Retreat Agenda

Connectivity Lounge (VIP Only)

VIP registrants have access to the lounge to host drop-in meetings, take phone calls, meet with an expert, and enjoy a relaxed environment with your guest.

Buying Black Marketplace

Witness your ancestors’ wildest dreams as you shop at the Buying Black Marketplace. This is an opportunity for the community to support venture-backed startups and small businesses across all industries.

INNER KNOWING

A SANCTUARY Gathering on Intuition, Restoration & Human Intelligence.
Through thoughtful conversation, embodied practices, and intentional pause, INNER KNOWING explores what it means to trust yourself more deeply— reconnecting with intuition, creativity, and more sustainable ways of moving through the world.
The experience will include a fireside conversation on intuition and sustainable leadership, a workshop on building your own Personal Relief Operating System, and a guided meditation and sound bath in the garden designed to help participants reset, reconnect, and hear themselves again.

Buying Black Marketplace Celebratory Toast

Champagne Celebratory Toast to Black Excellence!

Unscripted: The Real Talk of Building Something Real

Behind every product in the Buying Black Marketplace is a bold founder with a powerful story. In this inspiring session, meet the entrepreneurs who turned vision into value. From overcoming obstacles to igniting change in their communities, these founders will share the heart, hustle, and heritage behind their brands — and how they’re building generational wealth through innovation and purpose.

Founders Code: How We Show Up For Each Other

Who you become in a room of founders who tell you the truth: The right peer group doesn’t just support you — it changes you. This session is about building the kind of trust and accountability that makes this community the most valuable room you’re in all year.

Don’t Forget Her: A Mom’s Playbook for Thriving as a Founder

A workshop reminding mom founders that the most important investment in your business is you.

All White Welcome Reception

An evening of connection with fellow attendees in a relaxed, intentional setting that sets the tone for the retreat.

Connectivity Lounge (VIP Only)

VIP registrants have access to the lounge to host drop-in meetings, take phone calls, meet with an expert, and enjoy a relaxed environment with your guest.

Buying Black Marketplace

Witness your ancestors’ wildest dreams as you shop at the Buying Black Marketplace. This is an opportunity for the community to support venture-backed startups and small businesses across all industries.

Welcome and Greetings

Unleashing the Power of Human Intelligence!

The most powerful brands don’t sell products — they tell stories that make people feel something. Learn how to turn your founder story, your partnerships, and your mission into a marketing engine that moves people to act.

DAFs — The Funding Tool Nobody Told You About

Most founders exhaust the usual funding playbook — friends and family, angels, venture capital. But there’s a $250 billion pool of capital sitting in Donor Advised Funds that almost nobody is talking about. DAFs represent one of the most underutilized funding sources available to founders today. This workshop changes that.

The Governance Essentials No One Teaches You

Operating agreements. Voting rights. IP assignment. Buy-sell provisions. The documents and structures that protect you rarely get attention until they’re the only thing that matters. This session covers what you need, what you’re probably missing, and how to fix it without a crisis forcing your hand.

The Catalyst Table: A Lunch Salon on Accelerating Growth

An intimate lunch salon where accelerator leaders, founders, and investors gather to explore how the right program at the right moment can compress timelines, unlock capital, and turn promising companies into breakout successes. Come hungry — for food and for the conversation.

AI Is Coming for Your Product. What’s Left When It Gets There?

The founders who win the next five years aren’t just the ones using AI — they’re the ones who built around what AI can’t easily replicate. Data advantages. Network effects. Deep customer relationships. Switching costs. This session is a practical look at where your real moat is, and how to deepen it before the window closes. An investor’s perspective.

Buying Black Marketplace Celebratory Toast

Champagne Celebratory Toast to Black Excellence

How to Position Your Company for Exit

Workshop led by J.P. Morgan

Unscripted: The Real Talk of Building Something Real

Behind every product in the Buying Black Marketplace is a bold founder with a powerful story. In this inspiring session, meet the entrepreneurs who turned vision into value. From overcoming obstacles to igniting change in their communities, these founders will share the heart, hustle, and heritage behind their brands — and how they’re building generational wealth through innovation and purpose.

IYKYK: Orchestrating Your Wins

There’s a version of success that looks effortless from the outside — the right investors, the right timing, the right exits. But founders who’ve lived it know the truth: every win was orchestrated. Every breakthrough was the result of knowing which levers to pull, which relationships to activate, and which moments to bet big.

IYKYK: Orchestrating Your Wins is a candid, founder-to-founder session built around one simple premise — the people who’ve already unlocked value for their businesses have the blueprint. And they’re here to share it. From capital strategy and customer acquisition to pivots that paid off and partnerships that changed everything, this session pulls back the curtain on the decisions, the networks, and the conviction that turned vision into value.

If you’re a founder ready to stop guessing and start orchestrating — this is the room.

