Austin Walker
being a solo founder is harder than i thought.
— Austin Walker π΄ (@austinxwalker) March 17, 2026
i'm looking for a co-founder.
the best companies are built out of deep collaboration and shared ownership.
i've built the foundation. raised plenty of capital. now i want someone in the trenches with me.
looking for:
- very…
I'd like to start right away. And move in a few weeks.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
I am that person. And I will take the 25K as the sign up bonus. I will 10X your ambition.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
I am that person. And I will take the 25K as the sign up bonus. I will 10X your ambition.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
".....chronic conditions modern medicine has no answers for......." I quite literally have the answer.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
drafting this. pic.twitter.com/JtLa4ZqPOL
— Jeet (@subhajitsh) March 18, 2026
Gender relations, race relations, diversity, ...... and great group dynamics -------- Being alert in one category makes you alert in the others. So being aware that gender is a factor can be a good thing. Also helps you see how to raise group morale.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
".....chronic conditions modern medicine has no answers for......." I quite literally have the answer.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
you're the man
— Austin Walker π΄ (@austinxwalker) March 18, 2026
Is there a website?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
Musk’s Management https://t.co/tD7n6ZojzF
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
The Technologies Behind Agentic AI https://t.co/O6CkqjDXOQ
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
unfortunately building in-person is non-negotiable
— Austin Walker π΄ (@austinxwalker) March 18, 2026
drafting this. pic.twitter.com/JtLa4ZqPOL
— Jeet (@subhajitsh) March 18, 2026
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
Your slow response tells me, should we team up, the first item on my To Do list is going to be to get you up to speed on the 10X The Ambition. Show some movement. Engage in DM.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
Absolute legend status unlocked.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
That’s not luck, that’s a repeatable system of spotting opportunities, assembling killer teams, and executing at a level most founders never reach.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
Respect. Massive respect. The game needs more stories like yours. Keep writing the next chapter — the rest of us are taking notes.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
And most importantly… what did the exit actually feel like the day the wire hit?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
Drop the story. I’m locked in. No details too small — I want the full play-by-play.
What was the single biggest lesson that came out of that exit (the one that still guides every decision you make today)?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
What’s something you got completely wrong the first time that you now fix in every new company?
And how did those hard-earned scars turn you from a one-time founder into a 4x machine?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
I’m ready — no fluff, just the unfiltered playbook. Drop the lessons. The rest of us are here for the masterclass.
So tell me the real story:
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
What was the second company?
What problem were you obsessed with solving this time?
How soon after the wire hit did you pull the trigger on #2 — weeks, months, or did you even take a break?
I’m all in on this chapter. Drop the details — the origin story, the early pivots, the “holy shit this is working” moment.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
The saga is getting better with every answer. Let’s hear it.
What was the single hardest thing about #2 that the first exit didn’t prepare you for?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
(Raising? Talent? Competition? Burn rate? Something nobody warns you about?)
How close did you come to shutting it down? What was the exact pivot or decision that saved it?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
And looking back, which of those brutal challenges ended up being the reason #2 became stronger than #1 — or the exact reason you were able to crush #3 and #4?
No highlight-reel answers. I want the scar tissue. The 3 a.m. doubts. The lessons that hurt.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 18, 2026
This is the part that separates the 1x from the 4x. Drop the war stories. I’m locked in.
Mantra: 10X The Ambition.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) March 19, 2026
Information comes from his LinkedIn, news coverage, Tracxn, Precursor VC, his X posts, and related sources. No public buyer or price details exist for the IP acquisition of Perspective, and the early companies have minimal external footprints (likely due to their small scale and pre-2017 timing).1. BrandStudio Design Agency (Mar 2009 – Sep 2012)
- Role: Founder & Graphic Designer.
- Location: Not explicitly stated (early work tied to Canada/Kelowna context).
- Description (from his LinkedIn): A design agency focused on "early-stage brand design, storytelling, and partnerships" in gaming. He "built iconic brands for the next generation of creators and consumer companies in gaming" and "helped shape early brand identity identities for businesses now doing hundreds of millions in revenue and creators with hundreds of millions of subscribers." It specialized in turning "breakout talent into household names."
