mHUB Tests What Actually Last: Industry Disruptor

The startup world loves a clean origin story. Two founders, a garage, a whiteboard full of arrows pointing to the future. Reality is messier. Companies are built in the middle of uncertainty, exits arrive after years of invisible grind, and reinvention rarely shows up wearing a name badge. In Chicago, that tension is exactly the point of the next room coming together. On April 2, 2026, mHUB opens the doors at 1623 W Fulton St for the first installment of the 2026 mHUB Industry Disruptors series, and the conversation begins where most founder mythology usually ends.

The timing matters. Builders across the startup ecosystem are shifting from velocity to durability. Capital cycles have tightened, investors are asking harder questions, and founders are thinking less about momentum and more about endurance. What actually lasts? What does it look like to scale across cycles, across industries, across decades? That is the backdrop for an evening built around one operator who has spent more than 30 years answering those questions in real time.

Kristi Ross will take the stage for a fireside conversation from 6:00 to 7:00 PM before the room opens for a networking reception that runs until 8:00 PM. For anyone who has followed the arc of fintech over the last decade, the name carries weight. Kristi Ross co founded tastytrade and helped launch and grow 7 companies in under 10 years under that umbrella. The run eventually culminated in the acquisition of tastytrade by IG Group in a deal valued at about $1B. Across that career, Kristi Ross has participated in 40+ mergers, acquisitions, capital raises, and startups. Operators understand what that number represents. Cycles, decisions, and hard lessons learned when the lights are not on.

Then came a turn that makes experienced founders lean forward. Kristi Ross stepped into a completely different arena as Co-Founder of U3 Coffee, a mission driven company built around a coffee ecosystem connecting farmers, entrepreneurs, and consumers through transparency and storytelling. From trading platforms to coffee supply chains. From financial markets to agricultural ones. The move is less about product and more about pattern recognition, a skill the startup ecosystem quietly respects because it signals the difference between chasing industries and understanding systems.

mHUB designed the Industry Disruptors series to surface exactly these types of conversations. Founders, early stage teams, and operators share the room with builders who have already navigated the hardest chapters of company creation. This event, organized by mHUB and hosted by Christian Luna and Kim Blomquist, pulls the curtain back on how experienced founders think about reinvention, uncertainty, and the long horizon decisions that shape companies long after the first product launch.

Doors open at 5:30 PM. A 1 hour fireside conversation anchors the evening before the room shifts into a reception where the dialogue moves across the floor. In a moment where the startup ecosystem is recalibrating what durable companies actually look like, the most valuable signal is still perspective earned through repetition. And occasionally the most instructive founder story begins after the exit, when someone decides to start again in a completely different arena and everyone in the room pauses long enough to ask why.