APEK.AI

Leading innovative tech company. APEK is a Virginia-based AI engineering and automation firm, specializing in the design, development, and deployment of advanced AI agents and enterprise automation solutions. With over 20 years of expertise, APEK empowers organizations and government agencies to transform operations, streamline workflows, and achieve measurable impact through custom AI systems and strategic advisory services.

CEO, Managing Partner

Voice2Me.ai

Voice2Me - owned by APEK.AI. Leading enterprise-grade AI voice technology innovation to transform customer experiences at scale. Pioneering multi-model AI architecture that delivers human-like conversations while handling thousands of concurrent interactions. Helping organizations reduce operational costs while enhancing customer satisfaction through voice intelligence solutions that bridge technology and humanity.

CEO, Chief AI Officer

Vector7.ai

As a founding council member of Vector7, I help shape an elite executive network uniting global leaders in AI, business, and policy. Vector7 provides a private, trusted arena where decision-makers exchange foresight, build influence, and remain relevant in the AI era.

Founding Council (Board Member)

The One 23 Group

Led post-M&A transformation and restructuring of government services platform company. Orchestrated migration to new ERP system in under 5 months while establishing GAAP and DCAA compliant business practices. Directed M&A due diligence activities and financial operations oversight.

Executive Vice President

Virtana Corp.

Driving operational transformation and strategic growth initiatives that resulted in 30% OPEX and 120% EBITDA improvement. Leading cross-functional teams to streamline business processes, establish corporate KPIs, and implement go-to-market strategies that improved ARR by 20%.

Executive Vice President of Operations

Siemens Government Technologies

Oversaw operational health of $500M+ federal IT portfolio serving USAF, DOD & DOE. Led execution excellence and compliance while building high-performing teams and establishing strategic partnerships.

Executive Director of Operations

General Dynamics Information Technology

Managed performance of $400M+ international portfolio across 50+ countries for USCIS. Built effective customer relationships while ensuring operational excellence and compliance in complex global environments.

Senior Director of Revenue Operations

Global Linguist Solutions, LLC

Led business account managers and program analysts overseeing $4.9 billion INSCOM international projects portfolio in the Middle East. Managed CONUS and OCONUS program functions and reporting.

Senior Operations & Strategy Advisor

Deltek

Led global SaaS software sales operations, driving team performance and quarterly target achievement through effective coaching and mentoring while growing company reputation through industry events.

Director of Sales Operations

Managed financial planning, compliance, and operational oversight for government contracting programs. Ensured contract compliance with federal regulations while optimizing program financial performance. Developed standardized reporting processes and implemented financial controls that improved program visibility and accountability across international operations.

International Program Coordinator

At 19, I left home and moved to another country with no money, no safety net, and no plan - just the belief that I was meant for more.

Since then, I’ve walked through fire more than once: divorces, parenting alone, financial struggles, personal losses, and making bold moves of leaving a successful corporate career, to rebuild my life totally from scratch…

Each chapter of this journey was not easy and sometimes terrifying, yet it became important stepping stones of who I am today.

It is what allows me to do what I do best - 
help leaders and organizations evolve through change with clarity, courage, and connection.

⭐️ Who I Am

I help organizations bridge human intelligence and artificial intelligence through agentic voice technologies, leadership enablement, and transformation strategy.

My mission: make AI adoption feel human, effortless, and profitable.

I’m CEO of APEK.ai, leading teams that build secure Agentic AI & Voice Solutions for Enterprise - helping organizations modernize operations and humanize their communication through intelligent automation.

With over 20 years in enterprise transformation, leadership strategy, and reinvention, I blend AI innovation with human insight to help people and businesses grow from the inside out.


⁉️Who I Help

	•	Enterprises ready to evolve beyond legacy systems and embrace secure, human-centric AI.
	•	Executives and founders navigating reinvention, burnout, or uncertainty about their next chapter.
	•	Leaders in transition who look successful on paper but quietly ask, “What’s next for me?”

When People Come to Me (and my team)

They come when success feels heavy, change feels impossible, or they’ve outgrown the version of themselves they used to be.
They come when transformation stops being a concept - and becomes personal.