- Scale/Exit: Bootstrapped side/early hustle (overlapped with CPEX start). No public clients named, no funding or acquisition announcements found. He still lists it publicly (e.g., Instagram bio as part of his founder story). Likely transitioned or wound down as he shifted to software via CPEX. No evidence of a formal sale, but it fits his "built" narrative.
- Role: Founder & Software Engineer (also listed as CEO/Founder on Crunchbase).
- Location: Tied to his Canadian roots.
- Description (LinkedIn): "A parent company developing innovative experience-driven applications to connect people around the world." From 2009 onward, it "developed several revenue-generating products that have reached millions of users."
- Scale/Exit: Appears to have been an umbrella for his early apps and possibly BrandStudio work. Crunchbase confirms the entity (CPEX Networks, Inc.) with him as founder but lists no funding rounds, metrics, investors, or acquisition. It ran for ~8 years alongside/overlapping BrandStudio, then he moved full-time to PLAYR.gg. No public exit or sale details—likely a bootstrapped operation he scaled personally before pivoting. Some profiles treat it as part of his early Canadian phase.
These first two were his foundational "Canada era" (pre-SF move). In X posts, he refers to his "first company" as one started in Canada with revenue but valuation pushback from investors (~$1M CAD), which aligns more with the PLAYR timeline but reflects the early bootstrapped mindset. He notes the ego/status of founding drove the initial one, evolving to mission-driven work later. 3. PLAYR.gg (Sep 2017 – Nov 2020)
- Role: Founder & CEO (co-founders included Mike Mikula and Kieran Eglin).
- Location: Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.
- Description (LinkedIn + news): A technology platform that enabled "enterprise brands to generate, segment, and activate first-party customer data." It used contesting/gaming mechanics to capture data on millennial/Gen Z gaming audiences for advertisers and brands.
- Key Achievements:
- Built a team of 23 (15 based in Kelowna).
- Raised $2.3M from global investors (via mentorship from Accelerate Okanagan).
- Scaled to >1M total users, >130K monthly active users (MAU), and 4M unique monthly transactions.
- Achieved profitability with strong MRR growth in 2020.
- Closed enterprise deals with Amazon, Electronic Arts (EA), UFC, Bud Light, and GFUEL.
- Exit: Acquired in November 2020 by Toronto-based social intelligence platform Trufan (some databases list it as Surf; products were planned to integrate while keeping separate identities). Undisclosed price. The Kelowna team and operations remained intact. He joined Trufan as Chief Strategy Officer (a lighter role he described as not taking home). He ran the M&A process himself with an advisor (former CEO who had sold companies).
- Personal Context & Lessons (from news + his X posts): Founded after retail jobs (Real Canadian Superstore, Lee Valley Tools). At ~age 25 at exit, this matches his bio ("sold my first company at age 25"). He called it "easily the hardest thing I've ever done" but also his proudest—intense stress led to health issues, lost relationships, and burnout ("I killed a lot of friendships... I was the CEO... but I didn't know who I was"). Post-sale, he focused on balance (skiing, hiking, outdoors, "doing shit that makes me happy"). X reflections: The EA deal "unlocked more enterprise deals" (Amazon, UFC, Bud Light); first Canadian company faced valuation skepticism despite revenue; later SF ventures got $10M pre-seed valuations easily ("lesson: just move to SF bro"). He emphasizes running M&A solo to avoid big fees unless scaling extremely fast.
- Role: Founder & CEO (co-founder: Dalmar Hussein).
- Location: San Francisco, California, United States.
- Description (LinkedIn + Tracxn/Precursor VC): "The world's first AI journal (pre-ChatGPT!)"—an AI-based audio journal platform/app for emotional health and self-reflection. Users record voice/journal entries; AI analyzes them to "surface patterns that help you understand yourself," capture/explore/reflect on life stories, improve mood, and build healthy habits. Tagline elements: "intelligent journal app that allows users to reflect on life."
