🦄 <- This you bro ??

.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but you probably suffer from Unicorn Dysmorphia.

Symptoms include:
→ An irrational belief that your startup is a "rOcKeTsHiP 2 da mOOOON 🚀"
→ Holding out for a mythical VC to swoop in and save you
→ Wondering why every other startup is successful and you're not

Let me liberate you with a fact: only 0.00006% of startups become unicorns.

You're playing a game where the odds are stacked against you.

But the good news is you don't have to play the game.

You can absolutely:
→ Run your startup without trying to always please others
→ Find investors who actually want to help you and don't just see you as a potential paycheck
→ Fulfill your mission and find success on your own terms


The Anti-VC can get you there.

I've helped 1000+ founders find the best path to capital that worked for them.

And I can do the same for you.


So if you're ready to drop (Uni/Corn) from your pronouns...

If you're ready to undo years of VC brainwashing...

If you're ready to capitalize your startup ridiculously fast... visit my Featured section 👇🏽

Saleem Ahmad 🤎

Optico

My role at Optico Inc, a pioneer in cutting-edge Voice and Audio Analytics company takes me to the forefront of driving transformative change across multiple sectors, including Telecommunications, Gaming, Defense, Corporate e-Commerce, and Logistics. Our technology stands at the cusp of revolutionizing how information and communication are processed, offering benefits to a wide range of industries. 

My primary objective is to steer Optico Inc. towards a future where our innovations not only lead in market advancements but also adhering to the standards of ethics and morality.

Interim Chief Executive Officer

NSL Corporation

I manage 15 of my own Ecommerce & Marketplace Websites for Fun.

Hobbyist

Startup Ipoh

Connected businesses in Ipoh with Investors from across Malaysia, International Media and Distribution Networks. Provided venues for talks regarding Business Development and Growth for local businesses. Also organised Startup Weekend Ipoh & Tedx Ipoh.

Founder

JM Socials 

An Exciting Venture. Worked with Brands from Australia, France, Singapore as well as Local Businesses in the City of Ipoh (Malaysia's 3rd largest city). At JM Socials, i delivered websites, social media, branding and ecommerce strategies and campaigns, and photography services. Sometimes also shooting with the Getty Images Asia team. Events covered : World Laureus Sports Award, Beijing Selection for the 2022 Winter Olympics, Liverpool vs. Malaysia, PGA Tour.

Business Owner

Runnermyrun Sdn Bhd

Built a delivery startup from scratch when all odds pointed to the fact that Ipoh is not a good city for delivery. Made local restaurants an average of RM10,000 - RM50,000 per month in 2018. Numbers increased rampantly from there as our first app launched in December 2018. Partnerships associated to the company have all increased recognition and growth.

Founder & CEO

The Star Online

Through the All Malaysian Blogger Project, (my blog was The Gentle Snail) I was discovered by Senior Editor Tan Ju Eng who gave me the opportunity to be a host at The Star Online. The Star Online was a video platform in correspondence with Youth of Malaysia's RAGE community covering young and insightful current events of Malaysia. I was given the position to interview Music Producers from Universal Music and Warner Music who were flown into the country for shows, gigs, tours and work.

Freelance Host

News Herald Newspaper

I began my journey of Writing & Photography by covering the ongoings of events and occasions of the Catholic Churches in Perak. My education in this line was under the tutelage of Richard Hor. A wise School Principal from SMK Anglo Chinese School in the city who held the Managerial position for the State at this newspaper.

Contributing Writer

Royal College of Music

Enrolled for the examination in June. Prepared and Achieved my Diploma in Music in 2 months.

Graduate

Joanna Gough

"We're so disruptive, they tried to silence us"

I’m a Growth Hacker - Ex-VC | Founder | AI & Impact-Driven Venture Builder | Future of Work

Marketer of 17+ Years, 4x Founder. Former DTC/Retailer & SaaS Founder. Newsletter. Podcast. Commerce Roundtable

Oatly got banned in Sweden for saying their oat milk was better for the environment than cow milk.

The dairy industry sued them. 

And won.

Oatly had to stop saying it.

So what did they do?

They put the lawsuit details on their packaging.

Word for word. 
The legal complaint. 
Right on the carton.

"A Swedish court said we can't tell you that oat milk is better for the environment than cow milk. So we won't. But you can read the court documents yourself and decide."