💡 My Belief

True reinvention happens when technology and humanity evolve together.

That’s why my mission is to help people and organizations:
	•	Adopt AI intelligently.
	•	Reinvent fearlessly.
	•	Lead with voice, not noise.


Eva Karnaukh

FounderFirst

We help fast-growing B2B SaaS startups and SMBs take control of their numbers in 30 days.

What We Do:
- Bespoke Financial Modeling
- Investor-Ready Financial Reporting
- Strategic Fractional CFO Support

Founder

Connectd

Supporting start-ups from the Connectd portfolio in a board advisory and fractional CFO capacity

Advisor & Fractional CFO

Harvard Innovation Labs

Mentor to B2B Ventures

Meraki Ventures

Partner with tech CEOs to scale B2C/B2B SaaS startups from Seed funding to Series B. Optimize strategy, operations, and finances to drive both short-term and long-term business goals.

Fractional CFO/COO

Direct financial strategy and operations, including financial planning, budgeting, accounting, and P&L management, reporting directly to the CEO and COO. Drive monthly close processes and prepare comprehensive financial reports. Lead internal strategic projects and assess new business opportunities through advanced financial modeling.

Fractional Finance Partner

Developed and managed 30+ B2B contracts, vendor and billing process relationships with Fortune 100 and 500 clients, reporting to CEO & COO. Co-led implementation and integration of internal operation system (EOS) to pivot the business model and drive internal restructuring. Set strategic one-, three-year goals tied to financial performance and team accountability. Initiated and oversaw inaugural 409A valuation process, facilitating transition to Carta. Secured B-Corp status in abbreviated 14-month period through leadership of certification process.

Senior Director, Finance And Operations

Managed special project operations and led finance functions, including planning, budgeting, accounting and managing P&L for eight markets and three divisions reporting to CEO. Supervised team of 10, including accountants, recruiters, HR manager and data analysts across two business functions, managing 82 employees and 30+ contractors in seven cities. Implemented KPI tracking system to monitor individual performance. Oversaw transition from office model to fully remote workforce model.

Director, Finance & Operations

Executed business strategy, leading finance planning, budgeting, accounting and managing P&L for eight markets and five divisions, reporting to CEO. Managed team of 15 including, accountants, recruiters, HR manager and data analysts across analytics and people operations, overseeing 120 employees and 90+ contractors in seven cities. Implemented company, divisional and individual KPI and objectives and key results (OKR) tracking across sales, customer service, events, business development and media.

Senior Manager, Finance & People Operations 

Oversaw people operations, finance, administrative and legal compliance functions, reporting to CEO. Managed P&L for eight markets and three divisions, led finance planning, budgeting, accounting pre- and post-Series A funding.  Managed team of five including, office manager, recruiters and data analyst across two business functions, supervising 84 employees in seven cities. Developed financial modeling frameworks, including three-statement, budget and forecasting models. Established and led performance evaluations and compensation reviews for three divisions.

Finance & People Operations Manager

GoButler, Inc

Gobutler/Angel.ai (acquired by Amazon)

Pioneered establishment of administrative, operational finance, and HR infrastructure for newly launched U.S. headquarters, reporting to CEO and CFO. Managed 200+ employees and supported 800,000 users across North America and Europe. Collaborated with CFO to forecast budget, enhance profitability, address staffing requirements and evaluate team performance. Managed daily finance and accounting operations for US, Germany and UK markets.

Operations & Finance Lead

Sterling Capital Management LLC

Conducted strategic and financial analyses for client presentations. Created merger/acquisition target recommendations for technology and power generation clients seeking to expand market share.

Financial Analyst

Global Capital Market Solutions (GCMS)

Evaluated geographic expansion opportunities by collecting and analyzing data on existing and potential markets in capital market education and technology industry.

Market Research Intern

Infosys

Introduced new knowledge management system to track relationships with over 120 global academic institutions and 1,200 alumni as part of comprehensive integrated marketing communications plan. Created competitive benchmark analysis of over 50 information technology (IT) and consulting companies.

Business Analyst Intern

Logica

Developed financial and valuation models to evaluate corporate and industry operating performance.

