Roundup of events for bootstrappers in April 2026. Online and in-person events are offered at $10.
Roundup of April 2026 Bootstrapper Events
We offer online events for bootstrappers including Bootstrappers Breakfast and Lean Culture. There are also in-person Bootstrapper Breakfast meetings in Las Vegas, San Francisco and Silicon Valley. These events are for “entrepreneurs who eat problems for breakfast.”®
We have seven events this month to help you move your business forward. Join us as your interests dictate and schedule permits.
Are you an entrepreneur who’d like to share lessons learned? If you’ve a reached a milestone in your entrepreneurial journey and would like to share lessons learned, please contact Theresa Shafer (tshafer@skmurphy.com) to explore scheduling a short briefing at a Bootstrapper Breakfast or a talk at a Lean Culture event. You must have attended a Bootstrapper Breakfast or Lean Culture event to be considered.
Tues Apr 7 12:00 pm PDT Drop-In Mastermind for Non-Fiction Writing
https://www.meetup.com/skmurphymastermind/events/313838935/
Writing a business book or a blog? Join our non-fiction writers group of similarly minded small business folks where we can keep each other motivated and accountable. Each attendee will have a chance to share a short piece (500-1,000 words) by reading it aloud or providing access to a google doc or emailing other attendees to get feedback. We do this every mastermind session.
Weds Apr 8 11:00 am PDT / 1:00 pm CDT / 2:00 EDT Lean Culture: Why Pricing Problems Are Really Buyer Decision Problems
https://www.meetup.com/lean-culture/events/313454371/
Most founders assume stalled deals, price pushback, and discount pressure are pricing issues. They are not. They are decision issues.
In this session, Mark Stiving walks through the Six Laws of Value as a practical map of how buyers actually make decisions. Not how we wish they did. Not how sales decks assume they do. Each law explains a specific point where buyers hesitate, defer, or quietly disengage. When those breakdowns happen, price becomes the scapegoat.
The first half of the session is a concise primer on the Six Laws and how they define the buyer decision process. The second half is an open Q&A on pricing, negotiation, packaging, and objections, with every question likely grounded in how buyers decide. If you have ever thought, “Our price shouldn’t be the problem,” this session explains why it keeps becoming one.
Fri Apr 10 9:00 am PDT San Francisco Bootstrappers Breakfast Startups at CityGroup Center (In Person)
https://www.meetup.com/bootstrappers-breakfast-san-francisco/events/313344888/
Tues Apr 14 9:00 am PDT Vegas Bootstrappers Breakfast Roundtable (In Person) The Coffee Press
https://www.meetup.com/bootstrappers-breakfast-las-vegas-startups/events/313727305/
Thurs Apr 16 8:30 am CDT Chicago Bootstrappers Breakfast (Online)
https://www.meetup.com/bootstrappers-breakfast-chicago/events/313855539/
Fri Apr 17 9:00 am PDT Mtn View Bootstrappers Breakfast at Red Rock Coffee (In Person)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mountain-view-bootstrappers-breakfast-tickets-262928394907
Tues Apr 21 8:00 am PDT Silicon Valley Bootstrappers Breakfast (Online)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/silicon-valley-bootstrappers-breakfast-online-tickets-488376135167?
Tues Apr 21 11am PDT Accelerating Hardware Design with Kipo AI (Online)
https://www.meetup.com/professional-technical-consultants-association-patca/events/313625712/
As electronic systems grow more complex, the bottleneck is no longer just design. It involves finding the right parts, managing obsolescence, and maintaining accurate component libraries. In this Future-Tech webinar, we explore how Kipo AI is transforming the scale-up from design to manufacturing by providing high-quality parts data.
This session will demonstrate how AI-driven workflows can compress design cycles, improve part selection decisions, and streamline library management—all while reducing errors and rework
Fri Apr 24 9:00 am PDT Silicon Valley Bootstrappers Breakfast (Online)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/silicon-valley-bootstrappers-breakfast-online-tickets-488376135167
Returning in May
Thurs May 7 8:00 am PDT Mastermind Open House
https://www.meetup.com/skmurphymastermind/events/313342878/
Fri May 1 9:00 am PDT Silicon Valley Bootstrappers Breakfast (In Person) Redwood City
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bootstrappers-breakfast-in-redwood-city-for-silicon-valley-founders-tickets-1963668317799
Some key take-aways from Bootstrappers Breakfast conversations in March
- How will customers perceive your offering? While entrepreneurs at a Bootstrappers Breakfast are rarely your target market, they can act as a sounding board for this question. Just voicing your hypotheses out loud can be helpful.
- Asking friends and family who are not entrepreneurs or proxies for your target customers is usually not helpful. They may not be able to judge the value of a niche product and may just be supporting you (See Rob Fitzpatrick’s “Mom Test” for more on this. You need to talk to prospects; be careful not to treat friends and family as prospects.
- AI / LLMs are a topic at almost every breakfast. Results are mixed, but new tools in this area promise significant productivity gains across a variety of tasks, along with the risk of hard-to-detect errors. Everyone seems to have settled on a program of explicit experimentation where results are reviewed in detail before being presented to a prospect or customer.
- One challenge that’s becoming increasingly apparent: you may be able to use LLM tools to develop an MVP in a few days, but your customers are not able to absorb a stream of MVPs over the course of a few weeks. The critical time frame to measure is not from idea to launch, but from idea to a customer who can substantiate that they have used your product for a real task or need and see the value over their current alternatives.
- The flip side is that once you and a prospect agree on what’s needed, the time you need to demonstrate a working solution is a critical factor: see https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/09/01/chalk-talk-on-technology-adoption/
- In the same way that it’s better to diagnose before you prescribe, it’s probably safer to offer analytics as an entry-level product than one that makes edits or creates new content.
Lightning Round Question for March 2026
What’s a mindset shift that changed how you run your business?
Trademarks: “Bootstrapper Breakfast” and “Entrepreneurs Who Eat Problems For Breakfast” are registered trademarks of SKMurphy, Inc.
Image Credits: “Idea-Choice-Success-Light-Bulb” on Pixabay by The Digital Artist used with permission.