Meet the Founders Who've Been in Your Shoes

Paolo has owned and managed Internet-related businesses since the late 1990s. He has spearheaded several successful exits. After exiting iPlace, which sold for $150M while Paolo was head of Product and Marketing, Paolo started a holding company that acquired, ran, and sold numerous ecommerce companies 2004-2011. Paolo was recently CEO of ServerBid, which he sold to Consumable, Inc., and Arcametrics, which he sold to MediaMath.

Most recently, Paolo was Founder & CEO of Inorganic, a strategic exit platform that was acquired by ExitHero.

David is an accomplished entrepreneur with a proven track record of company exits, including GetawayZone, VacationSpot, EscapeHomes, FlexJobs, DealBase, HotelTonight, PageWise, Trails, HealthDesk, MarketHome, MustHaveMenus, ELLI, and Sharefaith.

Drawing on his hands-on experience as a co-founder and board member, he co-founded ExitHero to coach founders through complex sale processes. David maximizes exit outcomes and actively invests as a pre-seed backer at Underdog Labs.

Alex is an experienced operator with entrepreneurial DNA, having co-founded and sold venture-backed companies like Roost (acquired by VerticalResponse) and Perfect Coffee (acquired by Blue Bottle/Nestle).

As co-founder, board member and coach at ExitHero, he guides founders to optimal exits. Alex also founded and leads as GP of Underdog Labs, with prior operating and leadership roles at large public companies alongside his startup work.

Greg is a B2B SaaS founder, operator, and AI technologist with a successful exit. He founded and ran Mi-Corporation for ~15 years, serving customers across government, healthcare, transportation, clinical trials, and enterprise field service, before selling the company to Ideagen (an Hg portfolio company) in 2021. His background is in machine learning. He holds a PhD in CS from UNC, focused on computer vision, and an MS in EE from Duke, focused on speech recognition, and held research roles at Duke, UNC, IBM Research, and McDonnell Douglas. He is currently an investor and operator at NExS Software and ScaleGov Software, and advises founders on M&A.

Butch is a serial founder with a track record of building and selling finance and analytics companies. He co-founded ZM Financial Systems, an asset-liability management and investment analytics platform for banks, credit unions, and broker-dealers, and served as President until its acquisition by Moody’s Analytics. Earlier he was Senior Vice President at Pinehurst Analytics, where he played a key role in its sale to Fiserv, after starting his career managing institutional fixed-income portfolios at Smith Breeden Associates. Butch is currently Co-Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer of Machine Mind Trading and Machine Mind Technologies, an AI-powered hedge fund and investment platform. He holds CPA and CFA designations and dual master’s degrees in Finance and Accounting from the University of Iowa.

Van has spent 25 years building, scaling, and selling technology companies. He founded Accent Plus, one of the first Google Cloud and Microsoft partners in the country, which was acquired by NeoNova (NRTC) in 2012. He then spun out NeoCloud, sold it to AppDirect, and co-founded AppSmart there as Co-CEO. Across his career he has been part of 11 transactions on both the buy side and the sell side. Van is currently Managing Partner of Aeolus, a fractional CIO practice advising growing companies on IT strategy, security, and M&A technology due diligence. For fun and profit, he directs his team of agents building and delivering for Mahiri.ai, which optimizes web presence for businesses nationwide. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from NC State and was named a TBJ Top 40 Under 40 honoree.

Sumit has built and led companies in consumer products and technology. As co-founder and CEO of Lonerider Brewing for 17 years, he scaled the brand across seven states and two countries, twice made the Inc. 5000, raised growth capital, and held M&A discussions with corporate development teams at major national and global brands. In technology, he co-founded Fitvil, a B2B SaaS platform, and sold a majority stake in the company in 2025. He has also advised on the acquisitions of several technology and consumer products companies. Earlier, he ran business operations at Cisco. Today, alongside Lonerider, he builds AI products for consumer and hospitality operators and works with founders as they prepare for and navigate their exits. He holds an MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler and an MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.