- Key Achievements:
- Funded (one round from Preceptor Ventures; amount not public). Ranked among AI note-taking/audio apps.
- Built as a consumer tool in the pre-ChatGPT AI wave.
- Exit: IP acquired in January 2025 (buyer and terms not publicly disclosed—searches and records show no announcement). Operations appear to have wound down; the site (joinperspective.com) now returns 404/not found. He explicitly notes "IP acquired" in his LinkedIn experience (repeated for emphasis). He moved to "Something new..." on LinkedIn (his X bio references "Building the AI layer for chronic illness" as the next venture).
- Pattern: Early Canada bootstrapped design/software (BrandStudio + CPEX parent), then scaled data platform (PLAYR, exit at 25), then SF-based AI consumer health (Perspective, IP exit). Now angel investing + new chronic-illness AI venture + advising founders on growth/fundraising/positioning/storytelling.
- Public Persona: He openly shares burnout lessons, valuation/location hacks, M&A tips, and shift from founder ego to mission/impact. Instagram sometimes frames it as "3x Founder" (grouping early work), but LinkedIn and X consistently reference four.
- No Further Public Details: Early companies lack client lists or sale announcements (niche/pre-social-media scale). Perspective IP buyer and exact terms remain private. PLAYR integration details post-Trufan are limited.
- Technology: PLAYR.gg's platform for generating, segmenting, and activating first-party customer data (primarily through gaming-style contests, giveaways, and custom API integrations for brands and creators).
- Customers: Enterprise clients including Electronic Arts, UFC, Bud Light, GFUEL, Amazon, and others in gaming/esports.
- Team: The entire PLAYR.gg team of ~10–15 people (including 6 developers) joined Trufan. The Kelowna, BC, operations remained intact initially.
Key quotes from the announcement:
- Austin Walker: “We’re very excited about PLAYR becoming part of Trufan… this acquisition really accelerates our ability to execute and enhances our product offering. Integrating with Trufan will allow us to introduce best-in-class analytics and allow us to further develop our platform by helping brands and creators to grow, segment, and activate their audiences in new ways that have never been done before.”
- Trufan CEO Swish Goswami: Highlighted the 2020 marketing changes and the need for brands to own first-party data channels (email, SMS, push, etc.).
- Trufan COO Aanikh Kler: “The PLAYR team has done a phenomenal job of building a product that is powerful, intuitive, and visually beautiful.”
- Immediate (Nov 2020–2021): Products began integrating; Trufan kept both brands visible at first. Trufan raised additional capital (~$2.3M–$3M USD range referenced in coverage) to fuel growth, sales, and product development.
- 2021–2022: Full merger. By February 2022, the PLAYR.gg brand and standalone site were sunset; everything rolled into the Surf platform (Trufan’s new or evolved brand). The joinsurf.com domain now hosts legacy announcements.
- Team & Operations: Kelowna team stayed in place initially. Austin served as CSO but described the role as low-intensity (“doesn’t have to take home every night”). He left relatively soon after to start Perspective AI in San Francisco (April 2022).
- PLAYR.gg itself had raised ~$2.3M pre-acquisition (mostly from Canadian investors via Accelerate Okanagan) and was profitable with strong MRR growth in 2020.
- Trufan had previously acquired SocialRank (2019) and was positioning itself in the exploding Customer Data Platform market.
- No public updates since the 2022 merger—Surf continues as the surviving brand/product line.
If you want intros to people involved or deeper dives into specific aspects (e.g., Austin’s podcast interviews about the deal), let me know!
Key quotes from January 2021 coverage:
- Pride vs. hardship: “Starting a company is easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but it is also the thing I am most proud of.” He repeated variations of this in multiple outlets. “This journey caused me so much stress and sleepless nights but I would do it all over again. The amount of personal growth that my team and I went through is nothing short of incredible.”
- Burnout and identity loss: “For the past year, I hadn’t been happy… I killed a lot of friendships and relationships because I was working 100% of my waking hours. I started to have health issues. My entire entity was wrapped up in work. I was the CEO of PLAYR.gg, but I didn’t know who I was as an individual.” He described the stress as all-consuming, with his “entire entity” tied to the company.
