6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PST
Recap
independent
Ugly Talk: Women Tech Founders – the Messy Middle
Photo gallery
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PST
About Event
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Most people only see the highlight reel: the launch, the raise, the “we made it” post. The ugly truth is that every “overnight success” you admire lived in the Messy Middle first, and founders stay in this phase far longer than anyone openly admits.
This is the stage before momentum, before validation, before clarity shows up. It is confusing and lonely, and it demands a kind of courage that does not look like confidence. It looks like belief without proof.
This night is for the people who are in it—to tell the real stories, to share what actually helped, and to remind each other that they do not have to go through it alone.
Because the Messy Middle is not a failure. It is not a pause. It is the work. And every breakthrough you admire once lived here too.
Featured speakers.
Sri Ramaswamy is the Founder & CEO of Charlee.ai, a patented risk-intelligence platform that turns unstructured claims language into actionable signals. With 22+ years across insurance, analytics, and AI, she pioneered Charlee’s Claims Graph RAG and pre-trained language models built on 60M+ claims to predict litigation, improve reserves, and surface potential fraud. ARM-certified with decades in tech, Sri turns unstructured insurance data into measurable outcomes. A frequent speaker and mentor, she advances practical and ethical AI that delivers operational value at scale.
Jenny He started Ergeon after learning through her own home renovation that construction was inefficient for everyone involved. She became a licensed contractor, mapped the failure points, and built a platform that makes outdoor projects fast, transparent, and fair. Ergeon’s end-to-end software lets customers design, price, and manage projects online, while vetted local installers deliver on-site. By combining technology, AI, and disciplined operations, Jenny’s woman-led company delivers faster timelines, clearer pricing, and steadier work for installers—proving that modernizing construction is as much about people and process as it is about tech
Who's hosting it.
Jenny runs a health community called Puzzle Exchange, a health community with 100+ SF-based healers to support you in building the right health plan (and the right “doctor” for you, not the “best”) through curiosity, real conversations, and practical tools. Prior to Puzzle, Jenny runs a AI social listening platform and a social commerce agency that worked with over 200 DTC brands and provide consulting to global brands such as Louis Vuitton, Google, Armani, and Dior.
Questions? Talk@UglyTalk.com
Location
Persona
50 Beale St, Floor 16
San Francisco