Forum
12. Pipeline Angels
13. San Francisco - Silicon Valley Startups & Investors Group
14. SF Startup Venture & Investor Network
15. Startup Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Founders and Investors
16. SV Angel
17. The Arcview Group
18. Venture Summit
19. Wharton Alumni Angels

• Major Media: Mainstream local business press. (i.e. major local or regional publications that frequently champion local businesses)

1. ABC7
2. CBS San Francisco
3. CNBC San Francisco
4. FOX 2
5. NBC Bay Area
6. San Francisco Business Times
7. San Francisco Chronicle
8. SFGate
9. The San Francisco Examiner

B. Funding

• Angels / Micro-VCs: Seed-stage investors

1. Adrian Aoun
2. Alexis Ohanian
3. Auren Hoffman
4. Babak Nivi
5. Benjamin Ling
6. Biz Stone
7. Bobby Yazdani
8. Chris Dixon
9. Dave Morin
10. David Blado
11. David Sacks
12. Elad Gil
13. Evan Williams
14. Jared Kopf
15. Jason Calacanis
16. Jeremy Stoppelman
17. Jonathan Abrams
18. Josh Kopelman
19. Keith Rabois
20. Kevin Hartz
21. Kevin Rose
22. M.G. Siegler
23. Matt Ocko
24. Max Levchin
25. Naval Ravikant
26. Niraj Mehta
27. Paige Craig
28. Paul Singh
29. Peter Lukens
30. Raymond Tonsing
31. Rick Marini
32. Scott and Cyan Banister
33. Thomas Korte
34. Tim O'Reilly
35. Tom Fallows
36. Travis Kalanick
37. Yuan Chen
38. Zachary Aarons

• Venture Capitalists: Series A and beyond

1. 5AM Ventures
2. 8VC
3. 137 Ventures
4. ABS Capital Partners
5. Accel
6. ATEL Capital Group
7. Atomic VC
8. Azure
9. Battery Ventures
10. BEE PARTNERS
11. Benchmark
12. Bessemer Venture Partners
13. Bolt
14. Blumberg Capital
15. Canaan
16. Catamount Ventures
17. Clarus
18. Costanoa Ventures
19. Crosslink Capital
20. CRV
21. Darling Ventures
22. Emergence
23. Fifty Years
24. First Round Capital
25. Forerunner Ventures
26. Francisco Partners
27. FTV Capital
28. FundersClub
29. General Catalyst
30. Golden Gate Capital
31. Homebrew
32. Index Ventures
33. IVP
34. Javelin Venture Partners
35. LaunchCapital
36. Lemnos
37. Mighty Capital
38. NEA
39. NFX
40. Owl Ventures
41. Prelude Ventures
42. Ridge Ventures
43. Rubicon Venture Capital
44. SOSV
45. Structure Capital
46. Sway Ventures
47. Trinity Ventures
48. True Ventures
49. Tuesday Capital
50. Uncork Capital
51. Walden Venture Capital
52. Y Combinator

C. Growth

• Infrastructure: Office space, HR, local business insurance. (i.e. office space/ HR/ insurance providers for capital-rich companies to grow and scale)

1. 42Floors
2. Connery Consulting
3. CoverHound
4. Embroker
5. G2 Insurance
6. Glocap
7. HUB International
8. Instant Offices
9. LiquidSpace
10. LoopNet
11. Newfront Insurance
12. NUA Group
13. OnPoint HR
14. Regus
15. Rofo
16. Sequoia

• Expansion: Growth accelerators/consultants. (i.e. programs and business consultants for capital-rich companies to grow and scale)

1. Accenture
2. Alvarez & Marsal
3. A.T. Kearney
4. Avanade
5. Bain & Company
6. Boston Consulting Group
7. Buck Consulting
8. Capgemini
9. Deloitte
10. Ernst and Young
11. FTI Consulting
12. Gallup
13. Grant Thornton
14. IDEO
15. Kantar Millward Brown
16. Kantar TNS
17. Korn Ferry
18. KPMG
19. LEK Consulting
20. McKinsey & Company
21. Navigant
22. North Highland
23. Oliver Wyman
24. Protiviti
25. PwC
26. Strategy&
27. Tata Consultancy Services
28. The Brattle Group
29. Willis Towers Watson

4. Success Stories

Successful homegrown companies that have raised significant institutional funding, employ a large workforce, or have achieved liquidity.

1. Airbnb
2. Ancestry.com
3. AppDynamics
4. Betabrand
5. Buffer
6. BuildZoom
7. Bleacher Report
8. Calm
9. Clever
10. Cloudera
11. Cloudflare
12. Coinbase
13. Craigslist
14. Docusign
15. Docker
16. DoorDash
17. Dropbox
18. Ebates
19. Elevate
20. Everlane
21. Eventbrite
22. Fitbit
23. Forkable
24. Genentech
25. Getaround
26. Gusto
27. Github
28. Gitlab
29. GoPro
30. Hive AI
31. IFTTT
32. Instacart
33. Jawbone
34. Kaggle
35. Kabam
36. Lyft
37. Medium
38. Mixpanel
39. Next Door
40. NerdWallet
41. New Relic
42. Okta
43. Pinterest
44. Postmates
45. Reddit
46. Salesforce
47. Shyp
48. Slack
49. Square
50. SuccessFactors
51. Stitch Fix
52. Stripe
53. ThirdLove
54. Thumbtack
55. Trulia
56. Twitter
57. Twilio
58. Uber
59. Udemy
60. Upwork
61. Weebly
62. Yelp
63. Zendesk
64. Zenefits
65. Zynga

Supporters

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To facilitate the steps, every ecosystem needs strong supporters.

