Tom Austin
Director of Post-hire Products
at Criteria Corp
Former co-founder of AND 1 — grew to over $200 million in ARR and featured in Netflix doc.
Been building tech start-ups or advising founders for 10+ years.
Building LLM and AI agent based systems around coaching and development for 5+ years now.
Articles by Tom Austin
LA Tech Week 2025 Day 3 Recap: AI Search – Wednesday Oct 15
After two packed days exploring AI startup building and go-to-market growth, Day 3 of LA Tech Week shifted focus to the evolving world of AI Search, how new AI technologies...
LA Tech Week 2025 Day 2 Recap: Startup Growth – Tuesday Oct 14
After a packed AI Building Day, we continued LA Tech Week with Startup Growth Day, a full schedule of sessions focused on go-to-market strategy, founder journeys, and scaling startups in...
LA Tech Week 2025 Day 1 Recap: AI Building – Monday Oct 13
We hosted three full days of events during LA Tech Week, each one focused on helping founders learn, connect, and build with the latest in AI and startup growth. Day...
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...
