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I do business development, partnerships, and sales in new technologies. Generally I work…
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Clay Elliot shared thisArriving at SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 on April 27-29 with the IdeaBoxes team. We're in search of 50 female entrepreneurs to build from scratch; we invest and build the entire tech stack, you find and make your customers happy. We're open to a wide range of ideas, and we have proven ones for inspiration. Come chat with myself or Ayaka Murai, Todd Fabacher, Tyson Batino at booth D1148 💡 #SusHiTech #EscapeSalary
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Clay Elliot shared this
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Clay Elliot reposted thisClay Elliot reposted thisCome join our Sony Pictures team. I’m hiring a Director of Operations to support our growing Global FAST business.
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Clay Elliot shared thisSee you at #CES this week! As many are, I'm working primarily in digital automation / AI development. There's a LOT of noise out there in that realm. My #1 piece of advice is to level-up your internal tooling wherever possible. You can always outsource some pieces or add SaaS products. But the more you can learn, build efficiently, and make those pieces less of a black box, the better. #DigitalAutomation #InternalTooling #WorkflowAutomation #OhFinallyFlyingCars #WowStarbucksIsPacked #HowToGetToTheVenetian
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Clay Elliot shared thisHi! If your company utilizes a #DesignSystem (or should), this WILL level up your automation with Figma. This is the crowd that showed up at Aaron Martlage's talk at UI / UX event (DDX) to learn what is actually feasible. Having a UI kit is table stakes. The next level is syncing all your colors, styles, and tokens across your websites / apps. But things get really interesting when you hook up your git repo and automatically sync changes with your coded components. Non-coding folks can make changes, and the PR shows up for review. A Shopify case study is done and linked in the comments. We're looking for a few more companies who want to try this out, we'll help assess and implement. There's a lot of noise out there on these topics, this you can actually make use of today.
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Clay Elliot shared thisNot doing Cannes but hopping around SF for #databricks events. Drop me a line if you're around! #SQLstruggles
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Clay Elliot shared thisArrived yesterday into San Francisco for the JPM Healthcare Conference. Got lucky with beautiful weather. Ping me if you're in town, I'll be here for a week! #JPM2025
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Clay Elliot shared thisWhat a ride! This marks the end of my 4.5 year journey at Very Good Ventures, which sprouted from co-hosting the NYC Flutter Meetup 18 months earlier (July 2018). That was started by Martin Rybak, MBA and where I met VGV CEO David DeRemer. Will Larche at Google was so kind to host our little rascal group at NYC headquarters nearly every other month. Tim Sneath and Kevin Moore made themselves generously available to us and the ecosystem grew. To explain Flutter, we pointed people to videos by Eric Seidel and Andrew Brogdon a thousand times. Matt Carroll tutorials became a mainstay. Companies like Rive and Codemagic made early bets on the tooling side. VGV became 1 of 3 consulting clients for me, but I was excited about the prospects and joined full time. When BMW shut down their Chicago office, we nabbed Felix Angelov, Jorge Coca, Tom Arra. Sometime after that, Daniel Hall (and other lovely gents who I'll not tag) gave us a shot writing code for Toyota. Our team set coding standards such that devs could move seamlessly between the Hamilton Broadway show and code that goes into vehicles. It was beautiful. From mid 2020 onward, it's a blur of nonstop activity. We built a Poland team with Dominik Roszkowski. We raised VC funds from Celesta Capital. We met Tomas Piaggio and acquired CreateThrive in Uruguay. We onboarded dozens of companies over 4 years, who I'll also not tag, lest the AI sales bots latch onto their inbox like a sentinel from the Matrix🐙 I'm going back to independent consulting for now, and hopefully be in a strange time zone shortly to tick off my 120th country. And I'm booking Antarctic and Galapagos cruises for people, which is ironic because I swore I'd never take a cruise. Thanks for all the nerdy memories y'all. Hope to see many of you soon, and always remember: don't choose the incorrect Flutter state management system. 😁
