I’m inspired every day by the creativity and boldness of strong founders.Seeing founders achieve the impossible, simply because they don’t live within traditional limits, always excites and inspires me. After exiting China Export Finance, I took 3 years and focused on working with a portfolio of young technology companies to help them along the journey to build their businesses. During that time, I was exposed to both inspiring talent and a wide set of challenges that really opened my eyes—to the unique nature of every business, yes, but also to the problems and solutions they often had in common. Working with these founders not only grounded me as a mentor, but also provided me with countless insights and significant growth that prepared me for my tenure at Digital Ocean, where I was able to leverage my 20 years of experience and build the company from the ground up—ultimately reaching 500+ employees and over $200M in revenue. I’m thrilled to be able to share this playbook of knowledge and experience with M13’s partner entrepreneurs, across every stage of growth.

Paul Orlando focuses on getting startups to succeed. As Director of the USC Incubator, he works with businesses founded by USC students, alumni, and faculty. Incubator startups have been funded, run crowdfunding campaigns, shipped product, and have been acquired. Paul teaches Feasibility Analysis, Growth Hacking, and the Digital Startup Launchpad. Before USC, he co-founded AcceleratorHK, Hong Kong's first startup accelerator, which recently had a portfolio exit. Previously, he co-founded a startup that developed new communication technology and won at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. He wrote the book Startup Sacrilege about thriving outside the tech hubs. Paul's work has been featured in media including Forbes, TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal.

Jim Cooper has had over 20 years of startups, market research, market intelligence and competitive analysis experience. He has assisted companies enter the United States market, and has helped many other companies entering markets further afield. He is CTO of Braid Theory, an early-stage startup advisory and consulting group located in Los Angeles. He also created a consultancy, Conscientia Research, and as a full-service Market Research business its goals are to make businesses successful and competitive by employing research to understand markets, so a business doesn't have to rely on assumptions about how a market works.