PEF Idea Maze: Navigated Founders
Every founder faces the Idea Maze, that messy, uncertain process of figuring out whether your next big idea is worth pursuing, pivoting, or walking away from.
At this PEF session, we're pulling back the curtain with 4 members who recently went through it themselves. Real, honest accounts of what it actually looks like to navigate the maze.
For the founders presenting, we believe all four outcomes are wins:
One founder is pursuing the original vision and raised a round to back it.
Another evolved their concept into something adjacent and also raised a round to back that too.
Two other founders closed their original pursuits and walked away with more clarity than when they started
Whether you're sitting on an idea, mid-pivot, or questioning everything, this session will give you perspective on what it looks like to ideate in 2026, all while potentially learning from great founders.
The 4 Speakers:
1. Vlad Shulman: Engineering at Baseten, previously Founder at Stork Network and CTO & Co-founder at Retain.ai (acquired by Dagster).
2. Peter Corbett: Serial entrepreneur and executive coach who built and sold a marketing & tech company (iStrategyLabs). Now works on leadership transformation, wellbeing, and conscious business design.
3. Brian Ree: 4x exit serial entrepreneur, 2023 EY Entrepreneur of the Year. Founded GoldenMine.com, PokerLetter (acquired by FullTiltPoker), and DAILYLOOK.
4. Steven Hong: CEO and Co-Founder of Oculii, a radar software company. Previously a partner at Kleiner Perkins and co-founder of Kumu Networks.