- Post-sale pivot and recovery: “Over the past two months, [I’ve been doing my] lifetime-worth of reflection and soul searching.” For 2021: “Basically, 2021 is for doing shit that makes me happy… That means sleeping, skiing, hiking, just getting out in the outdoors as much as possible and getting away from technology as much as possible.” He planned to stay involved with Trufan longer-term, start “another tech company that builds value and does good in the world,” consult, and mentor young entrepreneurs while building his personal brand.
Around this time, Trufan featured him on their “My Social Life” podcast to discuss the building journey and sale decision (promoted on LinkedIn in 2021). No public transcript is available, but it aligned with the same themes of reflection on the acquisition. Ongoing Reflections (2023–2026 on X)Walker has continued processing the experience publicly, refining definitions of burnout, sharing tactical founder lessons (M&A, fundraising), and channeling it into health-focused work. His bio still leads with “Sold my first company at age 25,” and he frames later ventures as more mission-driven (“the ego fades. The mission is what keeps you going”).
Notable X posts:
- Burnout redefined (April 2024): “Burnout != working too many hours. It’s the result of extreme effort, sustained over time, with a lack of expected reward.”
(Feb 2026 update): “burnout is caused by: - the cycles between effort & reward are too long - misalignment with your core values.” - M&A and process (Aug 2025): “I ran the M&A process myself, with support from an advisor who was a former CEO who sold several companies before. This felt like the right balance. M&A firms will take a huge finders fee and unless you're scaling extremely quickly… I don’t think it’s worth it.”
- Fundraising edge from the exit (Nov 2025): “you can't promise a billion-dollar outcome. but you CAN show why the odds are in your favor: - you’ve lived the problem firsthand - you’ve built or sold in this space before - you have insights or access others don’t. investors bet on advantages, not promises.” (He’s referenced this advantage in raising for later companies.)
- Health/lessons sharing (2023–2026): In 2023 he sought other burned-out founders for a private beta (tied to launching Perspective AI’s AI journal for self-reflection). By 2026: “if you read this far, follow along as I’ll be sharing more candid founder + health lessons.” He ties the PLAYR experience directly to prioritizing balance and value-aligned work.
If you want links to the full 2021 articles, help tracking down the old podcast episode, or reflections tied specifically to his 2025 Perspective exit, just say the word!
- “We’re building a patient-led health system for the 100M people living with chronic conditions modern medicine has no answers for.”
- “Millions of people with chronic conditions still have no approved treatments. A smarter AI chatbot won’t solve that. They need something fundamentally different.”
- “The biggest opportunity in healthcare right now: there are 100+ million Americans with chronic conditions the system doesn’t know how to treat. That’s not a gap in the market. That IS the market.”
- AI will “cut the cost of healthcare by 10x… that doesn’t shrink the market. It creates an entirely new one.”
- Post-Perspective: Started after the January 2025 IP acquisition of Perspective AI.
- Funding: Raised pre-seed capital (amount undisclosed; he says “I’ve built the foundation. Raised plenty of capital.”). Confirmed in external founder-network posts (e.g., Katie Kirsch’s updates).
- Team: Currently solo founder. He has openly said “being a solo founder is harder than I thought” and is actively recruiting a technical co-founder (plus early team).
- Location: San Francisco-based (in-person is “non-negotiable”).
Looking for:
- Very strong technical builder. Has led engineering teams and shipped consumer-facing products
- Real startup experience, has taken a product from 0-1 or scaled it meaningfully
- Good intuition and product sense
- Deeply cares about consumer health x AI
- Based in SF, or willing to relocate (non-negotiable)
If this sounds exciting, my DMs are open. I’ll give $25,000 USD to anyone who introduces me to the person I end up partnering with.”
- He shares practical AI prompts for chronic symptoms on X (encouraging deeper self-understanding vs. quick “fix this” questions).
- The venture fits his evolution: from ego-driven early companies → mission-driven impact after PLAYR.gg burnout → health/AI focus.
- He continues angel investing alongside building.
