Ashod Donikian
Startup Swiss Army Knife: tactical, strategic, actionable
Studied at University of Technology Sydney
Works at Velocity Labs
Available Monday
Starting at 8:00 PM UTC
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Ashod's Offerings
Custom hourly · $200/hr
Get help with AI Fundamentals, App Development, and .
Ashod’s Startup Founders Qualifications
Experience level: Executive
10+ people coached for Startup Founders
I’m a 3x startup founder (2x venture-backed) with deep experience building companies from research to market. My first startup spun out of my PhD in robotics and machine learning, giving me first-hand insight into turning cutting-edge research into real products and businesses. Moving from Australia to the US to found my first company also taught me the challenges of building a startup as a foreign founder. Throughout my journey, I’ve learned how to balance product development, customer needs, and the complexities of managing research and software teams—all while serving as a CEO and technical founder. I know how valuable it is to have real startup experience on your side—not just advice from consultants or business school frameworks. My goal is to be that resource for founders, helping with pitch decks, fundraising, team building, product strategy, IP and patents, sales, and even M&A. How I can help: - Crafting a pitch deck that attracts investors - Hiring top talent as a small, emerging startup - Balancing research and software development teams - Developing effective interview techniques - Choosing the right investors and navigating negotiations - Creating sales strategies and pricing models - Guiding through the process of selling your startup I offer actionable advice from deep-tech founding, fundraising, and team management experience. If you’re building an early-stage startup and need guidance, reach out! Founder Experience: - Current Startup: Building a consumer iOS app - Robotics Startup: Founded a machine learning company from my robotics PhD, raised $3.7M, secured patents, built a team, and led acquisition talks. - Web3 Ad Startup: Co-founded a venture-backed startup, raised $4M, and developed the initial codebase. - Technical Expertise: Experienced in hardware/software engineering, real-time estimation, and ML code in C++. - Education & Speaking: PhD in Robotics, lecturer, and speaker at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and other universities.
Ashod can help with:
AI Fundamentals
App Development
Branding
Business Strategy Development
Compensation Strategy
Contract Drafting
Fundraising
Go-to-Market Strategy
Hiring
Ideation
Market Research
Venture Capital Strategy
About Ashod
I’m a 3x startup founder (2x venture-backed) with deep experience building companies from research to market. My first startup spun out of my PhD in robotics and machine learning, giving me first-hand insight into turning cutting-edge research into real products and businesses. Moving from Australia to the US to found my first company also taught me the challenges of building a startup as a foreign founder. Throughout my journey, I’ve learned how to balance product development, customer needs, and the complexities of managing research and software teams - all while serving as a CEO and technical founder. I know how valuable it is to have real startup experience on your side - not just advice from consultants or business school frameworks. My goal is to be that resource for founders, helping with pitch decks, fundraising, team building, product strategy, IP and patents, sales, and even M&A. How I can help: - Crafting a pitch deck that attracts investors - Hiring top talent as a small, emerging startup - Balancing research and software development teams - Developing effective interview techniques - Choosing the right investors and navigating negotiations - Creating sales strategies and pricing models - Guiding through the process of selling your startup I offer actionable advice from deep-tech founding, fundraising, and team management experience. If you’re building an early-stage startup and need guidance, reach out! Founder Experience: - Current Startup: Building a consumer iOS app - Robotics Startup: Founded a machine learning company from my robotics PhD, raised $3.7M, secured patents, built a team, and led acquisition talks. - Web3 Ad Startup: Co-founded a venture-backed startup, raised $4M, and developed the initial codebase. - Technical Expertise: Experienced in hardware/software engineering, real-time estimation, and ML code in C++. - Education & Speaking: PhD in Robotics, lecturer, and speaker at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and other universities.
Why do I coach?
I coach for two reasons: 1. When I was building companies, I often found it hard to get practical guidance from people who had actually been through the same problems themselves. I want to provide the kind of resource I wished I had - helping founders with pitch decks, fundraising, team building, product strategy, IP and patents, sales, and even M&A. 2. I genuinely enjoy teaching and coaching, and I find it rewarding to use my experience to help people make better decisions, build stronger products, and succeed with their businesses.
Work Experience
Founder & CEO
Velocity Labs
November 2021 - Present
At Velocity Labs, I conceived, designed, built, and launched Track Attack (trackattack.app), a leading motorsports app which can be thought of as "Strava for motorsports" and is used by thousands of users each month. I built the product from the ground up and have owned every part of it: product strategy, UX and UI design, onboarding, monetization and in-app purchases, App Store distribution, analytics, customer feedback, marketing, and of course, the underlying engineering. On the technical side, I designed and implemented systems spanning real-time video capture, GPS and inertial sensor processing, vehicle telemetry via OBD, high-frequency external GPS hardware, data synchronization, performance-critical mobile architecture, visualization, and connected-device integrations.
Founder/CEO
Navisens
2013 - 2021
Founded and led a deep-tech company commercializing novel inertial navigation technology derived from my PhD research in robotics and machine learning. Designed and implemented the original C++ real-time estimation codebase; authored foundational patents (US, Korea, China); and built and led an engineering team translating cutting-edge estimation and ML techniques into reliable, real-world localization systems. When suitable commercial IMUs did not exist, designed and manufactured a custom MEMS IMU with a cooperative multitasking RTOS and real-time sensor-fusion stack. Raised $4M in venture capital, grew the company to a team of research and software engineers, and formed partnerships with Fortune 500 and government organizations.
Education
University of Technology Sydney
Graduate Certificate in Research Commercialization
2007 - 2008
University of California, Berkeley
Research (autonomous vehicles), Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
2007 - 2008
Researcher on the DARPA Urban Challenge 2007 Sydney-Berkeley Driving Team.
University of Technology Sydney
PhD Engineering, Robotics
2003 - 2009
Navigation Systems in Robotics.
University of Technology Sydney
B. Eng, Electrical
1998 - 2003