Hi, my name's
Tim L.
About
I like to make things, mostly apps. I also sometimes write about it.
I'm working on Synth, Inc, a startup exploring new consumer experiences at the frontier of AI progress. We're buiding Onit, a Desktop AI assistant. Onit is like Cursor chat, but everywhere on your computer, not just in your IDE. Try Onit here!
Onit
Desktop AI Assistant
~ Ancient history ~
In 2014 began my career at Instagram building things like Boomerang, Fade & Color, and the 11 most recent filters.
In 2016, I left Instagram and started a company called Real Labs with a co-founder, JJ Maxwell. We raised a $1.7M seed round from some of Silicon Valley’s top investors, and set off to build the next big app.
While building apps, we stumbled upon influencer marketing as great way to promote our products. In early 2018, we launched JetFuel and the Plug to help other companies scale influencer campaigns. JetFuel delivered over 100M installs for our partners and paid millions to influencers.
In mid-2021, JetFuel was acquired by Blackstone-owned Vungle, which merged with Blackstone-owned Liftoff shortly thereafter. I served as the Chief Product Officer of JetFuel within Liftoff+Vungle rollup until early 2023.
As JetFuel started gaining traction, we launched two subsidiary businesses: Takeoff Labs and Refined Media.
Takeoff Labs was an app studio focused on social consumer experiences that partners with JetFuel for marketing. Takeoff released numerous Top 100 apps, with 10s of millions of installs across our titles. In 2022, we sold the portfolio of apps.
Refined Media was a next-generation media company comprising popular pages on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. We reach over 50M followers, producing well over 1B monthly impressions. In 2022, we sold the Refined Media portfolio of pages.
Want to get in touch? I'm on X, LinkedIn and Instagram. Carpe DM.