San Diego AI Showcase #6 (North County) July 2026 (Main theme: Onboarding)
Tuesday, July 7, 2026, 6:00 PM PDT – 8:30 PM PDT
LVLUP USA · 1410 Vantage Ct, Vista, CA 92081, USA
Hosted by Pactto
Note: we are charging $10 just to help with food and drinks, we already have an awesome space. If you don't feel like paying, please choose the INVITEE ticket (free). Thanks! San Diego AI Showcase (North County) A Homebrew-style night for AI experiments and demos. Just sharing and learning. This is a monthly, in-person gathering for San Diego founders who are actively building with AI, and who are willing to show their work before it’s perfect. Inspired by the original Homebrew Computer Club, where builders like Steve Wozniak casually shared what they were experimenting with, this is a space for real demos, early prototypes, bold ideas, and honest lessons. No polished pitch decks. No sales. No pressure. This is about learning in public, helping each other think sharper, and accelerating progress through thoughtful feedback. The San Diego AI Showcase is designed to grow a tight, curious, builder-driven founder community in the region. What you’ll see • Early AI products, tools, agents, workflows, and experiments • Things that are half-working, just launched, or still a little rough • Lessons from what didn’t work (often the most valuable part) • Live demos, screen shares, short walkthroughs Format • 5–10 founders present for 10 minutes each • 3-minute Q&A and group discussion after every presentation • Hang out, meet other builders, and keep the conversation going Who this is for • Founders actively building with AI (pre-seed to growth) • Engineers, designers, and product leaders experimenting hands-on • People who value curiosity, humility, and substance over hype What this is not • Not a pitch night • Not an investor demo day • Not a sales event Just builders helping builders. 📍 Event Details When: July 7 (Tuesday), 2026, from 6 pm to 8:30 pm Where: LVLUP USA (North County San Diego. Vista, California) Organizer: Demian Borba, Founder and CEO of Pactto (Stanford StartX S25, ex-Adobe, Intuit, PayPal, BlackBerry) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demianborba/ If you’re interested in presenting, attending, or shaping the future of this meetup, please email Demian at demian@pactto.com. The goal is to create something long-lasting for San Diego — a place where meaningful work gets shared early, and momentum compounds over time. Presenters: 6:30 pm Demian Borba, Founder and CEO of Pactto (Stanford StartX S25, ex-Adobe, Intuit, PayPal, BlackBerry) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demianborba/ Title: How Countless Experiments Shaped Pactto's Onboarding. Details: Learn what Pactto is doing to tackle onboarding after a ton of different experiments. See where those first experiments took the platform, and how the lessons learned led Pactto to a much simpler, self-guided journey for users. ----------------------------- 6:45 pm Ana Paula Borba, founder of Eleve, AI Engineer (ex-ServiceNow, and 2nd-time Founder) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anapaulakedouk/ Title: Less is more. The hard path of removing features, removing buttons, and making users think less. Details: At first, Eleve was complex, full of amazing features, options, buttons, complexity. The hard reality: users didn't understand it. See how Ana went from complexity to simplicity, with the help of Claude Code, taking Eleve from a generic complex tool, to a hyper-tailored platform focused on multiple specific ICPs. ----------------------------- 7 pm D. Saul Jameson (ML Engineer, Fractional CTO at Suburban Growth Enterprises) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsauljameson/ Title: Onboarding Without Overwhelming People Details: A practical example of how AI can help turn messy intake into clear next steps, checklists, and workflows. Using examples from bars, restaurants, and AI entertainment products, this session will cover how to collect information without asking for everything all at once. The focus is on breaking onboarding into smaller steps, prompting users when AI can help, and collecting the right information when it actually matters. ----------------------------- 7:15 pm Todd Bashor (Founder and Builder of Founder Guide) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddbashor/ Title: Making onboarding work Details: Founder Guide: Helps early-stage founders go from idea to scale with a systematic process, operational tools, and mentorship. Onboarding is critical since I want founders to get value within 2 minutes of signing up. ----------------------------- 7:30 pm Reya Anne Nichols (Founder at 2DogsCreative LLC) LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/reya-nichols-108b965b Title: The Missing Layer in AI Adoption: User Onboarding Details: Reya will focus on the onboarding layer that often gets skipped when people start using AI. A lot of users are handed a tool and expect them to know what to ask, how to structure their work, and how to get useful output right away. Reya will share the early framework behind TeamSwitchboard, a personalized AI operating system that uses clearly defined AI “roles” to help organize work,…