Financial Analyst Intern

Fractional CFO | Helping Founders Scale Beyond $2M ARR with Strategic Finance & OKRs | Founder @ FounderFirst

I didn’t grow up pitching VCs or building apps.

I grew up in Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria, where I didn’t speak a word of English and didn’t know anyone in tech.
But I knew how to spot opportunity, adapt quickly, and keep going.

At 17, I taught myself English. At 19, I earned a scholarship to study in the U.S. 
I came with a suitcase, less than $300, no backup plan, and did whatever scrappy thing it took to stay afloat.

Then on April 15, 2015, something clicked.
The startup world found me. And for the first time, I felt like I fit.
The chaos, the creativity, the responsibility - it was mine to carry, mine to shape.

What started as a leap into the unknown became a decade of building behind the scenes.

Since then, I’ve worked with more than 20 early- and growth-stage startups, both VC-backed and bootstrapped, across B2B SaaS, Fintech, and Edtech. 
I’ve helped scale revenue from $500K to $20M, grow teams from 10 to 200, and build finance and ops functions from scratch.
I’ve navigated pivots, layoffs, down rounds, near-bankruptcies, exits, and helped founders get to the other side.

In 2024, I launched FounderFirst to do exactly that: support founders and leadership teams with the structure, clarity, and tools they need to grow sustainably.

What I Do:
- Finance: Fractional CFO support, modeling, forecasting, and investor-ready reporting
- Strategy: OKRs and operating models that don’t die after kickoff
- Coaching: For founders and finance leads navigating the messy middle

When I’m not working with founders, you’ll find me planning my next national park hike or deep in a great book (suggestions always welcome).

Curious what's possible on your scaling journey?

Don't be a stranger. Book an intro call: https://shorturl.at/kjU5J

Mariya Valeva

2020: Laid off from a factory in Italy.
2025: $20M+ business empire.
All without saying a single word.

Khaby Lame’s story looks like overnight success.
But behind the viral skits is a journey most people never saw.
He grew up in Italy but was never considered Italian.
Despite living there since he was a baby, he held only a Senegalese passport.
That meant:
❌ Endless visa struggles.
❌ Missed brand deals abroad.
❌ Feeling invisible in the only country he knew as home.

Then came the pandemic.
His factory job disappeared overnight.
No degree. No money. No security.
From his bedroom, with just a phone, he started posting silent TikToks, mocking complicated life hacks with simple, obvious solutions.

The world laughed… and kept watching.
But even as his videos reached millions, he was still facing rejection.
Still explaining why the world’s most-followed TikToker couldn’t travel freely.
Still waiting for Italy to acknowledge him as one of their own.
When he finally received Italian citizenship in 2022, it wasn’t just a passport.
It was proof that sometimes you have to succeed globally before being recognized at home.

Today, Khaby works with Hugo Boss, Pepsi, Google, State Farm, Binance, Airbnb, Sony, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Juventus, Fortnite, Xbox and more.
He earns up to $850K per post.
And yet, he still says his proudest achievement is taking care of his family.

The truth?
You can have the best product in the world.
But if nobody sees it, it doesn’t exist.
Visibility is the new currency.
And Khaby built an empire out of silence.

PS: I break down topics like this weekly in my newsletter. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc

The fastest way to kill growth?

Hire fast and cheap.

Everyone glorifies speed: ship faster, hire faster, scale faster.
But every bad hire adds friction you won’t see until it’s too late.
Culture breaks quietly.
Execution slows down.
And soon, you’re fixing problems created by people who were never meant to be in the room.

The real growth hack?
High standards.
When you stack a room with A players, something powerful happens.
They push each other higher.
They don’t tolerate mediocrity.

And they build systems that outlast them.
It’s not about being “elitist.”
It’s about protecting the culture that makes scale possible.

Hiring A players takes longer.
It’s harder.
But the alternative?
A business that never grows beyond “good enough.”
Growth isn’t a funding problem. It’s a people problem.
Fix that first, everything else compounds.

*Video credits: foundedarchive instagram

Y Combinator built 90+ unicorns… by betting on the wrong idea almost every time.

