Every Doubles night opens with a thirty-minute fireside chat featuring a world-class founder, investor, or operator. It's the serve that sets up the whole evening.
We hand-pick a speaker whose story will resonate with the room. Less keynote, more campfire — short, candid, and built for conversation.
We're keeping the first speaker quiet until two weeks out — part of the magic of Doubles is showing up curious. What we'll tell you now: you'll recognize the name, and you'll want to ask them something afterward.
Three small mechanics, working together. The Volley isn't decoration — it's how we engineer chemistry in a room of strangers.
Everyone arrives focused on the speaker. You get to listen and observe, not perform. The pressure to "be on" the moment you walk in quietly disappears.
You all just heard the same story. Dinner conversation has a shared starting point, so the first ten minutes flow naturally instead of stalling on weather and job titles.
Even if you don't exchange numbers, you'll leave with a story worth telling and an idea worth chasing. No Doubles night is a wasted night.
We orchestrate the first half so the second half can run itself. Doors at six; the fireside lands at 6:30, the room finds its rhythm by 7:30.
Upbeat jazz on the speakers, golden-hour light through a wall of glass, bay views in every direction — and a glass in your hand inside ninety seconds. Thirty minutes to mingle and shake some hands before the room sits at 6:30.
Our speaker, in conversation with one of the founders. The story, the lessons, the candor. You leave knowing something you didn't when you arrived — and the room shares a moment to talk about.
This is the move. Every question you hear is a thread someone at dinner can pull on. By 7:30, every guest has heard every other guest say something interesting — the icebreaker work is done.
Catered by a kitchen we love and laid out for grazing — shared plates you build yourself, hand-picked wine, the music up just enough. The room moves: half standing, half sitting, knots of conversation forming and dissolving. By nine, you've met half the room.
Vol. 01 lands Saturday, June 21. Apply with your friend now, and we'll reveal the speaker line-up two weeks out.
Apply for Vol. 01 →