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Clay Elliot shared thisCoding your front and back end in a single language can be a superpower if done right. Hear four experts give their take live this Wednesday, Tom Arra, Dillon Nys, Kieran Lee, Andrei Lesnitsky: https://lnkd.in/eKjFc4e3
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5mo
Monika M. S. we only got drive-by hellos! The big conference classic
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Clay Elliot liked thisClay Elliot liked thisHatch Conference Recap Part 2: Talks & Roundtables 🎤 Shoutout to Hang 🤙 Xu, whose welcome speech and MCing felt like a mini stand-up set all day! 🔹 Bob Baxley set the stage by defining the courage to design. The idea of conviction resonated, especially in differentiating a principle versus a tenet. No one argues against a principle, but a tenet takes a stance. How can we identify the debates team most often have, to inform the tenets that give designs a strong point of view? 🔹 Nicole Weber talked about standing out in a sea of sameness, as AI-generated designs look the same. To be memorable, you have to be opinionated, and that starts with prioritizing brand values. As we design to optimize, where can deliberate friction help those values stand out? 🔹In Dónal O'Mahony roundtable chat, our discussions surfaced the importance of culture and its impact on ways of working. Culture may be impossible to measure, but we shared a few questions to help gauge it: What are the top 3 traits a team member should have? What’s holding us back with how we work together? How does a team feel when someone leaves? 🔹 Nicole Alexandra Michaelis dove into the intricacies of designing for European markets. A strategy that works in the US can't simply be copied over to Europe, given the differences in culture, languages, and legal systems. Translation alone isn’t a product strategy. To have a locally sound product, it’s essential to have a close partnership with your localization team. 🔹 Vlad Zely showed craft as care by walking through his process to build Reflections, a self-discovery tool by Feeld. Every aspect of the product had meticulous rigor and intention, from an academic foundation for the questionnaire, visuals that captured the concept of “reflection” without being literal, to copy that created psychological and emotional safety, and marketing that drew attention by asking provocative questions. 🔹 Nata Suu's roundtable, "I Wish I Had Asked That" (aka group therapy session 😄), helped us ask better questions. We discussed defining intent to frame a question, and the art of explicit and implicit listening. Particularly for disagreements, the goal isn’t to win the argument, but to understand the other side. 🔹 Paula Scher closed out the day with a glimpse into her typography work. Even in the world of AI, she started with hand-drawn sketches to bring uniqueness to the design. Her Curtis logo especially caught my eye (and ears!), as it moved with the music. It was the perfect note to end on (pun intended! 🎶), tying back to a theme I heard all day: the most memorable work comes from a human point of view. --- I didn't realize how international Hatch would be! I expected to be one of the few flying in from the US, but I met people from all over the world! So awesome to meet many new faces, meet virtual ones in person, and reconnect with familiar ones. Hope to make it to Hatch next year at Tempelhof Airport, the new location! ✈️
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Clay Elliot reacted on thisClay Elliot reacted on thisSat next to a McKinsey & Company consultant on a flight yesterday. They spent all their time working on a client deck...with ChatGPT. Whoever's doing "Project Apex" at "Iowa", make sure you're not over-paying for "expertise" you could evidently prompt yourself. Also get these people some privacy screens. #cognitiveOffloading #meatProxy
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Clay Elliot liked thisClay Elliot liked thisLet's build strong creators hub in Minato City 【English Below】 港区にクリエイターズハブがあったら...？ LinkedInの皆さん、こんにちは！☀️ クリエイターズハブを港区に。 ArtHausの立ち上げを通して、アーティストやクリエイターへのヒアリングを続けています。そこで見えてきた大きな課題の一つが、 「どうやって自分をプロモーションするのか」 「どうやって新しい人やネットワークと出会うのか」 ということ。 そこで今回、港区の 西岡篤史 さんと一緒に、 月1回のクリエイターズ・ミートアップを開催することになりました✨ アート、デザイン、音楽、映像、ファッションなど、 分野を超えて積極的にコラボレーションしていきたいです。 一緒に面白いことができそうな方、ぜひつながってください！ Through the launch of ArtHaus, I’ve been speaking with artists and creators and learning more about the challenges they face. One of the biggest challenges I’ve heard is: “How do I promote myself and my work?” “How do I meet new people and build meaningful networks?” That’s why I’m excited to announce that, together with Atsushi Nishioka from Minato City, we’ll be hosting a monthly Creators’ Meetup ✨ We want to create a space where people from different fields art, design, music, film, fashion, and more can connect, share ideas, and create new collaborations. If you’re interested in creating something exciting together, let’s connect!