Sales tripled in 6 months.

Why?

Because the lawsuit made them look dangerous.

If the dairy industry was threatened enough to sue them, Oatly must be onto something.

The ban became proof of legitimacy.

Here's the pattern:

Resistance from incumbents is the best marketing you can't buy.

When big players try to shut you down, it signals to customers that you're a real threat.

And customers love rooting for the underdog against the giant.

Oatly didn't just survive the lawsuit. They turned it into their core narrative.

"We're so disruptive, they tried to silence us"

For your brand:

What can you say that would make the old guard uncomfortable?
What stance puts you in opposition to the industry leaders?

Controversy from competitors isn't something to avoid. It's proof you matter.

The goal isn't to get sued. It's to position yourself as the alternative that scares the establishment.

Product Engineer | Hardware & Software Integrator

We built LaunchKey in 7 hours at Google!

LaunchKey helps companies find, vet and engage potential partners with Firebase, Gemini, Gmail and Maps.

Here’s how we built it:

Firebase: We used Auth, Functions, Firestore, Hosting and Storage to ingest leads, validate inputs and render custom pages

Gemini: We used Flash to generate email templates, and extract insights from documents and voice

Gmail: We used the API to send emails on your behalf

Maps: We used the JavaScript API to overlay interactive maps

Others: Next.js | React | TypeScript | Tailwind CSS | Express | Zod

And made it public!

• Repo (MIT): https://lnkd.in/g8h--eGN
• Demo: https://launchkey.web.app/

Huge thanks to:

• Teammates: Jasmine. Jayren. Sofia 
• Organisers: Agrim, Ivan, Sherry, Thorsten
• Organisations: 65labs, Google DeepMind

And to everyone in the room! Can’t wait for the next!

I was downtown for Founder Coffee today. And as I was headed to my Uber, someone came up to me and asked me for money. I continued to head to my uber, and their decent demeanor paused. They started screaming insults cause they didn’t get $1. 


Downtown Portland is scary, even if it’s not the war zone.

Head of Growth @ Jinba (YC W26) Enterprise Workflow Automation | 2x founder

2 weeks into my role at Jinba (YC W26) and i'm amazed by our product as well as the company's growth journey. Jinba actually started 1 year ago in Japan and cockroached to a pretty solid enterprise revenue just in Japan market, and it went deep in terms of adoption, which of course means our team had to figure out everything from security to compliance to on-prem setups and access management and logging etc. 

now we're in Y Combinator for hypergrowth internationally. some of the enterprise giants in Japan onboarded 10s of thousands of their employees to use Jinba, and it's a fascinating dynamic because in one case, around 200 employees in an enterprise have built Jinba apps that another 20,000+ employees of the said enterprise use every day. and these apps can be used either as API endpoints, or as MCPs anywhere (in our case we have a dedicated app for running MCPs, so it's basically a chat interface with your enterprise's own AI apps). 

we started using a YC-inspired slogan recently that says "build something your colleagues want" because of how easy Jinba makes it for anyone to build an actual internal tool that other employees adopt.

i'm really interested to meet enterprises in US, Japan or Singapore who are exploring AI automation for their companies over coffee/lunch. 
if you bring your laptop i'll take 1 minute to set you up and show you your very first app :)

I've been a power user of AI app builders from cursor to claude code to v0 and bolt and lovable etc. (shout out to 🥃 Agrim Singh for looping me into this category before it was mainstream) but even I had a literal wow moment while using Jinba to build and publish an app.

the main difference in my opinion is how guarded Jinba is. meaning the prompt doesn't create an open ended artistic thing that needs tens of hours to bring it together and make it publishable. it's usable and enterprise grade by default (thanks to the founders and the product team obsessing over product and customer feedback every day for a long time while increasing revenue).let me know :) i'd love to connect!

𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝘀, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁!

Oregon’s semiconductor ecosystem isn’t just growing—it’s mature, resilient, and deeply connected.

Maps created by the Silicon Forest Partnership reveal decades of real companies, suppliers, and R&D networks working together statewide. Other regions are still building their foundations—Oregon shows what long-term integration looks like in action.

𝗢𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗻, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁.

These maps show how a mature, operating ecosystem looks like with real companies, real connections, & real impact.

Jon Bradshaw , meet Spencer Cook  & Kent Richeson  . Your perception of Utah will completely change.

