RM

Ryan Merket

AI Startup Development Manager at Microsoft for Startups

Austin, Texas

Overview

Work Experience

  • AI Startup Development Manager

    2024 - Current

    Identifying and empowering top AI startups to achieve more.

  • Founder Mentoring and Angel Investing

    2012

    I enjoy collaborating with early-stage founders and contributing tangible value to their ventures, whether it's through operations, product development, investing, engineering, or by leveraging my investor network to help with fundraising. I have had the opportunity to work some great founders and made several investments, some of which are listed below: * Teachable (NYC, acquired) * Apostrophe (SF, acquired) * Able Lending (ATX, acquired) * Makeswift (ATL, acquired) * Threatcare (ATX, acquired) * Freshplum (SF, acquired) * Percy (SF, acquired) * Primeloop (SF, acquired) * Respondly (SF, acquired) * TeacherTalent (ATX, acquired) * Reverie Labs (BOS, Acquired) * Reflex (ATX) * PadSplit (ATL) * Yumi (LA) * Nuvocargo (NYC, MXC) * Flex (ATX) * Choco (Remote) * Abound (SF) * AllStacks (NC) * Netmaker (NC) * Garten (SF) * RX Redefined (SF) * LUS Brands (Toronto) * Datapeople (NYC) * Paces (NYC) * Canopy Aerospace (Chicago) * XP Health (SF) * Analog chain (SF) * Megabite (Mex City) * Orca (Texas) * Rubi Laboratories (SF) * Heimdal (HI) * Minded (NYC) * Drift Bio (US) * Wild Earth (SF,NC) * Colossal (SF) * User Interviews (US, Remote) * Brave Care (PDX) * Living Carbon (US, Remote) * PYM (SF) * Terraformation (HI) * Blossm (SD)

  • Founder / Head of Product

    2023 - 2024

    Helping realtors close more leads and deals with the power of LLMs. Bootstrapped to $1,000/MRR in 3 months.

  • CEO / Head of Product

    2021 - 2022

    Mission Labs was a platform for artists and creators to sell their work online.

  • Head of Product & Engineering

    2019 - 2021

    At Goodfair I stepped in to be their Head of Product & Engineering right before they hit a major inflection point. I joined as one of the first 4 employees and did everything from Tiktok strategy (grew to 100M views and 400k followers), performance ads, instilling proper Product & Engineering processes and hygiene, built bespoke Shopify apps for our unique needs, integrated PeopleVox inventory management into the warehouse and fulfillment operations, ran IT for warehouse and office locations in Houston TX, etc. A little bit of everything. https://marketingpartnerships.com/lastcall/2021/02/01/nordstrom-taps-into-secondhand-retail-surge-with-goodfair-partnership/ https://www.treehugger.com/goodfair-shows-how-thrift-shopping-can-go-online-5077054

  • Startup BD, Early Stage Team

    2015 - 2019

    Part of a team of ex-founders and VCs, where I flew around the US mentoring and advising startups at the top accelerators like Techstars and Y Combinator.

  • Product

    2014 - 2015

    The sole Product leader for Reddit Ads.

  • Director of Product

    2012 - 2014

    Joined through the acquisition of my company in 2012, AppGalleries (1). This became the seed for InMobi's Native Ads product, which was the first native ads product for native apps, launched in 2014 (2). 1. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/12/inmobi-buys-appbistro-appgalleries-mmtg-labs/ 2. http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/29/inmobi-launches-native-ad-platform-to-woo-publishers-looking-beyond-facebook-google/

  • CEO & Co-founder

    2010 - 2012

    Appstores.com solved the app discoverability problem by providing white-label app stores to platforms and niche media publishers. https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/07/appbistro/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/appstores-com-launches-an-adsense-for-mobile-apps/

  • Platform Team

    2009 - 2010

    I helped Facebook's top tier partners conceptualize, build, and manage their Facebook Platform integrations. I worked with companies like 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Hulu, Spotify, Microsoft, ESPN, Disney, X-Box, Zynga, and The White House. https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/sharing-the-olympic-magic-with-fans/298571017130/

Relevant Websites