Eli Portnoy

CEO, Sense360

Eli Portnoy is the co-founder and CEO of Sense360. Eli and his colleagues are making mobile apps smarter by helping them leverage the sensors on smartphones to detect location, activity, and context in the background. They make it as easy as a few lines of code, and ensure high accuracy, low battery drain, and privacy safeguards. Previously, Eli was the co-founder and CEO of Thinknear, a location-based mobile ad network, and sold it within 19 months of inception to Telenav (NASDAQ: TNAV) in what remains the largest ever acquisition of a TechStars company. After the acquisition he became President of the Thinknear business unit within Telenav, and have helped grow the business many times over, built the team to 70+ people, and helped Thinknear take a leadership position in the industry. Eli loves to write and has been a recurring contributor for both Forbes.com and AdExchanger.com. I have also been a guest contributor on TechCrunch, StreetFight, Digiday, MediaPost, and many other publications. Previously he was a Sr. Product Manager at Amazon working on the Digital Video team. His focus was on defining the experience across our connected devices (TVs and set-top boxes) and working with the Prime team on what became Prime Instant Video. Eli graduated from University of Pennsylvania with a BA in International Relations, Political Science.

Articles by Eli Portnoy

How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...

7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself

Learn the 7 steps to product-led growth (PLG) to build a product that sells itself. Drive activation, boost conversions, and scale efficiently with Wes Bush from ProductLed....
Balancing self-care and startup pressure as a founder

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

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

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

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,...

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