CEO // Codebase.com // Appointment.com // Venture Capital Podcast

Is Utah's tech community cliquey? 

This is a real question. 

Today I was talking with one of the top investors in Las Vegas. He hosts 100+ VC events/year and spends a lot of time with the international VC community. 

When Utah came up, his one-word reaction was:

“Clicky.”

His follow-up was that it can feel inaccessible, especially when other ecosystems open their doors freely to him.

And honestly… this isn’t the first time I’ve heard it. I’ve heard fellow Utahns say the same thing.

So I’m not posting this to complain. I’m posting it because if there’s even a little truth here, it’s a problem worth fixing.

A few questions for founders, investors, operators, and community builders:

- Have you experienced Utah as welcoming or hard to break into?
- If you have felt it’s cliquey, what specifically created that feeling?
- If you haven’t, what’s working that we should replicate?

And most importantly: if we want Utah to be more open and globally connected, what can we do practically?

If you’re building the community here, I’d love your take. And, if you’ve felt shut out, I’d especially love to hear what would have changed that for you.

Let’s make Utah the place where the default is: “Come in. You belong here.”

👇 Thoughts?

I’m absolutely looking forward to this! 
PJ Accetturo will you be there? You have to!

Creative Business Transformation | Aligning Strategy, Storytelling & Systems to Drive Growth in the Age of Intelligence | Consultant, Entrepreneur, Researcher

211 hybrid films submitted from 44 countries for MIXED*
Submissions are now closed—genuinely inspired by the response.

We’ve shortlisted the top 25 films, now under review by our Selection Committee of industry leaders and practitioners.

The work was truly "mixed." A few examples:

• Traditional stop-motion using AI-assisted masking to remove rigging
• Historic still photographs brought to life for performance and pacing
• Calculating production CO₂ emissions and purchasing carbon offsets

Some films were 100% AI generated. Some films were 100% AI free. And most were somewhere in between aka MIXED* 

Watching all 211 films—amateur to professional, Portland to China, Switzerland, Brazil, India, and beyond—was creatively energizing.

THANK YOU to everyone who participated in this first chapter of MIXED*. Link in comments below to learn more and attend the showcase in #PDX on Feb 4.

Congratulations to our Top 25 shortlisted filmmakers and teams 👇 

Soslan Chekhoev
泠洁 卢 
lingjie lu
Voku.Studio ™
Mike Vogel
Mark Wachholz
Felipe Borges Valerio
Mehdi Saqi
Tedra Wilson
Frankie Caradonna
Olaf Taranczewski 
Alexander Zarshchikov 
Dhaval Shah
Nishtha Shailajan
John Lycette
Martin Haerlin
Frank Bell
Dario Cirrincione
Alfred Matthew Hernandez
Justin Zackariah Zagri
MINGU KANG
Jurian Isabelle
Phil Langer
Malte Pell
Jonathan Perry 
Nicholas Boxwell

Our Five Official Selections will be announced Jan 15—stay tuned! 

✌ 

cc db clay AI Portland Oregon Film (AKA Oregon Film & Video Office) Portland Events and Film | Prosper Portland PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow Party Animal Sarah Leighton Lauren Garin

Whoaaaa! This is really epic. 
Congrats, Mike Biglan, M.S.

President of HacKSU | Ex. DevSecOps Intern @ Nationwide | Connector of People | Taking over the World

DevSwarm From the Happy Coders, it was a pleasure working with your parallel agent platform at NexHacks. We not only used it for our development, but, as we showcase in our video, we also used it as an integration within our Task Automation platform. 

The ease at which it was to fix bugs, and grow our repository from DevSwarm made it a really convenient tool. And with the added bonus of working with any CL AI tool, it was quite a nice experience.

Which CEO in Portland has a mindset like this?

Former Issuu, inc. CEO; CEO Coach, Tech Investor/Advisor

Yesterday, I got to join Christine Tsai and the 500 Global team in Palo Alto to participate in #VCUnlocked: Silicon Valley...a three day program in association with #Jetro for Japanese investors.

We covered the importance of Liquidity Literacy for Investors and CEO's.  Great energy and lots of good questions and a fun dialogue with session host Amjad Ahmad

We covered a lot of ground, including that All CEOs should be liquidity literate. 

