Kelly Perdew

Co-founder and Managing General Partner, Moonshots Capital

Kelly is an entrepreneur at heart and loves the challenge of starting and growing businesses. He’s served in almost every operating capacity: Founder, Board Member, CEO, COO, CFO, Business Development, and Sales. He’s raised institutional equity and debt financing, grown businesses, down-sized businesses, and sold businesses for 8-figure exits. He serves on Boards and/or in advisory roles: Pandora (NYSE: P, past), LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD, past), Eteamz (Sold to Active Networks – NYSE: ACTV, past), TroopSwap, The DuMont Project, GatherGreen, Fliptu, and UStream.tv. His operating roles have included: Co-founder & CEO TargetClose (current – stealth), CEO Fastpoint Games, Founder/CEO MotorPride (sold to TrueCar), President/Board Member Eteamz (Sold to Active Networks), EVP The Trump Organization, and Military Intelligence Officer US Army. Kelly also makes Angel investments: Klout, BetterWorks, TroopSwap, ZAG (now TrueCar), Fliptu, and Social Rewards. Kelly won Season 2 of The Apprentice and worked for Donald Trump for one year. Kelly earned a BS from West Point and a JD/MBA from UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Dawn, step-son Hunter and two-year old twins Grant and Grace.

Articles by Kelly Perdew

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,...