LA Grind Club builds founder network

Justin Gordon is building LA Grind Club as an in-person network for founders, investors and operators in Los Angeles, according to the group’s event pages and Gordon’s own public profiles. The club’s public footprint shows a steady cadence of small-format gatherings rather than a single flagship conference. Its listings describe coffee meetups, hikes, happy hours, dinners and poker nights aimed at startup people in the city. The setup matters because Los Angeles startup networking has often been spread across accelerators, venture firms and one-off meetups. LA Grind Club appears to package that activity into a recurring, curated member community, with Gordon serving as host and organizer. A December 2025 members poker-night listing identified Gordon as founder of The LA Grind and said he was bringing together club members at his home in West Hollywood. (luma.com) ### Who is behind the group? Justin Gordon is the named organizer across the club’s public materials. His personal site says he is based in Los Angeles, works at VITALIZE Venture Capital and is “building a community for founders.” A separate LA Grind event page lists him as host and describes him as founder of The LA Grind and Just Go Grind. That matters because the project sits at the intersection of media, venture and community-building. (luma.com) Gordon already runs founder-oriented content and investor networks, giving him an existing audience to pull into LA-specific events. The result is less a generic meetup brand than a founder network attached to a known operator in startup media and venture circles. ### What does the club actually do week to week? The LA Grind’s public calendar says it hosts “events to connect ambitious founders, operators, and investors in Los Angeles.” The same page lists hikes, coffee meetups, happy hours, dinners and poker nights as recurring formats. (justingordon.com) That mix suggests the group is using low-friction social events, not only formal panels, to keep members in contact. One archived event offers a more specific look. (justingordon.com) The December 18, 2025 poker-night page offered both member and non-member tickets, said non-members required approval, and noted that some members-only access would be verified through wallet-based token ownership. The listing also said additional event details would be shared after approval. ### How curated is this network? The clearest public sign is the approval layer. The poker-night page did not present the event as open admission; it required approval even for free tickets and reserved some access for members. (luma.com) That indicates Gordon is trying to manage who gets into the room, a common approach for founder and investor communities that want tighter peer quality. The LA Grind’s calendar also shows a submission-and-approval structure for events, stating that items will appear once approved. (luma.com) That adds another layer of curation around what gets surfaced through the network. ### Why would agencies or creators care? Los Angeles agencies, creators and service providers often use founder communities as a source of referrals, partnerships and early-stage clients. LA Grind Club’s format puts those providers near founders, operators and investors in repeated settings rather than one-off networking bursts. (luma.com) The group’s public materials do not spell out deal flow, but the event structure is built around recurring contact among startup participants. (luma.com) That makes the club relevant beyond venture-backed startups. Gordon’s broader founder-media work has focused on operators and builders across company stages, which aligns with a network that can mix investors, startup teams and outside partners in the same local loop. ### Where do people track what happens next? The LA Grind’s Luma calendar is the most concrete public hub for upcoming activity. As of the latest crawl, it showed approved and pending events under The LA Grind banner and invited people to view and subscribe to the schedule. (luma.com) Gordon’s profiles and linked social accounts provide the named organizer to watch for future application or event posts. (justingordon.com)