Jerry Jao

CEO, Retention Science

Jerry started his path to entrepreneurship at the age 8, making $3 a day by recycling his classmates’ plastic cans after school. Years later, he moved on to e-Commerce and started selling comic books and video games online. He’s been an online entrepreneur ever since and is now the CEO and founder of Retention Science. Prior to founding Retention Science, Jerry founded two other e-Commerce marketing technologies. He was an analyst with Morgan Stanley, and an engagement manager with BearingPoint Management Consulting (KPMG Advisory), where he advised FORTUNE 50 companies. He was most recently an advisor to the CFO of Clear Channel, working on digital sales initiatives and iHeartRadio. Jerry currently serves on the Board of Directors of Penango, an enterprise email & cloud security company. Jerry is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where he received a B.S. in Business Administration and a full-tuition scholarship as an Alumni Scholar, and Yale School of Management.

Articles by Jerry Jao

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....

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,...