The Fourth C — Civic: Economic Revitalization, For Us By Us

The numbers tell the story. Since the year 2000, racial inequality has cost the U.S. economy up to $21.3 trillion. Over 300,000 Black women exited the U.S. labor force in 2025 — one of the steepest declines in 25 years. And yet: Black women now represent 42% of all net new women-owned businesses in America — three times their share of the female population. Their business revenue grew 80.8% between 2019 and 2024, outpacing every other demographic group. That is not a workforce trend. That is an economic revolution — and it demands a civic response at scale.

This panel asks the boldest question on the retreat agenda: what happens when capital and community don’t just build a company — they rebuild a city, revitalize a county, and restructure an economy from the inside out?

By 2042, the United States will reach a majority-minority threshold — the most significant demographic shift in the nation’s modern history. The window to build that future intentionally — for us, by us — is now. Our panelists have lived this thesis at scale: from engineering multi-stage accelerator pipelines that rebuilt a historic entrepreneurial district, to contributing to a $10 billion federal Tech Hubs Initiative, to constructing the civic infrastructure turning an East Bay city into the next great innovation hub for underrepresented builders.

Moderated by Mica and Felicia Mayo, Co-Founders of Untapped Investing, this session expands the COI Ladder Institute’s foundational framework of Checks, Contracts, and Connections to add a fourth and essential C: Civic. Because the most durable wealth is not just built — it is rooted. And the blueprint is already working. The only question left is: how many cities are next?

Power Hour Reception

VIP Dinner & Awards

Join us for the VIP Dinner, where influential leaders in the startup ecosystem come together to celebrate the outstanding work being done to elevate underestimated founders. Experience a unique opportunity to connect with visionaries and like-minded individuals that are leading impactful change.

Journey to Freedom: A Bike Ride Along the Maritime Underground Railroad

Some roads carry more than traffic — they carry history. This guided bike ride takes you along the historic Maritime Underground Railroad trails of Chappaquiddick Island, retracing the courageous paths walked by those who risked everything in pursuit of freedom. As you ride, you’ll hear the stories of the men, women, and children who passed through these very routes — and the ordinary people who chose to help them. More than a ride. A remembrance.

Yoga on Inkwell Beach

Join us for a refreshing morning yoga session on the historic Inkwell Beach. Surrounded by the soothing sounds of the ocean and the gentle warmth of the sun, this all-levels class is designed to center your mind, awaken your body, and set a positive tone for the day. Whether you’re a seasoned yogi or just beginning your practice, come breathe, stretch, and flow in community—connecting with nature, yourself, and others in a beautiful, sacred space. Donations suggested for the InkWellYoga organization after the session.

RECESS and COI Ladder Institute Present: The Energy Edition

The Energy Edition is a curated, immersive retreat hosted by COI Ladder Institute and RECESS, bringing together forward-thinking leaders shaping the future of energy, business, and the grid. Designed to inspire connection and action, the experience blends powerful conversations on leadership in turbulent times with practical pathways across storage, renewables, grid power, and integrated solutions.

Through keynotes, curated discussions, reflective moments, and peer networking, participants explore how to harness personal and collective energy, unlock collaboration, and lead with purpose in a critical moment for the energy ecosystem. The retreat concludes with a dynamic exchange of ideas and connections that carry momentum well beyond the room.

Registration

Buying Black Marketplace

Continental Breakfast

Welcome & Kickoff

COI Ladder Institute and RECESS launch The Energy Edition

Power Moves: The People in This Room Are the Deal

Before the panels, pitches, and presentations — this is the hour that matters most. Energy professionals, tech founders, and investors don’t often share the same room. This session is designed to change that, creating the kind of real connections that turn a retreat into a catalyst.

The New “Virtual Reality”: Virtual Power Plants (VPP) and Virtual Battery Networks (VBN)

Since 2024, more than 38 states have developed frameworks for pilots relating to Virtual Networks. According to the DOE, Distributed Energy Resources will probably triple in scale by 2030. Pretty soon, any home, office, senior care living community, grocery store or place of worship can be equipped to help relieve the congestion on the energy grid with DERs.

Around the Table: Power, Capital, and the Ideas Worth Funding

The best energy conversations don’t happen on stage — they happen over a meal with the right people. This salon-style luncheon brings together founders, investors, and energy leaders for the kind of candid exchange that only happens when the room is small enough to be honest.

Buying Black Marketplace Celebratory Toast

Champagne Celebratory Toast to Black Excellence

The 411 on the Clean Energy 911: The Urgency for a Regenerative Clean Energy Economy

If you’re building anything for the future, renewable and recycled energy should be part of the plan. Find out why clean energy is no longer an option, but an imperative.

Harness Your Energy

You can’t pour from an empty vessel. This is your permission slip to stop — no agenda, no networking, no output required. Take this time to breathe, reset, and reconnect with why you’re here. Whether you meditate, journal, or simply sit in silence, this is your time. Use it.

The Data Center Dilemma

Data center developers are coming to a city near you, and communities are positioned to “”Just Say No!””. Can hyperscalers co-exist with healthy, prosperous communities? What communities and data center developers need to know for a win-win.

Fireside Chat: The Power of Collaboration

Lightning Reception – Sponsored by Walker-Miller Energy Services