The secret?
They didn’t care if your idea failed.
They cared how fast you figured it out.

Everyone knows the success stories:
Airbnb, Stripe, Reddit, Zapier, Coinbase, DoorDash, Instacart, Gusto, Brex, Webflow, Rappi.

But what most people don’t realize?
A huge chunk of these startups:
– Had zero traction during YC
– Looked “bad” on paper
– Pivoted entirely after Demo Day

YC wasn’t a bet on ideas.
It was a system for pressure-testing people.

Here’s what they did differently, and why it worked:

1. They bet on founders, not ideas
Execution speed > pitch quality
Iteration cycles > vision decks
Technical depth + user obsession > charisma
They wanted people who had to solve a problem who wouldn’t accept silence or vanity metrics as progress.

2. They prioritized proof over potential
Can you get 10 users this week?
Can you get 3 of them to pay?
Can you keep them?
That’s what mattered, not TAM.

3. They normalized pivots
Some of the biggest outcomes were second (or third) ideas:
- Segment ditched classroom tools and built $3.2B infra
- Brex walked away from VR
- Retool pivoted from payments
- Candle cycled through 5 failures before traction
Founders weren’t punished for changing course, they were expected to.

4. They built failure into the process
40% of early YC startups died.
More than 400 companies went inactive.
Most never raised beyond seed.
But those failures weren’t waste, they were data.
They helped YC refine its lens on what does work.
And they gave space for the ones that would eventually break through.

Success wasn’t predicted.
It was engineered through relentless clarity and ruthless iteration.
The real lesson from YC isn’t “get into YC.”
It’s: build a system that forces you to confront reality faster than your competitors, and adjust in real time.
That’s what scales.

*Visual credits: Palle Broe

There’s one thing silently breaking your company.
And the worst part?
It looks like you’re being responsible.

Still reviewing every deck, approving every invoice, jumping into team calls?
That’s not leadership.
That’s control dressed up as care.
And it’s what keeps founders stuck in scale purgatory: busy, tired, and wondering why nothing’s moving.

Here’s the shift:
Founders build products.
CEOs build clarity.

If you want to operate at CEO-level, start here:

✅ Audit your calendar.
Cut 1 low-leverage task. Add 1 high-leverage CEO move (strategy, hiring, capital).

✅ Run the PDP (Personal Development Plan) check.
Ask 3 team members:
– Why are we here?
– Where are we going?
– How are we doing?
If you get 3 different answers, you’ve got your work cut out.

✅ Fire yourself from one task.
Name the new owner. Let it go.
This is how real leadership starts:
Not by doing more. But by doing less, better.

What’s one thing you know you need to let go of, but haven’t?

PS: I just broke down this topic in this week’s newsletter, check it out here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc

*Visual credits: Rachel Turner

$230K and a squeeze bottle.
That’s all it took to build one of the fastest-growing olive oil brands, now sitting at $48M+ in projected revenue.

No big VC round.
No flashy growth hacks.
Just discipline and a founder obsessed with doing one thing right.

Graza started in 2022 when Andrew Benin came back from southern Spain with an idea or, more precisely, a taste.
He’d spent months cooking with small-farm olive oils that were bold, unfiltered, alive.
When he returned to New York, he realized the US olive oil aisle was full of confusion: blends, fake origins, fancy glass bottles that looked expensive but hid average quality.

He didn’t want to make olive oil fancy.
He wanted to make it honest.
So he picked one olive (Picual), one region (Jaén, Spain), and one mission:
make premium olive oil an everyday ingredient, not a luxury.

The part most people overlook is where the real story, and the real strategy, actually lives:

→ They raised just $230K from friends, mostly to buy inventory and design the brand. No salaries.
It meant the product had to move, or the company would die.

→ Their first batch was funded on trust. Early believers wired money before there was even packaging.

→ They said no to paid ads for the first 10 months.
Instead, they sent bottles to chefs and creators who actually loved to cook.
One of them, cookbook author Molly Baz, posted it organically, that single moment lit the first spark of traction.

