Who am I?
Background
I am currently the co-founder and Chief Customer Officer (CCO) of WunderGraph, a company revolutionizing the future of API management and collaboration. As CCO, I lead all customer-facing operations, from pre-sales and post-sales to customer success, while managing our enterprise accounts and ensuring their success with our platform.
Prior to WunderGraph, I gained valuable experience as a software engineer at three diverse startups in industries ranging from cybersecurity and insurtech to entertainment.
Before transitioning into tech, I was a college soccer player and even signed a professional contract in the USL league.
What I'll Do Here
- ▸Share insights and strategies about enterprise sales, customer success, and building a startup
- ▸Document my journey from founding to scaling a B2B SaaS startup
- ▸Write about startup tips, tricks, and lessons learned along the way
- ▸Explore the intersection of technology, business, and customer relationships
- ▸Chronicle my professional evolution from athlete to tech founder
Experience
“Each day I realize how much I don't know, and that's exactly where I need to be.”
WunderGraph
Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer
- ▸Raised $3.5M seed round and built customer base to 35+ enterprise customers
- ▸Managing entire customer lifecycle from pre-sales to post-sales and customer success
- ▸Navigating enterprise procurement, legal negotiations, and security reviews
- ▸Building my dream role alongside incredible co-founders, traveling globally for customers and meetings with my team
- ▸Seeing enterprises adopt and love our product while tackling new challenges daily
Building WunderGraph has been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my life and it's exactly where I need to be.
“Building software that impacts millions of users taught me the importance of reliability and scalability.”
Lockton Companies
Software Engineer
- ▸Led development of enterprise insurance platforms
- ▸Built scalable solutions using React, Node.js, and AWS
- ▸Implemented critical features for Fortune 500 clients
Working at Lockton exposed me to enterprise-scale software development and the complexities of the insurance industry. It was here that I learned the importance of building reliable, scalable solutions that could handle millions of users and complex business logic.
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” - Vidal Sassoon
Tesla Media Design
Founder
- ▸Had a luxury car dealership as a client that would give me free cars to advertise for free. Drove Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys.
- ▸Grew to team of 5 people
- ▸Reached $100K ARR in under 6 months
First real attempt at building a company. Learned everything on the fly - payroll, contracting, sales, marketing - all while keeping my day job at StageWood.
Grew to a team of 5 people and hit $100K ARR in under 6 months. Business model was simple: $1K/month for ad management plus 2-3K for ad spend. Almost 90% profit margins.
Did everything wrong but somehow made it work. The real value wasn't in the revenue - it was in learning how to build and run a business from scratch.
“First real tech job, first GraphQL project, first startup attempt - lots of firsts here!”
StageWood
Software Engineer
- ▸Built lot's of projects that never had any users lol
- ▸Learned React, GraphQL , Node, Python, Wordpress, AWS, Marketing, etc..
Finally got my first "real" engineering job! Moved to Miami and got that Software Engineer title I'd been chasing. While working here, I started Tesla Media & Design on the side.
Looking back, this was my crash course in how NOT to build a startup, the CEO made every mistake possible: never talked to users, built features no one asked for, and tried to do everything while doing it part time lol. Expensive lessons, but they stuck with me.
“Youth is about dreaming big and being foolish enough to believe you can achieve the impossible.”
Fortress Information Security
VSOC Security Analyst
- ▸Built small security tools to help with SOC processes in Python
- ▸Mostly messed around with scripting and automation on Excel sheets
- ▸Learned Kali Linux and Social Engineering. Hacked into my gf's Instagram for fun.
Man, this job was rough - I hated it so much I almost ditched tech completely for law school! Got fired right after the holiday party (classic timing), but the CEO actually did me a solid. He basically said "kid, you're meant to build your own thing." Looking back, watching these founders (who were on their 5th company!) showed me you could just... go build stuff.
Interestingly, when offered a full-time position, I requested private stock instead of a 401K, believing in the company's potential. Ironically, they later raised a $125M Series C.
“In college, you can learn how to learn. That’s the real benefit of a good education.” — Steve Jobs
Rollins College
Student Athlete
- ▸Division II Soccer Player
- ▸Computer Science & Economics Major
- ▸Signed Professional Contract with USL
College was a time of growth and discovery. Had a lot of fun playing soccer, making friends, traveling, and making some questionable decisions. Despite being advised to switch from CS (and not landing a single tech internship), I still had a lot of fun and learned a lot about myself and the world around me.