Zero to Launch is seven events over ten weeks — six free Wednesday sessions from August 5, 2026, then a hackathon on Oct 16–18, 2026 where 30–50 Phoenix builders don't build, they ship. Every session is free. Sponsorship is what keeps it that way.
Cash, platform credits and donated hours all count toward the same ladder — the total you underwrite sets your tier. Two Bronze items make a Silver. Stack to climb.
The program carries your name: "Zero to Launch, presented by ___"
The title. "Zero to Launch, presented by ___" on the site, all seven event listings, the decks, the certifications and the trophies. Opening remarks Friday night and the Sunday awards stage, a 15-minute speaking segment at the session of your choice, a judging seat, a table at all seven events, co-byline on the press release, title card on the recap film, and first refusal on the next season at the same price.
Gold
$5,000
4 available
Feed the weekend · the full video production · $5,000 in credits
Everything in Silver, plus: name a judged prize category and present that award on Sunday, a judging seat, a second mentor seat in Saturday's 1:1 rotations, logo and stage mention across all seven events, a table at any three sessions, and placement in the recap film.
Silver
$2,500
8 available
Name a judged prize category · team stipends · the press release
Everything in Bronze, plus: stage credit at three sessions of your choosing, a table at the weekend, one mentor seat, and your name in the press release.
Bronze
$1,000
open
The Bell · the X account · every badge and sign
Logo and link on the site for the life of the pages, the named credit on whatever you funded, stage credit at the weekend and any two sessions, and a partner role in the Ship AI Discord.
Every item on the menu below carries its own named credit — fund the X account and the bio reads “powered by ___” for the season. “We paid for the prize pool” lands harder than “we were a gold sponsor.”
The menu
Underwrite a line item.
Everything it takes to run seven events for fifty builders, priced at what it costs us. We publish the numbers because you should be able to decide before you ever message us. The total you take sets your tier.
The room
Venues are held: Workuity Biltmore and CEI Gateway split the Wednesdays as in-kind partners, and Workuity hosts the weekend.
Feed the room
$500 one Wednesday · $3,000 all six · $5,000 the weekend
Dinner for 40. People stay for the whole session when they're fed — and the weekend runs Friday dinner through Sunday lunch, seven services.
"Dinner tonight is on ___" from stage; series and weekend sponsors credited on every session page and at every meal.
Late Night
$500
Saturday, midnight. Pizza and caffeine for the teams still going.
The most memorable $500 on this list. Announced at midnight, photographed, posted.
The Kit
$1,000
Badges, lanyards, signage, printed schedules, power strips.
Your mark on every badge and every sign, at all seven events.
The Badge
$2,500
The thing every person in the room wears for three days, and the only sponsor placement that ends up in everyone else's photographs. One badge sponsor.
Your logo on the badge itself, alongside the title sponsor's and nobody else's. Silver placement everywhere else it applies.
The Bell
$1,000
A real ship's bell, engraved with your name. Teams ring it the moment their product ships. It stays with Ship AI and comes to every event after this one.
Permanent engraving. This one outlives the program.
The signal
The X account
$1,000
@shipaiclub — verified organization status and boosted reach on program posts, through the season.
"Powered by ___" in the account bio for the term, and on the program announcement posts.
The LinkedIn page
$1,000
Premium page plus sponsored posts targeted at Phoenix and Tempe tech.
Named on the page and in every sponsored post that runs.
The calendar
$1,000
Meetup Pro and Luma Plus for twelve months — listings, RSVPs, the reminder emails that get people through the door.
Credited on every event listing on both platforms, for a year.
Paid reach
$2,500
Ten weeks of paid acquisition across Phoenix and Tempe — the difference between 20 builders and 50.
Named in the campaign creative and credited with the turnout in the recap.
Press release
$2,500
Distributed to Arizona tech and business press before the program, and again after with the results.
Co-bylined. Your quote in the release.
The record
If it isn't captured, it happened to forty people. If it is, it happens to forty thousand.
Photography
$1,500 the six Wednesdays · $1,500 the weekend
Every session and the whole weekend, shot properly.
Credited on the photo sets and the permanent gallery — used for a year.
Video
Livestream $1,500 · Content Partner $2,500 · Production Partner $5,000
Livestream: Sunday's pitches, streamed and archived. Content Partner: thirty-plus vertical clips from the seven events, handed to teams to post from their own channels. Production Partner: the full build — sessions multicam'd and published, the weekend filmed, a recap film.
Named on the stream overlay; end card on every clip; title card on the film and a production credit on every published session.
The Launch Wall
$500
A physical wall where every team writes its live URL and day-one numbers as they land. Photographed Sunday, then published to the site permanently.
Your header on the wall, in every photo of it, and on the page it becomes.
Named in the template repo README and in the session where teams put it to work.
Team stipends
$2,500
$250 per registered team, toward the domain, the ad test, the paid tier they'd otherwise skip.
"Unblocked by ___" in the confirmation to every team that takes one.
The stage
Name an award
Judged categories $2,500 each · Crowd Favorite $1,500
Best B2C Launch · Best B2B Launch · Best Marketing Site · Best Growth Engine — or Crowd Favorite, the one the room votes on.
