Lunch with a Founder: Eric Steege

What does it actually look like to leave a “safe” Big Tech role and start a company?

In this candid talk, I’ll share my journey from being a Technical Product Manager at Amazon Alexa to launching a startup while still employed, finding the right co-founders, navigating early fundraising failures, getting into Techstars, and ultimately raising a successful Seed and Series A.

This isn’t a highlight reel. It’s a practical breakdown of what went wrong, what changed, and what finally worked. We’ll cover founder psychology, finding and recruiting great co-founders, investor rejections, accelerators, and how I ran a successful fundraising process to secure Seed and a Series A investment.

If you’re in the messy middle of building or thinking about taking the leap from BigCo to startup this session will give you an honest look at what the transition really takes.