In 2011, Yi Mao and Wentong Li were energetic engineering grads of Tsinghua and Fudan, two of the top schools in China.  They came to the US for graduate school and met through the Bay Area Chinese tech community.  Their skills were honed at companies both big (Microsoft) and small (Turn), and their experience of architecting tech for a start-up and watching it become a large business made them hungry to do the same for their own company.  

As they were working on prototyping their new tech, they met Greg Baszucki through a recruiter he knew from his Dealix days.  Greg saw the potential in the new prototype and brought Yi and Wentong in to work with Founder Partners to help the new company achieve its maximum potential.

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Founder Partners teamed with Yi and Wentong to form AdMovate, an omnichannel digital advertising company.

From a technical standpoint, things progressed rapidly and well.  But the new company became plagued by threats of lawsuits from companies claiming rights to the new IP and was pressured to sell early with enticing promises of quick cash and an end to legal headaches.

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Luckily, Greg and Brian were on board to guide Yi and Wentong, who were overwhelmed and intimidated, through the treacherous waters of handling IP challenges, negotiating M&A, payroll, and finding and securing the right CEO, with even a bit of a psych services component thrown in.  

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After all, coders want to code, not deal with threats and legal hassles, and everyone needs talking down from the tree every now and again.

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And that’s how Founder Partners helped Yi and Wentong go from being two coders with no prior business experience who were facing lawsuits and dizzying early buyout offers to being the co-founders of a successful company that achieved a highly favorable exit in a very short period of time.