I've spent my entire life combining the immense possibilities of greatest tech products with win-win deals to create world-leading companies and brands. From age 20 at UC Berkeley Engineering, with our cloud-based startup, to age 25, spending countless nights in LA working with MySpace, to many successful company milestones resulting in $1bn+ in funding and $4bn+ in M&A under my strategic oversight whether as a founder/exec, advisor/deal maker, or investor.

With HOOPT, I'm on my most valuable venture yet, putting all my creativity, experience, and trust network to work. At Bunch, we innovated with mobile-first synchronous gatherings, leading to a $20m raise from General Catalyst. At Chooch, we advanced AI in computer vision, securing over $30m in funding. Previously, I was a Partner at GP Bullhound spearheading our digital media practice, a leading tech advisor & fund.

With deep expertise in AI and technology, Joe brings clarity to what we have been building and why it matters, helping cut through noise and lead with conviction. Over the years, Joe has co-founded and led several startups. He served as CTO of Loop, an AI-powered conversational platform, and as CEO of Obindo, a digital agent designed to surface institutional knowledge for companies like Mars using tools such as Slack and Microsoft Yammer.

Joe also co-founded BRAIVE, one of the first agencies focused on helping brands like Amazon define and execute AI strategies, and served as CTO of Leverage Software, a social networking platform adopted by Fortune 500 companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Salesforce. Joe served on the board of Full Circle Fund, where he helped launch the Founders’ Pledge—a program backed by The San Francisco Foundation and the Salesforce Foundation—to encourage mission-driven entrepreneurship and embed giving back into a company’s culture

With over 20 years of experience as a product designer, Maz’s extensive experience and his visionary approach to design make him an invaluable asset to our team, ensuring that HOOPT remains at the cutting edge of design and user engagement. His work is a testament to the power of design in transforming everyday digital interactions into more enjoyable, efficient, and personalized experiences.

Previously at Bunch, Maz served as our design lead. Following a significant funding round, we both knew it was time to for us to leave Bunch to make our vision, our everyday reality with HOOPT. Maz had also transformed ideas into elegant digital products at Koding and 500 Startups in San Francisco and Fueled in New York.

As the Co-Founder and CTO of HOOPT, Ertu brings a dynamic blend of strategic insight and a practical "no problems, only solutions" approach. His background is rich with significant achievements, including his tenure at Inveon, Biletix and Samsung and leading the development of the Camicissima fashion brand’s online platform.

Ertu's leadership is not just about managing technology but about inspiring and growing his team; he has successfully expanded his tech team from one to ten. His relentless energy, decades of experience with various technologies, and endless creativity ensure that we are always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, making him the cornerstore of HOOPT's innovation and success.

In Oct 2023, Semih’s arrival as HOOPT's Head of AI & Data couldn't have been more timely. Discovering Semih was serendipitous; our paths crossed through Founders Network. In the AI realm, where HOOPT is harnessing a deepest wealth of personal data, it was immediately apparent he was the perfect fit for the role & the role was perfect for him.

With a career spanning over 15 years, including Silicon Valley CoF CTO positions with Stoovo and Blue Dot, Y Combinator's W'23 company, his deep expertise is not just theoretical but steeped in real-world from scratch to scale. Earlier in his career, he worked on AI and deep reinforcement learning models at Vodafone, Max Planck Institute for Informatics, and Saarland University for seven years.

Josh Grant joined HOOPT as COO & Head of Live Ops in June 2022, an obvious choice with over 25 years of operational, management and investment expertise. Previously at RockYou, he was pivotal in launching and operating over 30 live mobile apps, steering the company to become a global digital media powerhouse.

In our more than 10 years of friendship, Josh and I have shared numerous milestones, including a landmark deal for Peak Games with RockYou, later sold for $1.8 billion, and a handshake with the largest Facebook app, Daily Horoscope, which boasted 15 million users. His extensive background also includes significant roles at Sonic Boom, Activision Blizzard (Vivendi Universal), and seven years in investment banking & private equity.

In Oct 2023, Kailash joined us as Head of Growth, brings a dynamic fusion of analytical prowess and a brand-centric approach to growth hacking. With over 16 years of experience, Kailash has a stellar track record of scaling startups such as Roo, GetLabs, and Tophatter, where his strategies have consistently led to exponential growth both in users and revenues.

At HOOPT, Kailash employs his signature blend of strategic Northstar equations and real-time analytics so that post BETA, we have the dynamic HOOPT Equation to lead us individually and as a company effectively. In less than 6 months, his impact has been profound, providing guidance and mentorship to our BI head, Berkay, and co-writing HOOPT as a Habit Report with him.

In October 2024, one of our super active HOOPT’ers, Ezgi, introduced Anthony to us while I was in London. Over lunch, Anthony shared he was looking for an app to manage his entire personal ecosystem — one that wouldn’t disappear in 18 months. I told him we were building exactly that, and more, and I was looking for a partner to keep our culture humane as we grow the team. Rest is history, from that moment, he became a invaluable partner to me and to our team.

Anthony is known colloquially as the ‘CEO Whisperer' and has acted as a confidant to CEOs across a wide range of industries, having engaged in a dialogue with 150+ leaders around the world for 15 years. His book 'Humanise, Why human-centred leadership is the key to the 21st century', demonstrates how timeless insights about what it means to be a human person can help people be more effective leaders in the 21st century.