Startup Coaches, Events, and Resources

Hey! I’m Michael, a founder and operator with a track record of building and scaling brands that reach over 25 million people monthly. I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Famous Media Group, the parent company of AsianFeed, one of the largest Asian-centric digital media brands in the world. Through this work, I’ve partnered with leading organizations including Netflix, Disney, NBC, Instagram, Sony Pictures, the White House, and the U.S. State Department, and have contributed to high-impact initiatives such as the first-ever Lunar New Year activation at the Super Bowl and the 2024 Japanese State Visit. My work has landed me on Forbes 30 Under 30 and Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, and I’ve been featured in outlets including CNN and Vox. After years of building and scaling a company, I earned my MBA from The Wharton School, adding a strong strategic and financial lens to my hands-on operating experience. I work with founders who are launching something new or scaling what they’ve already built, offering practical, real-world guidance rooted in experience rather than theory. If you’re looking to turn an idea into a company or grow an existing business with clarity and confidence, I’d love to help you move forward.

Welcome to my profile! With a rich background in entrepreneurship and business development, I am passionate about guiding early-stage founders to success. As the Co-Founder of Sonic Unity and Entrepreneur in Residence at Oneday, I have firsthand experience in launching and scaling innovative ventures. My role as COO at QUALITY has honed my skills in strategic planning and leadership, ensuring that startups thrive in competitive markets. I also bring expertise from my consultancy, Be My Guest, where I specialize in building iconic brands and sustainable business models. Let's work together to turn your startup vision into reality—reach out to start your journey today!

As a VC and former founder, I bring real world experience to help you navigate building your startup, and especially your first fundraise. My toolkit includes frameworks to help with customer discovery, human-centered design, community-building, business modeling, and fundraising strategy. (Please note, while I do invest in early-stage startups at Breakwater Ventures, I would never charge you to pitch me! This platform is solely because I love to advise and coach startups. If you'd like to pitch me your business, please email [email protected].)

I’m a former VC and the CEO/founder of a venture-backed startup funded by Silicon Valley and Singapore-based investors. I’ve spent 20 years in finance, strategy, and investing where I've been evaluating hundreds of founders, reviewing pitch decks, shaping investment narratives, and leading diligence across early-stage and growth-stage companies. As a former Partner at Turret Capital and Director of Investment Strategy at Catcha Group (Southeast Asia’s leading venture builder), I’ve overseen a $1 billion portfolio and worked directly with founders on business models, GTM strategy, traction storytelling, and fundraising readiness. I’ve also raised capital for my own company, giving me firsthand insight into what investors actually look for in a pitch. My specialty is helping founders win high-stakes opportunities by crafting clear, compelling, investor-ready materials. I support early-stage teams with pitch deck creation and refinement, business plan development, investor narrative strategy, market sizing, competitive analysis, and overall fundraising preparation. Whether you're refining your pre-seed story or preparing for a Series A raise, I bring both investor and founder perspective to help you communicate your value with precision.

I work with startup founders the same way I approach real-world decision making. No hype, no theory, and no pretending there is a one-size-fits-all playbook. I focus on helping you make clear, practical decisions based on your actual situation, not what sounds good online. My background is built around working with real people, solving real problems, and cutting through bad assumptions that hold businesses back. Whether it is structuring your next move, thinking through risk, improving decision-making, or getting unstuck, I bring a disciplined, straightforward approach that helps you move forward with clarity and confidence instead of guesswork. I am also the author of Who’s Got Your Six?, which focuses on accountability, trust, and making better decisions when it matters most. That same mindset carries into how I work with founders. I am not here to impress you with jargon. I am here to challenge weak assumptions, help you think clearly about risk and opportunity, and build a plan you can actually execute. Whether you are early stage, trying to stabilize, or looking to make smarter strategic moves, I bring a disciplined, straightforward approach that helps you move forward with clarity, confidence, and a much higher level of awareness than most people operate with.

Hi everyone! With over two decades of experience in the startup ecosystem, I have a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs and companies thrive. As the founder of multiple accelerator programs, including the highly-competitive USC startup accelerator and Hong Kong's first funded accelerator, I've guided over 3000 companies across diverse industries such as AI, edtech, and healthtech. My expertise lies in strategic growth, market entry, and improving unit economics, having helped startups raise over $350M and achieve successful exits. Additionally, as an adjunct professor at USC, I teach courses on growth marketing and venture initiation, making complex concepts accessible. Let's work together to turn your startup vision into reality. Reach out to get started!

I’ve been involved with dozens of successful early-stage startups as a Co-founder, CEO, Investor, Advisor. I’m passionate about helping others avoid the pitfalls of early-stage startups, team formation, idea validation, development, and go to market strategy. I currently help run a Venture Studio in Utah called Philo Ventures where we're building startups with a team of software engineers, product strategists, ux designers, marketers. Part time I also help run a student startup incubator based at Brigham Young University called 'Sandbox' where undergraduate students take a year off of their normal coursework and get college credit while we pair them up with experts from the community and teach them how to start a software startup.

Welcome to my profile! With over a decade of experience in strategic operations and transformation, I bring a wealth of knowledge to aspiring startup founders. As the CEO and Founder of my own consulting firm, I have firsthand experience in navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship. My previous roles at Elastic and Intel involved leading global operations transformations, managing multi-million dollar integrations, and driving operational efficiencies, all of which are crucial skills for startup success. I specialize in helping founders streamline their operations, optimize workflows, and develop strategic plans to scale their businesses effectively. Let's connect and discuss how I can support your journey to building a successful startup!

Four years ago, I made the leap from McKinsey into the startup world, and I've been helping others do the same ever since. Today, I lead Strategy and Corporate Development at a tech company backed by Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Silver Lake, and others. I manage a team overseeing FP&A, M&A, go-to-market strategy, fundraising, and investor relations, and I've helped raise eight figures of private capital along the way. I was the company's first commercial hire and grew from Director to SVP in 2.5 years, so I know what it takes to stand out and scale quickly in high-growth environments. Through coaching, I've helped dozens of candidates land interviews and offers at exciting technology startups (especially in media and sports) via crafting narratives, translating their experience, and navigating the hiring process with confidence.

I've spent my career at the intersection of technical depth and human complexity, and that's exactly where the most pressing founder challenges live. My background spans three years as Chief of Staff at Khosla Ventures, six years in the Army Special Forces, and a joint MBA/MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford with a focus on AI and quantum computing. I've worked with dozens of founders at all stages, from bootstrapped through Series A and beyond, on all aspects of the founder journey: company formation, finding PMF, pivoting, fundraising, hiring, and scaling. Drawing on my experience operating as part of high-performing teams in high-stakes environments, I also help founders skillfully navigate the challenges that don't show up in pitch decks but derail companies anyway — cofounder conflict, role confusion, and communication breakdowns. For founders with deep technical backgrounds, my training in physics and engineering and three years inside a deep tech VC firm means I actually understand what you're building, and the identity shift that comes when a researcher steps into the CEO role.