Category: Mentors (Page 2 of 23)

Steve Austin is a 25-year veteran of Silicon Valley and instructor coach at Founders Space.

Steve helps companies raise money, set up Growth Hacking and Scale B2B(2C) Customer Sales Revenue. He has helped dozens of major companies’ source new technology from around the globe.

Steve is a serial entrepreneur. He has developed and launched a dozen high-tech products for making computer chips and enterprise billing. His teams sold several hundred million dollars of these products. He has been the CEO, MD, and VP International Sales and Marketing. Steve has managed global operations including personally making $100s of millions in B2B sales. Read More...

Chelsea Ramm joined Founders Space as a mentor. She is the Director of Sum Savvy Consulting and has 8 years of experience in Procurement, Supply Chain and Logistics. She has primarily worked in the automotive industry managing a global supply chain that focused on high quality, longevity, innovation and cost.

During her time at Tesla, she was instrumental in the Model S and Model X launch, and played a vital role in providing low cost opportunities for achieving the Model 3 cost target. She assisted with the providing cost guidance to engineering, resourced low performing suppliers and helped with program management to keep up with the rapid design iterations. At Lucid Motors she helped define the company processes and systems cost, was invaluable in establishing the supply chain strategy and developing relationships with key suppliers, and worked closely with the design and engineering team to achieve the aesthetic and performance desired for the budget provided. Being so deeply involved in hardware design and component sourcing, she has developed an intuitive and collaborative approach to finding unique and creative solutions to reduce cost while improving performance and functionality of the product.

She brings knowledge and experience in a wide range of products and commodities including plastics, castings, stampings, mechanisms, lighting, control modules, soft goods, decorative parts, etc. She has an intimate understanding of hardware design cycles, developing timelines, how to leverage your supply base, supply chain and logistics strategies to reduce cost, and negotiating supply contracts. She is also experienced in finding high quality and high performance suppliers & CMs and has an established network of manufacturers in the US and Asia.

Roger Royse is a partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP, an international corporate law firm. He works with companies ranging from newly formed tech startups to publicly traded multinationals in a variety of industries. Roger regularly advises on complex tax structuring, high stakes business negotiations, and large international financial transactions. He also practices in the area of angel and venture fund formation.

Roger is widely published on technical tax topics, is a regular speaker for the California CPA Education Foundation, and has been an adjunct Professor of Taxation (Property Transactions and International Taxation) for Golden Gate University. Read More...

Steven Schuler joined Founders Space as a mentor. He is a marketing leader with recent experience at Intercom and Yahoo. At Yahoo he led product marketing for Gemini, Yahoo’s platform for mobile native advertising. A mobile veteran, he has worked in the industry for over fifteen years, with positions on the wireless team at web analytics company Compete, at mobile marketing pioneer m-Qube, and at Sprint.

In the summer of 2007 Steve rode a bicycle from Boston, MA to Seattle, WA and kept a blog using only his Sony Ericsson s710a flip phone.

Steven holds an MBA from Georgetown University, where he is now a guest lecturer, and a BA from Union College.

Giancarlo Mori joined Founders Space as a mentor. He is the CEO and Chief Architect at Movyl Technologies, an AI-powered platform for social communications and analysis.

Prior to starting Movyl Technologies, he was EVP of Strategy at Atari and CCO at Glu Mobile. Giancarlo has spent 20 years in technology and media as a technology and product executive at companies such as Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Activision-Blizzard. Giancarlo has founded several companies with multiple successful exits.

His blog is at https://medium.com/@gcmori. He lives in Oakland, CA with his family and one cat.

George Chamales joined Founders Space as a mentor. He has nearly 20 years of computer security experience that includes leading R&D work to detect & deceive hackers for DARPA, securing financial, medical, and technology firms with Deloitte, and the end-to-end security assessment of nation-wide critical infrastructure systems.

He has provided strategic and technical security advice to dozens of startups in numerous fields and sizes ranging from angel-funded to post-acquisition. His startup work includes building security programs, designing and reviewing security architecture, ferrying teams through compliance regimes and everything in between.

Satoshi Nozaki joined Founders Space as a mentor. He is the President and CEO of Archetype Digital and Partner at Tokyo’s Archetype Ventures, the oldest startup accelerator in Japan. In addition to being a prolific seed-stage angel investor, Satoshi consults closely with enterprise-level Japanese corporations, assisting them with finding strategic partnerships and investments. He splits his time between Tokyo and the SF Bay Area and can help facilitate or provide guidance for those considering international expansion.

Alessandro Zago has been helping startups at Founders Space as a mentor since 2014. With 16+ years of extensive international and executive experience with strong emphasis on Silicon Valley-Asia cross-border business of new technology and innovation, he has a lot to offer.

Over the years he has gained deep and broad experience in managing innovation and commercializing next-gen technology covering roles such as managing director in Corporate VC and VC, business leader in tech-based startups, innovation and business development executive in large corporations, advisor and mentor in technology accelerators. Having served at Japanese, Korean, US and German technology companies closing partnerships and complex deals worldwide, he has gained strong global and cross-cultural management experience.

Currently at Enplas, Alessandro is VP New Ventures and Innovation, responsible for Corporate VC and New Business Development, Strategy and Innovation in Emerging Markets and sectors, e.g. medtech, life science, robotics, 3D printing, automotive, VR/AR. Read More...

Larry Wang joined Founders Space as a mentor. He is the CTO of Information and Communications Labs with 1000 researchers for ICT technologies in Taiwan. This is a NGO research institute that works closely with the industry. He was also the founding CEO of Taiwan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center which helped bring the best startups from Taiwan to Silicon Valley.

In the last 4 years, Larry has mentored over 100 startups (the majority in the seed and pre-seed stages) both in Silicon Valley and Taiwan, with 1/3 of the companies successfully raising funds. Based on his own personal entrepreneurial experience, he has mentored startups independently as well as in collaboration with tier-one accelerators in Silicon Valley. He places a strong emphasis on building a viable business model and gaining business traction. He is also keen on international collaborations, especially across the Pacific, and he works with many international startups.

In addition to collaborating with tier-one accelerators in Silicon Valley, he works closely with several VCs in both Silicon Valley and Taiwan, business consultants that help startups gain business traction, design houses, and ODMs that help startups with building MVP’s. Read More...