"The ___ Award for Best B2C Launch" — said out loud Sunday, engraved, on the site permanently. You present it; Crowd Favorite's sponsor announces the vote.
Trophies & certifications
$1,500 + $500
Five physical engraved awards, plus a certification at a permanent public URL for every team that submits.
Your name on the back plate of all five; footer credit on every certification, forever.
The internship
in-kind
A paid seat at your company, awarded as a prize — and you watch the winner work for ten weeks before you decide.
Named as Career Partner across the program. The best hiring channel on this list.
Post-launch fund
$2,000
$500 to each of the four category winners, conditional on keeping the growth engine running for 30 days past the weekend.
Named in the 30-day follow-up recap, where the real numbers land.
The build
Credits are the highest-leverage thing on this page.
Credits aren't a donation to an event — they're ten weeks of real usage by fifty builders choosing a stack for products they intend to keep running, then demoing the result on stage.
$100 of credits × 50 builders = $5,000 of tier value, 50 activated accounts, and a public teardown of your product every other Wednesday.
Credits go out as a baseline grant to every participant when the build window opens Aug 3, plus a larger tranche awarded as prizes on Oct 18.
$1,000+Bronze
$2,500+Silver
$5,000+Goldnamed Provider Partner, two available
$10,000+Platinumeligible
Provider Partner gets written into the .claude/skills/ setup files every participant runs — your platform named as the default path. Fifty builders following your quickstart, in order, with a deadline. Plus site, template-repo, and stage credit at every session.
Platforms we'd take credits on today
DeployVercel, Cloudflare, Railway
Model accessAnthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter
Build environmentsReplit, Cursor, v0
DataSupabase, Neon, Turso
The launch stackStripe, PostHog, Resend
Not on the list is not a no — if a builder can use it to get a product live, we want it.
Every credit sponsor is credited at the moment of the grant: "Your build credits are provided by ___," in the email that hands them over.
No budget line required
Sponsor with hours.
Mentors, judges and guest teachers get the same placement a cash sponsor gets. No budget line required — individuals get name and face on the page, companies get the logo.
Judge
Sunday, ~1:00–4:30 PMBronze
3–5 founders and operators who can tell a real number from a vanity one.
Named and pictured on the judges section and from stage.
Mentor
4+ hoursBronze
Saturday 1:1 rotations, Wednesday drop-ins, or async in Discord. 12+ hours, or three people from one company, is Silver.
Named and pictured on the mentors page. Teams credit their mentors in the Sunday pitch.
Guest teacher
One 20–30 minute session segmentSilver
On something you've actually done. Teaching, not selling — the highest-trust slot available.
Full Silver package, plus your name on that session's page and announcement.
Craft in-kind
Matched to value
Trophy design, participant-terms review, AV, photography — all of it counts, at what it would have cost us.
Named for what you did.
Sunday's pitches are also open to investors. If you write cheques for early products with real numbers, come sit in the room — there's nothing to buy.
How it goes
Four steps, and one of them is us doing the work.
01
Tell us what you want your name on
A tier, or the line items from the menu. A message in the Discord is enough.
02
We confirm the number and the placements in writing
Including how we valued anything non-cash.
03
We send you a private intake link
One form: company name, logo, a headshot and preferred title for whoever's being credited, and any brand assets or usage rules we should follow — up to a full 64 MB brand kit. It's the only asset request you'll get from us.
04
You're on the site
And on everything the menu said you'd be on.
The fine print, in plain words
What we promise, and what we don't sell.
Logo and link on this page and all six session pages, for the life of the pages.
Named in every announcement across X, LinkedIn, Discord, Meetup and Luma — seven events' worth over ten weeks.
Named from stage at every session you sponsor, with the specific credit for what you funded.
A photo and video recap, and a results recap — what shipped and what the numbers were, because that's what your sponsorship actually bought.
What we don't sell
No lead lists, no attendee data, no hard-sell slot, no resume book. Builders can tell the difference, and so can we. If you want the room's attention, mentor a team, teach a segment, or take the internship slot — all three work far better than a pitch would.
How in-kind is valued
Everything non-cash counts toward a tier at what a builder would actually pay for it, not list price — credits at street rate, venue time at the room's published hourly, donated hours at a flat $150/hour. We'll tell you the number we're using before you commit, and it goes in writing.
Sponsorship closes October 2, 2026.
That's so prize amounts can go on the page before we push registration hard. Commit before August 5 and your name is on the program from session one. Tell us what you want your name on and we'll be straight with you about where it lands.
Zero to Launch is one season; Ship AI runs free, public events in Phoenix and Tempe continuously. Some sponsors would rather back the room than the program.
Meetup Partner
$1,000/month
Logo, stage mention and table at every Ship AI event that month.
The Standby screen
$1,000/year
The ASCII screen projected at every meetup carries your mark, all year.
Speaker travel fund
$2,000/quarter
One out-of-town speaker per quarter, named as the reason they're here.
Season Partner
$12,000/year
Everything above, Platinum status year-round, title treatment on the next program.