→ The squeeze bottle wasn’t branding genius.
It was a financial decision: cheaper to produce, cheaper to ship, unbreakable, and familiar to anyone who’s worked in a real kitchen.

→ Single-origin sourcing simplified everything: pricing, supply chain, storytelling.
While others blended multiple sources and fought quality control, Graza stayed focused on consistency and transparency, and built trust faster.
When they finally raised $2.8M a year later, it wasn’t to chase hypergrowth.
It was to scale operations without losing control.

By 2025, Graza was in 13,000+ stores, from Whole Foods to Walmart, and projected to hit $48M in sales.

Nothing about this story is random.
Every creative choice had a financial backbone.

They didn’t move fast and break things.
They moved precisely and built trust.
Because sometimes, the real advantage isn’t speed, it’s judgment.

PS: I break down topics like this weekly in my newsletter. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc

This Hollywood actress is picking better startups than half your cap table.
And no, it’s not just celebrity money floating around.

Nina Dobrev (best known for drinking blood on screen) is quietly backing some of the smartest consumer bets out there: 
• SmartSweets → turning better-for-you candy into a retail staple 
• Vivrelle → luxury fashion rental as a private club 
• Cann → cannabis drinks replacing alcohol at dinner parties 
• Fresh Vine Wine → co-founded her own wellness wine label (now public)

At first glance? Just another celebrity cap table. 
Look closer: it’s not about cool products. 
It’s about timing + distribution. 
She’s betting on: 
→ Products that hijack existing behaviors 
→ Brands that scale through identity, not just ads 
→ Categories where timing does the heavy lifting 
→ Margins that make sense before the buzz

These aren’t vanity bets. They’re category timing plays.
And that’s what most founders miss. 
Smart investors don’t just ask: “Is this product good?” 
They ask: “Is this riding a wave, or pushing uphill?”

If your pitch is built around what you do, you’ll blend in.

If it’s framed as the perfect response to a cultural or behavioral shift already happening that’s when investors lean in. 
Your cap table should reflect that.

Not just checks. Not just logos.

People who see it early and help you move faster. 
If Nina Dobrev can do it without a tech background, so can you. 
Just stop pitching like you’re the story.
Start showing how you’re part of a bigger one.

PS: I break down topics like this weekly in my newsletter. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc

Do you know who drew this sketch in 2001?
Hint: he’s now worth around $200B and is one of the three richest people on the planet.

Jeff Bezos.
And that messy circle? It wasn’t a plan. It was physics.
He called it the flywheel.
Lower prices → more customers → more sellers → more selection → lower prices again.

A simple loop that made Amazon unstoppable.
Every spin made the next easier.
Every improvement created momentum.
And eventually… the wheel turned on its own.

That’s the part most founders miss.
They chase funnels, campaigns, launches, always starting from zero.
Funnels get you a sale.
Flywheels build a system that sells for you.

Netflix spins data into better shows → more subscribers → more data → even better shows.
Canva turns every shared design into ten new users.
Notion’s community literally builds its next features.

The lesson?
You don’t need Amazon’s scale to build your own flywheel.
You just need to start looping what already works:
- If customers love your product, how do you make them bring their friends?
- If a client keeps renewing, how do you turn that story into your next sale?
- If something feels effortless, how do you amplify that?

At first, you push the wheel.
If you’ve built it right, it starts pulling you.

PS: I just broke down this topic in this week’s newsletter, check it out here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc

It’s not the pitch, the product, or the timing that kills most early companies..

It’s not knowing what the numbers are actually saying.

Yesterday, Alexandra Satine and I had the chance to support the new cohort of incredible women founders at Fierce Foundry, all building at the intersection of health, wellness, and tech.

We spent our session talking about the part of entrepreneurship that rarely makes it to the headlines: how to understand your numbers, make better decisions with them, and build systems that actually support scale.

And here’s the truth we kept coming back to:

1️⃣ You can’t delegate understanding.
Even if you have a bookkeeper or CFO, you need to know what drives your business, what your burn rate, margins, and cash runway actually mean.

2️⃣ Financial clarity is about drivers, not just debits and credits.
Do you understand what fuels revenue? Where expenses are leaking? How pricing shapes profitability?
Clarity here is what enables decisive action, whether that’s hiring, fundraising, or simply saying no to the wrong opportunities.

