James Beshara
Founder of Magic Mind
San Francisco, California
Overview
Work Experience
Founder & Executive Chairman
2020 - Current
The world’s first productivity drink called “Silicon Valley’s new morning elixir” by Forbes. 7 hours of flow-state in a 2oz shot. Meet your new favorite part of your morning ritual at magicmind.com.
Startup Investor
2013
Seed investor in startups worth over $50Bn in market cap: Gusto, Mercury, Clubhouse, Alchemy, Liquid Death, Mindbloom, Bolt, Super Coffee, ThirdLove, RigUp, LTSE, IRL, Caliva, Triplebyte, ZeroDown, Eden, Gravitational, Eligible, St. Frank, Thunkable, Tari, Backdrop, Rupa Health, Momentus, Cerebral, Nexhealth, Recess, Haus, Halo Top, Jour, Brightland, CB Thera, MatchaBar, The Class, Asystem, WattBuy, Tandem, Mindset, Maker Wine, more (jjbeshara.com for more). Have mistakenly looked over countless great companies that I kick myself for often. Podcasting on the psychology of creation with Below The Line (belowthelinepod.com).
Self Employed is a contracting company that provides independent contracting services.
Director, Product
2017 - 2018
Social travel product initiatives across payments, messaging, listings, saved lists; and incubations of new business-lines for the world's best travel brand.
Lake Swan Properties is a holiday home rental company.
Advisor, Basic Income Research
2017 - 2018
Helping YC Research with their Universal Basic Income project — a first-of-its-kind research project studying the effects of a guaranteed basic income in the developed world.
CEO & Co-Founder
2012 - 2017
An award-winning social payments application, processing hundreds of millions of dollars for millions of users around the world. Acquired by Airbnb after growing globally (and building an exceptionally talented team).
CEO & Founder
2008 - 2011
"Development via education, lending, and opportunity" — With a focus on non-profit poverty alleviation organizations, it was one of the earliest crowdfunding platforms in the world, taking me from my dorm room to South Africa for two years (and beginning my career in startups). “Below the line” version: Ultimately, this was a failure due to personally not internalizing how expensive growing regulation, that began in 2010, of the space would be; first major touchpoint of public, professional failure.