The First 10 Breakfast Series at CIBC Innovation
The First 10 Breakfast Series
This series was designed to bring together founders, VCs, and operators for candid, unfiltered conversations about the first 10 hires, customers, decisions, and lessons that make or break a company.
For this edition, we are honored to host two extraordinary leaders:
🔹 Neil Bhay
— Senior technology executive and investor who has led global engineering organizations and built data-driven products at scale.
🔹 L.D. Salmanson
— Co-founder & CEO of Cherre, who has raised over $130M+ since 2016 while building one of the most transformative data platforms in real estate and fintech.
This is more than a breakfast—it’s a curated room where:
✅ Founders share the moves that defined their trajectory
✅ Investors reveal what truly stands out in early-stage pitches
✅ Operators exchange the lessons no one writes about
📅 Wednesday, September 24, 2025
📍 CIBC Innovation Banking
☕ Doors open at 8:30 AM for coffee, breakfast, connections, and conversation
🔗 RSVP to join us
To be considered, please thoughtfully answer these the registration questions.
We’re building a community for those obsessed with the art of the first 10.
See you at breakfast!
Your hosts
Madeline & Co. – is the first brand-development platform built on a proprietary reasoning model, Madeline-s1., designed to help founders, in-house teams, strategists, and agencies build and execute faster, with clarity and precision.
I'm Prince Rumi—founder of Madeline & Co., Strategy Market, The Agency, and Brand Melody. I’ve spent over a decade helping startups, SMBs, nonprofits, and enterprises build their brand strategies, and I'm currently collaborating with legendary brand strategist (and my mentor) Marty Neumeier on turning his Strategy novel Scramble into a film.
As a community builder, I have hosted 44 events over the past 2 years, bringing together the city's thought leaders for evenings of dialogue and discovery, fostering a sense of community in New York City's hidden enclaves.