Abdul Khan
Founder and CEO
at Som Sleep
Abdul Khan is the Founder and CEO of Som Sleep, the leading sleep recovery product for athletes in the NFL, MLB, and NBA. He was most recently Founder & CEO of a consumer mobile startup, and Co-founder of the YOMYOMF Network, along with Fast Five director Justin Lin.
Launched in June 2012 as a partner of YouTube’s funded original channels initiative, YOMYOMF created original episodic content for digital distribution. Original programming partners included Danny Pudi (Community), Russo Brothers (Arrested Development, Captain America 2), Andy Fickman (Parental Guidance), and Vin Diesel & Tyrese (Car Talk).
Previously, he was Founder of Apoko Group, a digital branding company for athletes and celebrities, co-founded with NBA stars Baron Davis and Steve Nash. Prior to Apoko, Abdul was the Founding CEO of IBeatYou, the largest pro-athlete owned platform for branded user-generated contests, which reached 100M views and over 250,000 contests, powering campaigns for platforms such as Photobucket. He led IBeatYou through its sale to OVGuide in 2010.
Before his entrepreneurial journey, Abdul was a VC with Crosslink Capital, responsible for consumer Internet and digital media investments in companies including Pandora, Omniture, and Ancestry.com. He started his career as a technology investment banker at UBS, working on financings with companies such as Activision, Midway Games, and Acclaim Entertainment.
Articles by Abdul Khan
The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out
A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies
In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...
Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends
Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....
Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations
In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...
2025 New York Tech Week Recap Of Mucker Sessions
Last week during New York Tech Week 2025, we joined more than 1,000 events hosted by founders, investors, and VCs. This post is a full Mucker recap of the three...
How to Build a Customer Support Function for Startups Using AI Tools with Alex Velinov
Delivering high-quality customer support can be one of the most resource-draining parts of a startup. The good news: we’re at a turning point where founders can use AI tools to...