Primary Job Title Co-founder & CEO Primary Organization Haystack
Location Venice, California, United States Regions Greater Los Angeles Area, West Coast, Western US Gender Male
Website www.haystackteam.com/ LinkedIn View on LinkedIn
I am based in Southern California but often say I’m from Michigan because I spent the majority of my childhood there (Go Blue). Thought I wanted to be an architect when I enrolled at Stanford, ended up downloading the beta of Snapchat, and fell in love with all things related to pixel-pushing. Ended up studying Mechanical Engineering with a focus
in Product Design at the Hasso Plattner d.school. While on The Farm, I was also the squad lead on the Varsity Division 1 fencing team. Tried dropping out to start up a company - no product-market fit (found out that’s pretty important).
Moved to Los Angeles (surf is better - albeit more crowded down here), where I joined Workpop on the Product team - learned a ton there before we were acquired by Cornerstone OnDemand. Almost quit the first day, ended up sticking around.
While there, I learned about an intranet and became obsessed. Felt that no one had built a truly consumer-grade platform (eg. Slack, Notion) for the intranet market and founded Haystack with Haibo Zhao (early Snap employee). Raised $10m from some amazing investors like Coatue, Greycroft, Scott Belsky (Adobe), Biz Stone (Twitter), and more.
Currently building an award-winning product with world-class customers like Pinterest, Thumbtack, NerdWallet, Chime, CreditKarma, Foursquare, and hundreds more. We’re profitable, based in Venice, and on a mission to make big companies feel smaller. Loving every step of the journey and so proud of the team & product we’re building.
When I’m not lost in the Haystack, I’m surfing local breaks, trail running Malibu, or pensively staring at a project car I’m working on, confused why it won’t start.
