The global licensing community is powered by an incredible group of professionals whose diverse backgrounds and creative energy drive innovation and excellence. Each week we profile one of these professionals in this ongoing series.

How did you get into licensing (or how did licensing find you)?
I left my role at Microsoft at the beginning of this year to start my company, Podqi, in the intellectual property and licensing space. Starting a company with my friends had always been a dream of mine, and we’d explored various ideas over the last couple of years before taking the leap to become full-time founders.

Our idea for Podqi came from an Intellectual Property Law class my co-founder, Jesse, and I took during undergrad at Penn. We realized that the intellectual property space was massive, extremely underserved with software, and could benefit from the latest advances in AI and large-language models.

Through our initial discovery phase and building our MVP, we were lucky enough to meet Stuart Pollock, one of our great mentors and a board member at Licensing International. Stuart shared his experiences in the licensing industry and helped us see how we could apply our new technology to the space.

What’s a “typical” day in your current position?
I’m lucky enough to live with my two co-founders, Jesse and Trevor, in San Francisco where we currently work out of our investor’s office. We start our days by biking from our apartment to the office. We work until about 4pm for our morning shift, then all head to the gym together for a break. After our workout, we go back to the office together, make dinner, and work through the evening for our night shift. This has been our routine all year and we love it. It’s a lot of fun to spend time together and no day really feels like work.

My favorite part about being a founder is owning every process and detail. Because we all share 100% of the responsibilities, no day looks exactly the same. They usually consist of a mix of talking to users, conducting sales calls, iterating on the product, and brainstorming different verticals we want to double down on.

What’s your biggest personal or professional accomplishment?
My biggest professional accomplishment has been leaving Big Tech to start something on our own and getting initial revenue for something that we created from scratch. We then spent months iterating on our solution and speaking with different experts in the licensing and entertainment industry, gaining more customers along the way. We now protect the IP for some of the biggest entertainers, musicians, and athletes in the world. Seeing something develop from idea to reality with my best friends has been my greatest professional accomplishment.

As for personal accomplishments, I unfortunately had to hang up the soccer cleats after high school and now have been lifting weights at the gym for about five years. I can bench press 350 pounds and my co-founders are helping me learn how to swim and golf.

What are the most significant trends or changes that you’ve seen in the business in recent years?
As someone who is coming into the licensing industry with a fresh perspective, I believe that AI will be extremely impactful in the space. There are many opportunities, including helping companies source new licensing opportunities for their IPs, assisting with due diligence and managing licenses at scale, and helping automate the more tedious processes that people in the industry have to endure to do more impactful work.

At Podqi, we want to help companies see the entire universe of their licensing landscape, whether it’s through identifying infringements or uncovering revenue-creating opportunities. We aim to keep the human in the loop and give control back to IP owners using AI.

What keeps you up at night? What’s your biggest challenge these days?
The biggest challenge for me is deciding where to focus my energy—whether it’s doubling down on what’s working well or exploring new experiments and ideas we have. We only have 24 hours in a day, and not taking any of that for granted is definitely something that keeps me up at night. That said, executing on shorter timelines while also thinking about the bigger picture and longer-term horizons has been a challenge I’ve really embraced. I’m also incredibly excited about staying current with the latest AI trends and figuring out how we can apply cutting-edge models to expand our solution.

In your opinion, what is the top skill every licensing executive should have in order to succeed?
I’m still learning about the key skills needed to succeed in the licensing industry, but from my experience so far, I believe that optimism and empathy are important for success in relationship-driven industries. Having empathy for whoever is on the other side of the table allows for the best collaboration, and optimism keeps you pushing forward even if times are difficult.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received, or what’s your favorite quote?
“By compressing the dull but necessary task of making a living into the smallest possible time, you show respect for life, and there is something grand about that.”

This quote Paul Graham wrote about startups and making a living played a large role in me wanting to create something on my own. Respecting life and respecting every opportunity through unreasonable commitment is something I think about often and keeps me going.

What is your favorite licensing deal of all time? (It doesn’t have to be one that was signed by you.)
Some of my favorite licensing deals have come from Travis Scott’s brand Cactus Jack. Cactus Jack has collaborated with McDonald’s on the “Travis Scott Meal,” with Nike on sneakers, with Dior on accessories, with Fortnite on interactive concerts, with Reese’s Puffs on a new cereal, and even when Audemars Piguet on a limited-edition Cactus Jack watch. All of Cactus Jack’s licensing endeavors and creative collaborations deals have mixed sports, music, pop culture, art, and entertainment and blended seemingly unrelated fields—something that has been an inspiration for me as I began my own business endeavors.

If you weren’t in licensing, what would you be doing now?
If I wasn’t in licensing or doing a startup, I would love to be in the education space teaching computer science. I was a teaching assistant for the Intro to Computer Science class at Penn for six semesters and spent a year teaching eight- and nine-year-olds how to code after graduating college. Seeing lightbulb moments from students ranging from third graders to grad students was an extremely fulfilling time for me. I also think the best way to master any subject is to teach it.

The last licensed product I bought was…
An Elvis Presley Halloween costume.