What's Silicon Valley Building Next? | SF TechWeek AfterParty Recap
首发于 EPIC Connector Substack（2026-10-21）
👋 Twelve days on, the demos and conversations from SF TechWeek are still fresh in our minds!
At our October 9 afterparty in the Bay Area, EPIC Connector brought investors and founders together for a close look at nine impressive AI products.
A huge thank-you to our co-host, CREAO AI, for putting this afterparty together with us and helping make the night so memorable! We were especially glad to hear Peter Pang on the panel discuss taking AI agents from a local demo to real customers in the cloud, and to have Gabriel Piché join us that night.
Remember the standout products and ideas from the afterparty? Let’s revisit the highlights!
💬Three Takeaways from the Panel
Our panel, From Demo to Distribution: What Actually Scales in the AI Era?, explored how AI teams build reliable products, earn customer trust, and turn early interest into paying customers.
The three panelists shared their perspectives, each drawing on their own hands-on experience:
- Peter Pang, CREAO AI: Build on existing infrastructure and focus on the customer problem. Serving real customers requires a reliable agent harness and multi-tenant support. Application teams can use that infrastructure and put their effort into solving industry-specific problems.- Lawrence Lou, Cornerstone VC: Customers who return and pay are a stronger signal than initial enthusiasm. For B2B teams, that means earning trust through compliance, industry knowledge, and system integration; for consumer products, it means looking beyond one-time trials.- Mengqi Cheng, Tonebird.ai: A product has to work reliably in the user’s daily routine. Her reply assistant looked simple in a demo, but the team spent months connecting calendars, handling context, and accounting for how different people write before it was usable.Thanks to Hattie of IntelliPro for keeping the conversation focused and drawing out practical lessons from all three speakers!
👀Meet the 9 outstanding teams at our afterparty!
- 🛒 Urumi.AI · Naman Malhotra, CEOAI agents for e-commerce operations, from store analysis and page updates to promotional campaigns for merchants to approve.- 💼 Recruitment Smart Technologies · Yusuf Jazakallah, Co-founder & CEOEnterprise AI recruiting that integrates with existing applicant tracking systems to handle sourcing, screening, candidate communication, and interviews.- 🧴 Biuty · Ziqi Wang, Founder & CEOAn AI skin advisor that tracks progress and recommends personalized products, routines, treatments, and affordable ingredient-matched alternatives.- 🎵 Secret Mountain · Vignesh Raja, Co-founderA band of six virtual artists with original music and a shared story world, with plans for one-on-one AI fan interactions.- 🛡️ Cryptic AI · Galizhan T, CTOA compliance platform that combines KYC, on-chain analysis, and transaction monitoring to support investigations and regulatory reporting, with human approval.- 🎓 Zunio · Tanya Singh, FounderA campus secondhand marketplace with AI-assisted listings, price negotiation, and pickup coordination, plus student identities and reviews.- 💙 Halea · Charles Zhang, Founder & CEOA smartwatch-connected health agent designed to check in by voice when readings change and help coordinate care with the user’s consent.- 🤝 Musterd.io · Nick Sanders, FounderA shared workspace for people and AI agents, with task handoffs, cross-model review, and human approval for high-risk actions.- 📱 Solid.Tech · Trevor Keith, FounderAI agents equipped with accounts, payment methods, and real devices to build, test, and deliver work across complex business workflows.
❤️Thanks Again to Our Partners
CREAO AI · Co-hostCREAO is an AI agent platform for building, scheduling, and running autonomous, multi-step workflows using plain language instead of code. It enables teams to create specialized agents that connect with business tools and data, collaborate across workflows, and continuously handle recurring work in areas such as growth, marketing, e-commerce, research, and operations—turning AI from an on-demand assistant into an always-on operating layer for the business.
EezyCollab · Strategic PartnerEezyCollab is an AI-native influencer marketing agency helping AI products grow globally. With teams across China, Southeast Asia, and the US, it combines hands-on campaign execution with AI-powered creator matching across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and X.
Interested in building with CREAO AI and EezyCollab? Just reply to this email.
Meet the Teams. Explore a Partnership.
Interested in collaborating with or investing in one of these projects? Tell us which team caught your attention and what you have in mind☺️
Project partnerships & investment introductions:incubator@epicconnector.io
Influencer & creator marketing partnerships: lois.sun@epicconnector.io
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