3️⃣ Investors don’t fund confusion.
If you can’t explain your model clearly, they’ll assume it’s risky, even if the idea is brilliant.
Because at the end of the day, numbers aren’t the constraint, they’re what give you control. It’s what allows founders to move fast without breaking everything in the process.

A huge thank you to Melissa Wallace for leading the way with Fierce Foundry, creating a space where founders don’t just learn how to pitch, but how to build real businesses.
Building a company is hard enough, don’t make it harder by guessing your numbers.

She went from fleeing a war at 8,
to building a billion-dollar AI company redefining customer experience.

When the Gulf War tore through Kuwait, 8-year-old Somya Kapoor’s world went up in smoke.
Her family fled to India overnight. 
No home. No plan. No safety net.
But war leaves something in you. 
It hardwires you for survival. 
And survival turns into ambition.

Years later, after earning her engineering degree, Somya started climbing the impossible ladder entering SAP, one of the biggest names in enterprise software, where she learned how global businesses think about customer success and data.

At ServiceNow, she led projects in machine learning and analytics,
building systems that could predict customer needs before they even complained.
She was one of the few women, and one of even fewer immigrants, shaping the AI layer inside enterprise software.

But behind the dashboards and metrics, she saw a truth no one wanted to admit:
→ Support teams drowning in data 
→ Customers repeating the same frustrations 
→ Millions lost to inefficiency every quarter

Then came 2020.
The world shut down.
Investments vanished.
Everyone waited for certainty.
Somya didn’t.

She launched The Loops, an AI platform that gives support teams real-time visibility and insights, turning customer support from a cost center into a growth engine.
No warm intros. No funding. Just conviction.
She pitched to VCs and got silence.
She built anyway.

Today, The Loops powers customer operations for global SaaS companies like PayPal and Bloomreach.
8× revenue growth. 
130% net revenue retention. 
Near-zero churn. 
Now acquired by enterprise giant IFS, with a projected $1B valuation.

She doesn’t just have a founder story. 
She has a survivor’s instinct. 
Because when you’ve already rebuilt your life once, building a company just feels like déjà vu.

PS: I break down topics like this weekly in my newsletter. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc

The downfall of most companies doesn’t start with bad strategy.
It starts the day they confuse process with progress.

Early on, success comes from clarity of purpose.
Everyone knows why they’re building, who they’re building for, and what “good” looks like.
Then the company grows.
Teams multiply. Layers get added. “Best practices” arrive.

And suddenly, people spend more time reporting progress than making it.
I see this all the time inside scaling companies:

→ Speed becomes compliance.
Teams spend more energy getting sign-offs than solving problems.

→ Initiative gets replaced by instructions.
Founders start hearing “What’s the process?” instead of “Here’s what I tried.”

→ Curiosity fades.
People optimize for the next meeting instead of the next breakthrough.
That’s how innovation dies, not in one dramatic moment, but in a slow drift toward comfort and conformity.

So how do you protect your company from that?

1️⃣ Make process a servant, not a god.
Every process should exist to make thinking faster, not to replace it.

2️⃣ Keep your experts close to the content.
The best minds in your company shouldn’t be buried in management layers, they should be where the value is created.

3️⃣ Reward insight, not just execution.
Scaling isn’t about making the machine run smoother, it’s about ensuring it still creates something worth running.

4️⃣ Audit your meetings and reports.
If your team spends more time describing work than doing it, you’ve already crossed the line.

Growth should multiply your original spark, not suffocate it.

Your first CFO will either be your secret weapon, or your most expensive hire.

Most founders get this wrong.
Not because they hire the wrong person…
But because they don’t onboard them right.

That’s why I built my 30/60/90 day CFO onboarding playbook and documented the full process using Scribe.
→ Scribe is my go-to tool for turning complex onboarding processes into clear, step-by-step guides. Founders use it to scale what works, without repeating themselves 10x.

Here’s the arc every founder should follow:

First 30 days – Diagnose
Listen before acting. Audit cash, reporting, and workflows. Spot the leaks.

