The AI-First Founder Series: Agentic Playbook: Scaling an AI-First Startup with Agents (Part 2)
You've got the foundation. Now it's time to build the engine.
Part 2 of the AI-First Founder Series brings together Forum Ventures and Make again to go deeper into one of the most powerful, and most misunderstood, tools available to early-stage founders right now: AI agents. This session is designed to cut through the hype and give you a practical, hands-on playbook for using agents to drive real business value, starting from day one.
What we'll cover:
Teija Bean, Head of Product Design at Forum Ventures AI Studio, will share how her team uses agents at the earliest stages of validation, prototyping, and building, with real examples from the Studio portfolio showing what this looks like in practice before a company even has a product
When it actually makes sense to use AI agents, and when it doesn't, so you're building with intention rather than chasing trends
The essential components of an AI agent and what to get right at each layer
How to set up evaluation systems so your agents perform reliably, not just impressively in a demo
How to prompt AI agents for the best possible outcomes
A live Make demo building an agentic system for account enrichment and personalized outreach that you can take and adapt immediately
Open Q&A with Forum and Make together, where the best conversations usually happen
Whether you're just starting to explore agents or already experimenting and hitting walls, this session will give you a clear framework for what to build, how to evaluate it, and how to make it work for your specific stage and use case.
About Forum Ventures
Forum Ventures is the leading early-stage fund, accelerator and AI venture studio for B2B startups. Founded in 2014, we’re on a mission to make the journey easier, more accessible, and successful for early-stage founders.
Forum is investing in 65+ SaaS companies this year. Pitch Us here.
We're also starting 8 companies in our venture studio. If you have an idea, have lived a pain point, and are ready to start a company with the support of a full stack team, tell us why you’d be a great founder for our AI Venture Studio.
About Make
Make is a visual automation and AI Agent platform that lets startups build powerful workflows without writing code. Think of it as the connective tissue of your tech stack, linking your CRM, finance tools, communication apps, project management, and more into seamless automated processes. With over 500,000 businesses and 3,500+ app integrations, Make is the platform founders choose when they're ready to stop doing things manually and start scaling their operations.