Vetted Co-Founders in California

Teage Johnson

Screened

Junior Full-Stack Engineer specializing in FinTech and machine learning

California, USA3y exp

“Software engineer at early-stage startup Cari with hands-on experience shipping AI-enabled production workflows, including an LLM chatbot for a micro-transit platform and an automated image-processing pipeline integrated with Claude. Stands out for combining practical agent reliability patterns—schema validation, fallbacks, caching, and idempotency—with strong ML evaluation instincts and experience cleaning messy operational invoice data.”

Corbin Ward

Screened

Junior Product Manager / APM specializing in data tools, CMS platforms, and AI-enabled products

San Jose, CA1y exp

“Data Software Tools Analyst at Q.ai through rapid growth and a $2B Apple acquisition who led an internal CMS for participant/PII workflows using Next.js (App Router) + FastAPI/Postgres with strong security controls (JWT + Postgres RLS). Also drove a major frontend architecture shift toward React Server Components, reporting ~4x faster page loads, and has experience building durable realtime collaboration systems with Supabase/SvelteKit and server-centric state management.”

Colleen Gray

Screened

Executive healthcare and medtech CEO specializing in capital raising and medical device commercialization

San Francisco, CA18y exp

“Registered investment banker at US Capital Global with roughly 20 years of fundraising experience across startups and growth companies. He has served as both operator and founder/C-suite leader, raising more than $275M+ for ventures including StorageWay and $27M for medtech startup TracPatch Health, with particular depth in healthcare, investor strategy, diligence, and board-level execution.”

Stephan Thomas

Screened

Executive growth strategist specializing in technology, M&A, and digital manufacturing

San Francisco, CA25y exp

“Repeat founder who has co-founded two companies and sold the most recent one three years ago. Currently exploring a fintech-style debt management tool for SMBs focused on covenant monitoring, reporting, and forecasting, and is still in customer discovery with a mock demo and landing page. Brings a thoughtful, customer-first approach to evaluating startup ideas and a solid understanding of how venture studios support companies from 0 to 1.”

“Sourcing-focused early-stage VC operator who stays embedded in high-signal founder ecosystems (YC/Techstars-style accelerators, state programs, investor Slack/angel networks) and runs a curated community of ~45 VCs to drive consistent deal flow. Uses a structured, metrics-driven outbound and screening process (25 reachouts/week; 5–8 calls) plus Airtable-based pipeline management and n8n follow-up automation; has advanced sourced deals (e.g., rare earth materials, quantum/grid optimization, plasma fuel for fusion) into pitch sessions and late-stage diligence.”

Adam Folsom

Screened

Mid-level Venture Capital & Growth Associate specializing in startups, creator economy, and Web3 media

Los Angeles, CA5y exp

“Early-stage venture/product studio operator (BESO) focused on sourcing and evaluating founders and moving opportunities through diligence toward partnerships. Uses a multi-channel outbound approach (LinkedIn/X, community events, accelerators, Reddit) and builds trust by bringing market research and regulatory insights (e.g., sports tech/gambling) to founders while running a structured, CRM-driven pipeline.”

Sam Fish

Screened

Senior Full-Stack Engineer specializing in web platforms, cloud infrastructure, and data systems

Culver City, CA5y exp

“Full-stack/product-leaning engineer who owned an end-to-end AI Tutor feature (Claude-powered) shipped simultaneously to iOS/Android/web via Expo, with Cloudflare Workers backend and PostHog analytics. Built the company’s GitHub-based CI/CD to coordinate app store releases with backend blue/green deployments. Also has significant data engineering experience (including ~8TB/day workloads) using dbt/Fivetran plus sharding and hashing-based diffing for correctness.”

Michael Jenkins

Screened

Director-level Video Editor & Producer specializing in longform YouTube storytelling

Los Angeles, CA16y exp

“Video editor/producer with a storytelling-first approach to longform YouTube, spanning both documentary-style musician content (travel/writing songs) and punchy corporate marketing for startups. Has led and mentored remote overseas freelance editors as a marketing content manager at BCG Attorney Search using rubrics/style guides, and has on-set experience as camera operator/DP for The Shade Room and Viacom YouTube content.”