This doesn't mean you're trying to sell your company. It doesn't mean you're distracted by exits. And it definitely doesn't mean you're optimizing for the wrong thing. 

It means you understand—at a practical, working level—how value is created, how value is realized, and what choices you actually have when the market shifts.

Liquidity literacy is the most underrated skill of modern CEOs and the best VCs know how to help CEOs focus on category changing outcomes while keeping an eye on other options just in case.  (and just in case....happens more than 95% of the time)

Most founders work incredibly hard to build great companies
 …but far fewer know how to turn that value into actual liquidity.

Some hard-earned truths from my liquidity literacy talk:
• Exits are not events. They’re processes.
 If you start thinking about liquidity when a banker calls, you’re already late.

• While growth can be an initial part of the attraction, buyers buy durability and impact products.
 Retention, repeat usage, product value, pricing power, and operational maturity matter more than the story.

• Optionality beats optimization.
 The best outcomes come when you’re not dependent on a single path—raise, sell, stay private, IPO, or roll equity.

• Your board, banker, and lawyer are tools—not saviors.
 Great outcomes happen when the CEO is deeply engaged, informed, and decisive.

• Bad deals don’t fail at LOI. They fail years earlier.
 Messy cap tables, unclear narratives, weak leadership benches, and wishful thinking all show up eventually.

• Liquidity is personal.
 It impacts your family, your health, your relationships, and your identity more than most founders expect.

The biggest mistake I see?
 
Brilliant operators outsourcing the most consequential financial moment of their lives.

Liquidity literacy isn’t about selling your company.

It’s about understanding your options long before you need them.
If you’re a CEO and liquidity feels “far off” or “someone else’s job,” that’s exactly when to lean in.

Happy to share more or compare notes with others who’ve been through it.

#LiquidityLiteracy #CEOAdvice #FounderJourney #MergersAndAcquisitions
 #VentureCapital #PrivateEquity #ExitPlanning #Leadership #CareGritLearning

This vibe coding platform beats all the rest. I’ve been exploring tools and platforms in AI the whole of December and the $50mm ARR is well deserved. Google picks the best startups. Then YC invests.

Founder & CEO, Emergent | Build your idea → emergent.sh

$50M ARR. 5M+ users in 190+ countries. Emergent is now one of the fastest growing AI startups in the world. The fastest-ever in India. And the story gets even better...

I'm excited to announce we've raised a $70M Series B from Khosla Ventures & SoftBank Investment Advisers, with Lightspeed India, Prosus Ventures, Together & Y Combinator participating.

This matters a lot to me personally. I've watched hundreds of people, including most friends, give up great ideas prematurely because building software felt impossible.

When Madhav and I started Emergent, we wanted to give everyone a team of top 1% developers to bring their most audacious ideas to life.

This raise gets us closer to that ambition. Now, we help builders all over the world do the same.

Millions need to know the time has come to transform their businesses and lives through software. Millions more haven't even realized that it's never been easier to build.

It's time to take Emergent there.

The next era of entrepreneurship won't be built with expensive engineers or high dev shop costs. It will be built with Emergent.

We're the only AI app builder that operates like a team of top engineers, turning ideas into monetizable software.

The expression of ideas is universally distributed. We only have one ask: Can you describe and express your idea?

The world is ready for your next big idea to take shape.

Start building now: https://lnkd.in/g8zsavDA

#aicoding #aistartup #startupfunding #vibecoding

Vibe Trading is here. Who on Linkedin is on it?

Looking forward to what startups are going to do for ads in the Age of AI.

We've spoken to hundreds of enterprises – and they all say the same thing:


Call center operations are TERRIBLE, and IVRs waste everyone’s time.

So we've chosen to fix this.

Bland’s AI phone agents replace legacy IVRs with natural, human-sounding voice agents that accurately represent your brand, understand your customers, and resolve calls end-to-end.

They can be customized for any use case, integrate with all existing software, and handle millions of calls simultaneously—24/7. No phone trees. No hold music. Just faster, smarter customer conversations built for enterprises.

Want to try for yourself and see how other enterprise leaders are using it to save millions? Book a demo today: https://lnkd.in/gfzdxjiP

yes!!!!
calling domino's. It's just a coding and pizza weekend. <3

Something straight out of science fiction is happening right now with MoltBot, and if you haven't used it, it's nearly a peek into the future...

