Farewell, Sonar

After nine years of founding and leading Sonar, my last day will be Wednesday.?

I moved to San Francisco in 2009 to pursue the only two things I knew I wanted to do with my life: technology and entrepreneurship. I was lucky enough to join the 500 Startups team and learned an incredible amount about startups in almost two years I worked there.?

During my time at 500 Startups, a conversation with Taylor Wang from Mayvenn would change my life forever. He told me about their problem: their customers were trying to text them and there wasn’t a good solution to respond to all of the texts at scale. So I decided to build a solution for them.

I spent the next six weeks, nights and weekends, building out what became the prototype of Sonar. Mayvenn started using it immediately, I had my first customer. After landing a few more customers, I let my boss, Christine Tsai, know I was planning to leave 500 Startups to pursue Sonar. In the same conversation, I asked her to be an investor. Christine agreed and was very supportive, and I am very thankful to her for believing in me. That same week, I asked my then-girlfriend to marry me. She said yes :) That was a crazy week.

The following 9 years of growing Sonar was an incredible journey filled with the highest highs and (for founders who are going through it now) the lowest lows. We raised funds from notable investors, including 500 Startups, QuestVP, Bessemer, and wonderful angels. We brought together some of the smartest and kindest people I’ve ever met to be a part of the team, many of whom will be my lifelong friends. We worked with dynamic customers like Zillow, Bird, and Drivetime and grew revenue to millions in ARR. Then in 2019, we were acquired by Marchex, a publicly traded company, where Sonar will continue to live on and drive value for many customers.?

Two things stand out as what I’m most proud of during my time at Sonar: 1) delivering real value to our customers. Nothing beats hearing that our software helped their business. 2) Building an incredible team with whom I was proud to spend countless hours each week solving problems.

First, I want to thank my wife, Aiste, who has been with me through Sonar’s ups and downs, right by my side. It wasn’t easy, to say the least, we sacrificed a lot, and I appreciate having your support through all of it.?

I also want to thank the Sonar team, both former and current. Sonar would be nothing without you. Fortunately, I found people much smarter than myself to help build Sonar’s vision.?

Next, I want to thank Sonar’s investors, especially those who were the first to believe in us when we were not much more than a prototype and a vision.

Many thanks to Sonar’s customers who trusted us to help their business over the years. We have customers who have been with us since the beginning, and I am grateful for that.

Thank you to Marchex, who saw Sonar’s vision and potential synergies between our products and believed in us as a team.

So what’s next for me? I’m going to take my time deciding. The last time I decided “what’s next,” it was followed by a 9-year journey. I’m open to many different types of opportunities.?

One thing I know for sure, I’m going all-in on artificial intelligence. Sonar leveraged AI for years, and with the recent explosion of LLMs, I couldn’t be more excited about the future of AI. I’ve been getting deep into this world lately, trying to learn as much as possible.

I’d love to catch up with connections I’ve made over the years. Feel free to contact me on linkedin, twitter, email ([email protected]), or text me.

Thanks for the ride.