About the series
The Builder Dinner series is offered by Builders Club and Barn Ventures. The series features home cooked meals, founder discussion and connection, and is supported by a workshop series developed with founders over nearly three years. We have had a significant number of founders move on to raise capital from YC, Afore.vc, Garage VC, and others. Founders from companies like Datacurve.ai, Voltra, Automax.ai, and many others have attended.
You don't have to be on a venture path to apply. This is to help you better understand it so you can build in a way that makes sense to you.
If you're serious about building, this is for you.
Read the writeups from the S26 series here, along with related content.
Jesse is the founder behind Velocity and the Creative Destruction Lab, two of Canada's most influential founder-building platforms. For over two decades, he's been focused on one problem: how to turn exceptional technical talent into real founders. He now runs Builders Club, a founder-first space for ambitious people who want to build without permission. Direct, opinionated, and deeply invested in fixing the startup pipeline.
Speakers for the fall will be announced before the series starts. The S26 table included founders and investors behind Clearline, Lumen Research Labs, Communitech, Vidyard, eSentire, and Influitive. The fall lineup will hold the same bar.
Tuesdays (6 total):
Each session runs as one block: a hands-on workshop at 4:30, rolling straight into the founder dinner — where a local founder shares real experiences, challenges, and lessons learned.
The F26 dates (all Tuesdays):