Adrianna Lakatos
Adrianna Lakatos is Portfolio & Ecosystem lead at Founders, Inc., where she writes first checks of $100K to $250K into founders building in AI, hardware, and robotics 3. She joined f.inc after working at buildspace and cold-emailing Farza Majeed, the founder, which led to an offer and a flight to San Francisco three days later 5.
Early life and education
Lakatos grew up in Ohio and entered dual enrollment through her high school's College Credit Plus program at age 14, taking college courses alongside her high school curriculum 4. She earned an Associate of Arts degree at 16, becoming the youngest graduate at her local community college, and completed a bachelor's degree two weeks before receiving her high school diploma 4. By 18 she held two college degrees and a 3.9 GPA, having saved roughly $100,000 in tuition through the program 4. She later attended Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business 2. While in school she ran a wristband reselling business that generated over $100,000 in revenue 1.
Octoview and early career
Before moving to San Francisco, Lakatos ran a marketing studio called Octoview, working with early-stage companies including Tokenproof (later acquired), Comm, Ghost, and Givepact 1. She also worked as a movie extra, copywriter, and social media manager during this period 4.
buildspace and move to San Francisco
Lakatos cold-emailed Farza Majeed and flew to San Francisco three days later to work at buildspace, one of the largest online schools for people building their own projects 5 6. She has described the cold email as following a specific structure — short, personal, with a clear ask — and has cited a 40% reply rate on her outreach template 5. She moved to SF with no job lined up and no existing community, and has said Furqan Rydhan "took a chance" on her 7.
Founders, Inc.
At Founders, Inc., Lakatos writes pre-seed checks and manages the ecosystem side of the campus at Fort Mason 1. She is one of four former buildspace employees who transitioned to Founders, Inc. after buildspace closed 7. Her role includes reviewing applications for programs like Canopy, organizing events such as Night Hack (a pop-up hackathon series at Fort Mason), and running weekly Ship It sessions where campus founders present progress 8. She built the internal application-review tool used by the f.inc team, teaching herself to code through what she has called "vibe coding," and has described burning through nearly 10,000 Lovable credits in the process 1 2.
Side projects
Lakatos built and maintains several community resources: justmovetosf.com, a guide for founders relocating to San Francisco; investorswhobuild.com, a community for investors who also write code; dearsanfrancisco.com, a digital mailbox of letters about the city; and skiphighschool.com, a resource about dual enrollment based on her own experience 1. She also emailed Ohio State directly to ask for additional scholarship funding, receiving $20,000 with no prior contact or leverage 5.