My Next Step: Joining Founder Collective
After a decade of building and scaling startups, I’m excited to embark on my next chapter as a Principal at Founder Collective in their NYC office.
Every founder’s journey is unique, but they all share the same highs, lows, and hard-won lessons. My hope is to partner with great founders and be the investor I would have wanted during my own journey—someone who can help navigate challenges, validate bold ideas, and build lasting companies. As I step into this role, I want to share a few lessons that have shaped my approach to building—and now investing.
Measure Twice, Cut Once
Early in my career as a software engineer, I fell into the classic trap of building first and asking questions later. I’d spend weeks crafting a product, only to watch it gather dust. Over time, I realized that great products don’t come from raw creativity—they come from deeply understanding the customer and their problem. Building a business isn’t about manifesting markets into existence—it’s about uncovering a real insight and executing against it with relentless focus.
Building a Business is a Series of Experiments
At Petal, my first venture-backed startup, we operated in a regulated industry where “move fast and break things” wasn’t an option. We handled personal financial records, payments, and loans, all under the watchful eye of regulators and banking partners.
What I learned was that speed—one of a startup’s greatest advantages—comes not from rushing, but from disciplined experimentation. Startups are a series of experiments, and the fastest way to win is to shorten the feedback loop. Quick validation prevents wasted effort and keeps you on the path to progress.
Great Talent Creates Focus
As a first-time founder, I tried to do it all—and for a while, I could. But as a startup scales, complexity multiplies, and focus becomes your most precious resource. I learned that hiring great talent isn’t just about skills; it’s about trust.
When you bring on people you respect and empower them to own decisions, you free yourself to focus on what truly matters. For me, building that trust was one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of leadership. It’s also one of the most critical lessons I bring to my work with founders: you can’t scale yourself, but you can scale a great team.
Invention in a Legacy Industry
At Modern Life, my second venture-backed startup, we worked to modernize life insurance distribution—a space steeped in myriad legacy processes. One of the most humbling lessons I’ve learned is that as a founder entering a mature industry, it’s easy to assume incumbents are slow or stuck in old ways—a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect at play. But the more you learn, the more you realize many systems exist for good reasons. Understanding the history and context of an industry is critical to identifying opportunities for meaningful invention—and to charting a course for the future. Now having spent over a decade building, I hope I can help founders connect dots and avoid obvious pitfalls.
Navigating Complexity
At Petal, I experienced the challenges of scaling firsthand, growing from a 9×9-foot room with my cofounders to a 200-person organization. Each new hire added complexity, making alignment and focus critical.
At Modern Life, we unified product, design, and engineering (PDE) into a single team to ensure shared goals and that we move quickly in product development. The trade-off was deprioritizing foundational work like tech debt, which we consciously accepted to focus on product-market fit. Scaling isn’t just about hiring—it’s about designing systems that handle complexity without losing agility.
We’re Entering a New Era, and I Couldn’t Be More Excited
We’re at the beginning of a new S-curve. Advances in AI are transforming industries, creating opportunities for startups to challenge incumbents and build entirely new markets. It reminds me of the 2010s, when cloud providers and digital distribution channels like Facebook ads unlocked enormous potential for startups. Each new era brings a wave of companies that capitalize on emerging technologies in ways incumbents can’t, often due to counter-positioning. Startups can move faster and take risks incumbents can’t afford, carving out defensible positions in uncharted territory.
Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of investing in and advising founders on their journeys. It’s been a deeply rewarding experience—both as a way to share lessons I’ve learned and to learn from other great founders about the art of company building.
Having built from the ground up at Petal and Modern Life, I know how much a thoughtful, founder-first partner can mean during pivotal moments. I’m thrilled to now join the team at Founder Collective to help founders tackle big challenges and build the future—one experiment at a time.
If you’re a founder raising capital or exploring ideas, reach out at contact@foundercollective.com or follow me on LinkedIn and X for updates.
