Thomas McInerney

Angel Investor

Thomas McInerney is currently focused on angel investing and advising early stage companies. Tom has a computer science background and began his career as an Engineer / Scientist at Apple’s World Wide Research and Development Group in Cupertino, California. Tom later worked for Sony Information Technologies of America, helping to build and design the VAIO line of computers when that group was created. Tom left Sony to become an entrepreneur, starting a search engine for Usenet, and later one of the first user generated video sharing sites, ShareYourWorld. Tom was an advisor to MochiMedia and is currently an advisor to Klout and a mentor at i/oVentures in San Francisco. He is a member of the National Council for the WorldWildlifeFund and splits his time between Santa Monica and San Francisco.

Articles by Thomas McInerney

Using Customer Feedback to Build a Product that Customers Will Love

Customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful product development, but many startups struggle with collecting, validating, and prioritizing the constant stream of input from users, advisors, and internal teams. In...

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....