OpenClaw/MoltBot is a personal agent that's always on, working for you. These agents are so autonomous, they are even running their own social network called MoltBook.

This is a genuine paradigm shift. Extremely useful. And honestly, so much fun to just fidget with.

When I was playing with it, I realized the setup and potential security concerns could be intimidating for many. So we made it safe and easy for anyone.

Introducing MoltBot on Emergent: 2 hours of setup is now 2 minutes.

Everyone can participate in the future. Enjoy!

What 2 min setup looks like on Emergent:
→ Click the MoltBot chip
→ Prompt is pre-written
→ Click Next, done!

No setup rabbit holes. No security anxiety. Just start, we give you an Emergent LLM key by default.

Read our Tutorial for more: https://lnkd.in/g4es9wbB

P.S. This is an experiment. Please share feedback and we'll improve as fast as we can.

#clawdbot #moltbot #moltbook #openclaw

The Developer of Neocortex and Ready Player Me

View Sercan (Sarge) Altundaş’s profile

📢 Big news! We are at Neocortex, excited to support Supercell Global AI Game Hackathon for the second time!

It's an open weekend to reimagine the future of gaming where everyone's welcome, whether you're technical, creative, or both. We'll have top-tier tools and an awesome community at the intersection of games and AI.

I will be at Helsinki to support you on-site and online, to make sure you can get the best out of Neocortex to create smart NPCs and more! 

🗓️How to participate:
- Register to the online event via Luma
- Join Supercell AI Innovation Hub Discord
- Links are in the comments 👇

Prizes include fast-track passes straight to the Supercell AI Lab interview stage.
Let's build amazing AI-powered games together.⚡

Huge thanks to Supercell, Matias Varjonen and Jessica Jung 🔜 DICE for their second time invitation to the event! This truly means a lot to me as someone who's deeply excited about the future of games with AI.

#supercell #neocortex #gamedev #indiedev #gamejam #hackathon #game #ai

So excited to be hosting two events for Utah Tech Week 🎉 

The first one will be on February 4th at 7PM with Redo talking about their PM-less way to build products via the sell -> design -> build model.
So excited to chat with some old friends Paxton Hansen, Joe Rodman, Daniel C. Andrew Radford 🌟 

The second will be a laid back round table discussion on the future of tech in Utah. We'll be talking all things AI, how to build, what we want Utah to be known for, etc. Come hang out the morning of February 5th at the Kiln in Holladay. 
If you're a community builder, founder, designer this one is for you 👆 

Cannot wait to party with everyone next month! 
Link to RSVP in the comments 👇👇👇

#utahtechweek Design Mob #designcommunity #productmeetups #productdesign #engineering

A filmmaker, Lu Huang (el.cine on X) created a 3D product viewer with hand gesture controls, just chatting with Emergent, and it's going viral.

The whole thing runs in-browser: rotate, zoom, and explore 3D models using your webcam and hand movements. He even shared a practical tutorial: https://lnkd.in/gWe_Ab9x

Your imagination really is the limit.

How Emergent helped:
→ Direct 3D model upload, no extra steps or third-party tools
→ Added XYZ sliders, lighting controls, and camera behaviors in seconds through chat
→ Built a full 3D environment with shadows and HDR lighting just by asking
→ Fixed bugs by pasting error screenshots

One of the coolest things I've seen built yet. So proud to see the 'Made with Emergent' badge on this!

#appdevelopment #googlegemini #vibecoding

Stop vibe coding.

Start vibe manufacturing.

Trillions of dollars have poured into generative AI products over the past few years—yet the physical world hasn’t experienced meaningful change since the Industrial Revolution.

After visiting 40 factories across industrial China, I realized something interesting:

The real world is mostly a small set of repeated patterns.

A few processes. A few materials. Endless recombinations.

This month, during a manufacturing residency with MIT, I pressure-tested this idea in Shenzhen.

Yes, physics is real. But “the laws of physics” is also a convenient excuse for moving slowly.

One conclusion is clear: the physical world is becoming programmable.
Vibe manufacturing is the new interface for reality.

Full write-up below.

[𝘗𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥: 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥]

taplio

The Battle

Saleem Ahmad 🤎

Joanna Gough

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJoanna Gough's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Saleem Ahmad 🤎

Joanna Gough

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Joanna Gough's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJoanna Gough's LinkedIn Performance