Days 30–60 – Align
Get clear on what “success” means with the CEO. Clean up reporting. Score one quick win.

Days 60–90 – Lead
Set a reporting rhythm, build scenarios, tie finance to growth.

Because here’s the truth:
A CFO who only crunches numbers = expensive overhead.
A CFO who drives decisions = your growth engine.
And as the founder, you set the tone.

The faster you onboard them right, the faster they start driving impact.
I mapped the full journey in Scribe, click-by-click.
If you're not using Scribe yet, it's a game-changer for turning your ops into scalable systems.

#ad #ScribePartner #ScribeHow

Brand partnership • Fractional CFO | Helping Founders Scale Beyond $2M ARR with Strategic Finance & OKRs | Founder @ FounderFirst

Hiring a CFO? Steal my 30/60/90 day Scribe playbook

Everyone has an opinion.

Very few have a P&L to back it up.

It’s easy to talk about growth when you’ve never had to fund it.
Easy to share strategy frameworks when you’ve never seen what happens when one fails.

The reality is, the further you are from the numbers, the simpler business looks.
But inside the room, where every decision has a financial consequence, it’s a different story.
Because execution isn’t theory.
It’s trade-offs: growth vs margin, speed vs sustainability, ambition vs runway.
It’s looking at a cash forecast and realizing “strategy” is meaningless if the math doesn’t support it.

That’s why real operators sound different.
They ask different questions.
They know clarity in numbers isn’t just a finance thing, it’s a survival thing.

Critics are loud.
Talkers are visible.
Doers are buried in the work: cleaning up systems, aligning spend with priorities, and building financial engines that scale without breaking.
So yes, the doers are quieter.
But they’re the ones with data, structure, and resilience to show for it.
The rest? Just noise, and noise doesn’t compound.

How does a company with 200M users and 1.5B views a day end up dead 3 years later?

At its peak, Vine was the internet’s creative playground: six seconds of comedy, chaos, and culture.
And then, it vanished.
Most people think TikTok killed it. 
It didn’t. 
Vine self-destructed.

Here’s how 👇

1. It was never profitable.
Vine had no ads, no creator payouts, no revenue model.
Every loop cost Twitter money in storage, bandwidth, and moderation, but earned nothing back.
By 2015, the cost per daily active user was rising while engagement per user was falling.

2. Twitter couldn’t afford to save it.
In 2016, Twitter was bleeding cash reporting a $103M quarterly loss and cutting 9% of its workforce.
That included part of the Vine team.
When your parent company is fighting to survive, innovation budgets disappear first.

3. Advertisers hated the format.
Six seconds was great for creativity, but useless for brand storytelling.
You couldn’t fit product narratives, CTAs, or proper ad tracking into a loop that short.
Meanwhile, Instagram offered 15-second videos and Facebook offered full-funnel ad analytics.

4. Creators wanted to stay, but couldn’t get paid.
In a secret 2016 meeting, 18 of Vine’s biggest stars asked for $1.2M each and a proper monetization model.
Vine said no.
Those creators took their audiences, and their advertisers, to YouTube and Instagram instead.

5. There was no algorithm, no data flywheel.
Vine stuck to a chronological feed.
That meant no recommendation engine, no engagement compounding, and no ad targeting.
TikTok built its empire on exactly that, an algorithm that kept people watching longer and spending more.

6. Internal politics killed the rest.
Inside Twitter, Vine competed with Periscope (live video) and Twitter’s own native video player for ad dollars.
Vine lost that battle and its internal champions.

By the end of 2016, Vine still had 200 million users, but almost no active creators, no advertisers, and no strategic future.
So Twitter pulled the plug.

Vine didn’t fail because of creativity. 
It failed because creativity isn’t a business model. 
You can’t build the future of media on art alone. 
You need to build the economy that sustains it.

taplio

The Battle

Eva Karnaukh

Mariya Valeva

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Performance ScoreMariya Valeva's LinkedIn Performance

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Eva Karnaukh

Mariya Valeva

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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);}Mariya Valeva's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMariya Valeva's LinkedIn Performance