1. Evangelists

Successful local founders who lead the ecosystem & frequently mentor newbies.

1. Adeo Ressi
2. Alexandra Johnson
3. Alexis Ohanian
4. Allen Saakyan
5. Anuradha Gali
6. Anu Shultes
7. Arjita A. Sethi
8. Arun Nithyanandam
9. Ashley Miller
10. Asra Nadeem
11. Asya Bradley
12. Auren Hoffman
13. Avery Lyford
14. Babak Nivi
15. Barbara Timm-Brock
16. Ben Casnocha
17. Ben Larson
18. Biz Stone
19. Bob Rosin
20. Bow Rodgers
21. Brandon Steelman
22. Brianne Kimmel
23. Brian Wong
24. Chris Dixon
25. Ciarán Byrne
26. Daniel Idzkowski
27. Danny Jian
28. Dan Rubins
29. Dave Morin
30. Dedra Chamberlin
31. Deldelp Medina
32. Diego A. Roman
33. Diogo dos Reis Ruiz
34. Edward Hartman
35. Elad Gil
36. Elizabeth Bachman
37. Elizabeth Fullerton
38. Ellen Ma
39. Eren Bali
40. Erwin Hosono
41. Evan Williams
42. Faryl Ury
43. Genau Lopes
44. Gené Teare
45. Haden Kirkpatrick
46. Henrik Scheel
47. J. Allie Morse
48. Jason Calacanis
49. Javid Jamae
50. Jay Nath
51. Jed Katz
52. Jenna Cheng
53. Jennifer Vancini
54. Jeremy Glassenberg
55. Jeremy Stoppelman
56. Jessica Chin Foo
57. Jill Bourque
58. Joanna Riley
59. John B. Graham
60. Joh Olson
61. Jonathan Abrams
62. Juan Polanco
63. Julian Nachtigal
64. Justine Reichman
65. Justin Moore
66. Kate Bunina
67. Kate Bunina
68. Kelli Peterson
69. Kerry Jones
70. Kevin Hartz
71. Kevin Rose
72. Krista Canellakis
73. Kunal Punjabi
74. Laura Chicurel
75. Lesa Hammond
76. Luba Lesiva
77. Madeline Duva
78. Maia Bittner
79. Marc Gelfo
80. Marcos Polanco
81. Mark Weiss
82. Marshall Hayner
83. Martin Destagnol
84. Max Levchin
85. Michael Gorback
86. Michael Sidgmore
87. Mike Suprovici
88. Miles Lasater
89. Minji Wong
90. Mona DeFrawi
91. Nancy Wang
92. Natalie Morsette Wilson
93. Naval Ravikant
94. Olga Mack
95. Oliver Hanisch
96. Omar Valle
97. Pascale Diaine
98. Patrick Lee
99. Paul D'Souza
100. Paul Singh
101. Phil Libin
102. Rachel Sheppard
103. Rana Gujral
104. Renata George
105. Rich Roth
106. Rick Marini
107. Rita Waite
108. Ron Flavin
109. Ron Gentile
110. Russell Fradin
111. Ryan Glasgow
112. Ryan Micheletti
113. Ryan Vinyard
114. Sami Inkinen
115. Sasha Hallin
116. SC Moatti
117. Scott and Cyan Banister
118. Shruti Merchant
119. Sidd Gavirneni
120. Stephanie Marrus
121. Steve Jang
122. Sumit Mehta
123. Taylor Sims
124. Thomas Korte
125. Tiago Gavassi
126. Tiarne Hawkins
127. Tijan Watt
128. Tim O'Reilly
129. Val Agostino
130. Vic Kapur
131. Vincent Diallo
132. Walter Roth
133. Ying Wang
134. Zach Supalla
135. Zaina Orbai

2. Government

Public organizations that facilitate local economic development (ex. Start with the chamber of commerce, “Invest in XXX”, “Economic Ministry of XXX” , “Innovation”, R&D, etc)

1. City Innovate
2. Global Chamber San Francisco
3. Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center
4. San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
5. San Francisco Department of Technology
6. San Francisco Office of Civic Innovation
7. San Francisco Office of Small Business
8. San Francisco Women’s Entrepreneurship Fund

3. Talent

Major local business or tech universities and employers that attract and retain local talent.

• Local Universities (universities with prominent technical or business programs)

1. Academy of Art University
2. Golden Gate University
3. Hult International Business School
4. San Francisco Art Institute
5. San Francisco State University
6. UC San Francisco
7. University of the Pacific
8. University of San Francisco

• Local Employers (Major technical employers, like Microsoft or Google or large local companies, with large local offices, “major technology companies in XX”)

1. Adobe
2. Airbnb
3. Amazon
4. Apple
5. Autodesk
6. Cisco
7. Dropbox
8. Dolby
9. Facebook
10. Glassdoor
11. Google
12. IBM
13. Instacart
14. LinkedIn
15. Lyft
16. Microsoft
17. Oracle
18. Postmates
19. PG&E
20. Salesforce
21. Square
22. Twitter
23. Uber
24. Wells Fargo
25. Yelp
26. Zenefits
27. Zynga

 

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Learn more about the Startup Ecosystem Canvas here, and leave us your thoughts on the San Francisco Canvas on this collaborative Google document (This is just a DRAFT, and more input is needed!)

Are you looking to build a startup in San Francisco? Then apply to the San Francisco Founder Institute today