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Clay Elliot liked thisClay Elliot liked thisI’m back in Tokyo after nearly two months in Poland, and I couldn’t have picked a better event to step back into the Tokyo networking scene. 😊 Last Thursday, I joined the TGP | Tokyo Garden Party | signature networking events, and it was a wonderful way to reconnect with familiar faces and meet new people at the beautiful Ruby Jack’s Steakhouse, owned by my friend. After spending so much time in Poland, I found myself paying even more attention to how people connect across cultures. - How we greet each other. - The way we structure introductions. - How quickly we move into business conversations. - What makes us trust someone. - How relationships continue after the first meeting. My time in Poland gave me a fresh perspective on both Polish and Japanese ways of building relationships, and I’m back in Tokyo with plenty of observations, questions, and stories to share. A big thank you to the Tokyo Garden Party organizers for bringing such a diverse group of people together and creating another space for meaningful connections. 👏🏼 If you'd like to join the next event, follow David Gartman and Blaine Visser and mark your calendar for: 𝗧𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟯𝗿𝗱 (𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗲𝗻𝗸𝗮𝗶) A big shout-out to the amazing people I always enjoy having conversations with: Johnny J Pawlik, Kelvin Ro, Greg McMaster, Tatsuya Ogawa, Kaz Takahashi, Usama Muhammad, and Ed Thompson. Cheers to David and Blaine for making it happen for all of us and for bringing all the joy of meaningful connections in Tokyo and beyond. It was great to be there.
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Clay Elliot reacted on thisThis week I joined the incredibly talented team at Circuit.ai here in Austin to help manufacturers deploy AGI to help wrangle complexity. Thank you Andrew Peters, Jackie Padgett, Shaw Langston, Patrick O'Keeffe, Amman Siddiqi, Aaron Smith, Andrew Reese and Joshua Horton for bringing me onboard. I'm excited to be working with each of you!!!Clay Elliot reacted on thisMatt Price joined Circuit this week as our Head of Forward Deployed Engineering! ⚡ Matt has built and led forward deployed engineering organizations while staying deeply connected to the technical work, from solution architecture and product demos to POCs and deployment. He knows how to develop teams and create the playbooks behind an effective technical sales motion without losing the hands-on approach that makes it work. At Circuit, he’ll lead and grow our Forward Deployed Engineering team, setting the standard for how we take customers from technical evaluation through production and turning what we learn in the field into scalable product motions. Welcome to Circuit, Matt!
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Clay Elliot liked thisClay Elliot liked thisIt's been a full-on, head's down kind of August/September here in Heather-land. Ages ago, I finally had the pleasure of speaking at Tokyo Fail Club at CIC Japan as a special part of Venture Café Tokyo's regular Thursday gathering. I spoke about the costs of hyper-independence, of always saying yes, of never asking for help, and about what I learned from the burnout that resulted from those habits. It was a really fun talk to give, with a super responsive audience. You can find the talk here: https://lnkd.in/g5ebDbDq If you identify as a recovering hyper-independent like me, know that you're not alone. It is possible to be an effective leader in a sustainable way. You don't have to sacrifice your health, your relationships, or your personal life to be a passionate builder. Super huge thanks to Riley Masunaga for organizing and for having me. They're always looking for interesting stories, so if you've been thinking about being a speaker, reach out to him.