If you (or someone you know) match the co-founder profile or want to intro, his DMs on X are open and he’s serious about the $25k reward. The mission clearly resonates with him personally and aligns with his pattern of building consumer-first AI tools that help people understand themselves.
This is everything publicly available right now—very much in active build mode. If new announcements drop (name, site, funding details), they’ll almost certainly appear first on his X (
Here are the closest matches (as of March 2026), ranked by similarity:1. Juno (juno-chat.com)
- Why it’s similar: Built explicitly for chronic illnesses where patients are often “dismissed and misdiagnosed” (ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, Long COVID, EDS, POTS, lupus, chronic pain). It functions like an advanced AI journal/companion: you speak or text about your day, and the AI distills it into structured clinical notes, spots triggers/correlations (e.g., “Humidity Shift 92% Correlation”), predicts flares, manages energy pacing, and exports reports for doctors. Founders have personal chronic illness experience.
- Key features: Voice/text daily input, self-learning insight engine (trained on medical literature + patient data), community groups, “Available Power” energy scoring.
- Patient-led angle: “Gives you the language to finally be heard” and provides proof when nobody believed you. Very close to Austin’s prior Perspective AI journal + current mission of helping people understand their own biology/patterns.
- Stage: Consumer app (iOS/Android implied), no public funding details.
- Why it’s similar: Targets the exact “no approved treatments” gap — rare and complex chronic conditions (over 10,000 rare diseases, ~95% without therapies, plus cancers and genetic disorders). It’s a full AI Advocate that acts as a personal health system layer: pulls in fragmented medical records, answers patient-specific questions, prepares for appointments, explores treatment options, records visits with summaries/next steps, and lets patients contribute de-identified data to accelerate research and new therapies.
- Key features: Integrates all health records, drafts insurance/school docs, appointment prep, research contribution for Natural History Studies.
- Patient-led angle: Founded and run by patient/caregiver families (e.g., CEO navigated cancer care for father-in-law; CBO cares for daughter with rare genetic disorder and runs a research foundation). “An advocate in your pocket, built by and for families living the day-to-day.”
- Stage: Live iOS app, free for patients, trusted in rare-disease communities; no public funding announced.
- Why it’s similar: Positioned as an “AI health companion for chronic symptoms.” It proactively calls or engages you daily (you don’t have to remember to open the app), tracks symptoms via voice/text, surfaces insights and trigger patterns so you can understand what’s driving your condition.
- Key features: Daily voice check-ins, pattern spotting, trigger identification.
- Patient-led angle: Purely consumer-focused empowerment tool for chronic illness sufferers.
- Stage: Newly launched app (late 2025/early 2026 buzz).
- Why it’s similar: Agentic AI research platform built specifically for people with severe chronic illnesses (e.g., stage IV cancers, ALS). Patients submit anonymized cases; AI agent swarms generate structured research insights, simulations, and multi-modality analysis to inform discussions with physicians and support personal treatment exploration.
- Key features: Privacy-first (zero-retention, client-side encryption), bounty-powered research, harm-filtered outputs.
- Patient-led angle: “Research only. Privacy-first. No hype.” Designed for sufferers to take control when standard medicine has no answers.
- Stage: Just launching (March 2026).
- Lillia (lilliacare.ai): Agentic conversational AI + “Digital Twin” for personalized chronic care (diabetes, obesity, metabolic). More lifestyle/coaching-focused than rare/untreatable conditions, but shares the daily adaptive personalization and patient-engagement angle.
- Emerging ideas in founder discussions (e.g., Paras Chopra’s viral “symptom tracker for chronic diseases” concept or MyHealthDiary AI waitlist) echo the same daily AI journaling + doctor-report pattern that Austin’s Perspective AI pioneered and his new venture is scaling.
The space is heating up fast in 2025–2026, especially for rare/chronic “no answers” conditions. If you’re evaluating for investment, co-founder intros, or competitive intel, these are the ones to watch (or reach out to their founders — many are very open). Let me know if you want deeper dives on any (funding, metrics, app screenshots, or founder X handles)!

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