Sean Besser

Advisor, Burner (Ad Hoc Labs)

Sean Besser is currently an advisor at Burner (Ad Hoc Labs). He was most recently the Chief Business Officer and co-founder of Tapslash, which was acquired by GIPHY. Before Tapslash, Sean was the Head of Platform at Peel. Previously he was responsible for guiding the corporate growth of Rovi, including identifying, expanding and managing its strategic partnerships. Sean leads business development and metadata content acquisition efforts companywide and manages a team of Business Development and digital strategy specialists in the areas of content, metadata and technology. Sean brings to Rovi nearly 15 years of experience in the delivery of entertainment and related services, including work at TiVo, Fox Sports, NBC, EchoStar (The DISH Network), and most recently Movielink, where he headed up all of the company’s business development and strategic partnership activities. Sean holds an M.B.A. from the Haas Graduate School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and both a J.D. and B.A from the University of Southern California.

Articles by Sean Besser

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,...