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Clay Elliot liked thisClay Elliot liked thisI can’t believe it’s been more than 10 years since I was on the INBOUND stage talking about events. Seeing so many posts from people headed to UNBOUND this week (the event formerly known as INBOUND) sent me down a little memory lane. I had the pleasure of speaking at INBOUND three years in a row in 2014, 2015 and 2016. In 2014, I gave a PechaKucha-style presentation about why you need a “safe word” at work. Mine was “Starbucks run.” The concept started for me back in 2006 after working on my first conference. When things were getting overwhelming, it was our way of saying, “I need to get out of here for a few minutes, reset and come back.” It still holds true today. 😂 Then came 2015 and 50 Tips for Hosting Badass Events. I knew I had a lot to say about events. I did NOT expect the response that presentation got. The room filled up. People were turned away. They added a repeat session the next day so more people could attend. There was even a #50tips hashtag happening on Twitter during the session because it was 2015 and we were all live-tweeting conferences. That deck somehow went on to get more than 31,000 views on SlideShare. 🤪 In 2016, I was invited back to share 25 MORE Tips for Hosting Badass Events because apparently I hadn’t gotten everything out of my system with the first 50. I also have to give a BIG thank you to Laura Fitton! She was the one who encouraged me to apply that first year and continued to encourage and work with me over the next few years. I’m not sure I ever would have put my name in the hat without that first push from her. 💖 It’s really fun looking back at these decks now and seeing how much still holds true. My role has changed a lot since then, and so has the event industry, but I’m still pretty obsessed with the same things. The audience experience. Great content. All the tiny details people may never notice but that make an event WORK. Apparently I’ve been talking about this stuff for a really long time. That’s the nice way of saying I’m old… Have the best time, UNBOUND friends! Maybe I’ll have to pull those 75 tips back out and see how they hold up in 2026.
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Clay Elliot reacted on thisClay Elliot reacted on this“Home” just got a little bigger. :) Really happy to have collected my Japanese work visa at the Embassy of Japan in Stockholm! After a lot of preparation, I’m glad to finally be able to engage much more deeply in a few selected projects in Japan. Back in Kansai September 15, see you all soon!
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Clay Elliot liked thisClay Elliot liked thisI was on a regular JR train today and was reminded of something Japan does remarkably well: making everyday infrastructure quietly comfortable. This isn’t the Shinkansen. It’s an ordinary commuter train — but for a relatively small upgrade, you get more space, a quieter environment, and a completely different travel experience. What I find interesting is not the luxury itself, but the design philosophy behind it. Japan is often discussed in terms of technology and innovation, but some of its strongest strengths are much less flashy: small improvements that reduce friction in everyday life. Good design doesn’t always need to be disruptive. Sometimes it simply makes ordinary life work better.
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CoFoundersLab
- 1 year 10 months
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Helping aspiring entrepreneurs find others with complementary skill sets to actually start the project they've been dreaming about.
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Joshua Ludwig
This is exactly the kind of thoughtful advocacy our industry needs from the National Association of Ticketing Professionals (Formerly National Association of Ticket Brokers). There’s an important difference between stopping fraud, stopping illegal bot activity, and turning a private company’s purchasing policies into state law. If someone circumvents security, commits fraud, or uses prohibited automation, enforce the law. But if a ticket seller decides to post a four-ticket limit, violating that private purchasing rule should not automatically become a legal offense. Especially in a market where consumers already have limited primary-ticketing choices, we should be very careful about giving private companies the ability to effectively create laws through their own terms and purchasing limits. Protect consumers. Enforce the BOTS Act. Go after fraud and deceptive practices. But legislation should address actual consumer harm not simply codify private marketplace rules. Great job by NATP for calling attention to this distinction.
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Sunil Nagaraj
Software beyond the screen companies have an early revenue path that pure software startups rarely touch. Government agencies fund deep tech R&D through SBIR grants, up to $2 million per award, and when handled right, those grants convert into recurring revenue. Ubiquity Ventures-backed WindBorne Systems is proof! The company just announced its $37 million Series B, and it got there in part on SBIR revenue: more than ten awards across NOAA and the military, each one converted into a recurring contract with the agency. In the newest Ubiquity University module, WindBorne CEO John Dean joins me for a crash course on SBIRs for founders. A few of the hard-won lessons: 👉 Skip any grant that will never become revenue. The good ones are the start of a long-term customer relationship 👉 Sell it like enterprise sales. Find the real buyer inside the agency, understand why the solicitation exists, and build a champion before you submit 👉 Get expert advice, but never outsource the proposal. Nobody knows your tech and your story like you do 👉 You write the milestones and the payment schedule, so make sure they work for your business Full video on Ubiquity University plus the WindBorne Series B news, links in the first comment. #SoftwareBeyondTheScreen #PhysicalAI
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