Arta Finance (formerly Arbo Works)

Joined Arta Finance via the acquisition of Money Minx to be part of the founding product team.

Founding Team | Product

Startup Beach

Hosting startup events in San Diego and enabling event hosts to use a matchmaking algorithm to make sure they attendees always come out with at least two new business connections.

Founder

Techstars

Mentor

GPT Hacks

GPT Hacks is my weekly newsletter, where I share tips, resources, and deep dives on how to leverage AI to grow and streamline your business. Over 9,400 startup founders and entrepreneurs get my AI tips, join them 👉 https://www.gpthacks.com/subscribe.

Money Minx

Founded Money Minx to help investors track all of their Investments, Alts, Crypto, and more in one place. Exited to Arta Finance

eCapital Corp.

eCapital is an industry leader in the freight factoring space. We service and help keep thousands of truckings companies stay on the road moving freight that makes our every day lives possible. 
As CIO and Head of Strategic Initiatives I am responsible for all things IT and Technology used by our employees, customers and partners.

CIO and Head of Strategic Initiatives

My team delivers the simplest factoring experience to the transportation industry, from owner operators to large fleets. We do this through the technology and products we build combined with customer-focused service.

Chief Experience Officer (CXO)

Responsible for the product and technology vision, roadmap and development of the company.

VP Product & Technology / CTO

appsplit

- Founded AppSplit: Positioned as one of the earliest crowdfunding platforms, timed to take advantage of the beginnings of the AppStore and Google Play.

- Innovative Mechanism: Created a network for developers to offer discounts, ownership, and rewards to investors interested in app ownership.

- Media Coverage: Featured in leading tech and fintech publications like TechCrunch and The Next Web.

- Successful Exit: Led the company to a successful acquisition by an investment group.

DiamPrice

- Launched DiamPrice: Developed the industry's first mobile app dedicated to the evaluation of loose diamonds, as well as gold, silver, and platinum jewelry.
- Target Audience: Primarily designed for industry professionals seeking accurate, real-time appraisals.
- Market Disruption: Introduced a first-of-its-kind tool that revolutionized the traditional appraisal process, offering a digital solution in a predominantly manual industry.
- Successful Exit: Sold the business to a private equity group.

OneRoof Energy, Inc.

LPL Financial

Managed team of project managers, established project management best practices and lead delivery of large projects.

Assistant Vice President Program Management

Developed test strategies and lead teams of QA engineers on projects.

Lead QA Engineer

Developed requirements and research for products.

Senior Product Analyst

Stuff I am currently focused on:

#1 Bring new financial advisory products to market at Arta Finance. 

#2 Build a startup ecosystem in San Diego via Startup Beach and mentoring for TechStars San Diego & Anywhere. 

#3 Help others with AI via GPT Hacks. 

#4 Help my youngest develop his soccer skills, my second work on her basketball game and my oldest shine like his sax.

#5 Spend more time with my awesome wife doing fun things in San Diego and around the world.

Hussein Yahfoufi

Stoked for two things... and a bonus!

First, my good friend Ryan Berman packed out Barnes & Noble, Inc. last night and sold out his new book Headamentals.

Second, this was the first book signing hosted on Eventship. Excited to see more authors, creators, and communities using the platform for events like this.

And on a personal note, my amazing wife Jessica Yahfoufi is getting close to releasing her new novel. Stay tuned for that launch party! 💃

Founder, Eventship • Helping event hosts grow everywhere • Host of San Diego’s Startup Mixer

What do you get when you have 200 incredible founders, investors and people working hard to help us all grow at the same place and at the same time?

Great connections, business deals, investments, new jobs and a great ol' time. Especially when you also add in our authentic tacos made by hand on site courtesy of Isaac Pollock, CFP® and Robert Goodyear.

See you there!

Emily Kramer's ecosystem strategy in today's Lenny's Newsletter is brilliant, but I have a different take on one point which is worth unpacking.


You don't get tired of events the same way you do as flooded email inboxes if the events are done right. The problem isn’t too many events, it’s too many of the wrong ones.

With over one thousand events behind me, I can tell you what makes a great event and how events are actually a growth node in your ecosystem flywheel not something people get tired from.

1. Events have to be from trusted hosts (think innovation hubs, accelerators, community leaders, founders, etc).

2. The right people have to be at the event, the attendee list must be curated and focused on the right groups for that event.

3. Sponsors of the event must be true ecosystem partners, not just logos on a wall. e.g. Isaac Pollock, CFP® is the taco guy for my mixer, not just our banker. He is part of the community and cares about it.

4. The event must be designed for connection, not attendance. This is what Neal Bloom🎩, Jonah Peake 🐺 and I talked about in our LinkedIn Live last week. It's also the reason why Eventship invests heavily in our matchmaking AI.

When you get those right, events aren’t fatiguing or tiring. They’re energizing. They are the ecosystem.

When you attend the right event, meet the right person, and the right sponsor supports it, that event becomes a node that strengthens the whole network.

Hussein Yahfoufi’s North County Startup Mixer — every month keeps getting better and better. 😎

Thank you to this month’s sponsors!!!
Isaac Pollock, CFP® 
Kimberly Drozdoff 
Emily D. 
Tyler Hastings 

See you next month 😎

VibeScaling

Advisory for Companies Scaling to 100m+ ARR

6 of our 60+ portfolio companies (<$20m cap when we started working with them) are either public or private decacorns or unicorns in 2025, including Dropbox, Retool, Zip, Box, Front, and Productboard

12 others have 9 figure valuations and have surpassed 8 figures in ARR

10 have been acquired by companies like Stripe, PagerDuty, Checkr, IBM, Hightouch

Focus Areas: Lead Gen, Customer Acquisition, Customer Success & AM, Partnerships, RevOps, Solutions Eng, Marketing, Recruiting, HR, GTM Eng, Fundraising

Current Portfolio:

Cortex, Grain, LiveKit, SecurityPal, Lindy, Continu, Hifive, Zip, Retool, Lavender, Grit, GlenCoco, Ratio, Paramark, Loyee.io, Avoca AI, Pylon, Parcha, Siro.ai, CandorIQ, GoGo Grandparent, Render, Ozone, Quarter20, Daydream, Opine, Inductive Bio, Supio, Arcee.ai, AireXpert, Variance, LiquidText, Tome, Prospect, Daloopa, Mach9, Gather, HockeyStack, Airfold, Centralize, Freeplay.ai, Ldgr, Wayfaster, Select.dev, Faliam, SubBase, Wellfound , Mastra.ai, Bluebirds.ai

Highlights:

Dropbox - First GTM hire, Series A to Series C (IPO, $12B market cap)
Box - First GTM hire, Seed to Series C (IPO, $5B market cap)
Front - First 8 employees & Head of Sales, Seed to Series B ($1.7B valuation)
RevenueCat - First GTM hire & VP Sales, Series A to Series B ($300m valuation)
Retool - Investor & Advisor @ 3 employees ($3.2B valuation)
Zip - Investor & Advisor @ 2 employees ($2.2B Valuation)
Productboard - Investor & Advisor @ 2 employees ($1.7B valuation)
Cortex - Investor & Advisor @ 3 employees ($470m valuation)
Truework - First 10 employees & VP Sales, Seed to Series B (Acquired by Checkr)
Okay Software - Fractional CRO (Acquired by Stripe)
Jeli.io - Advisor to CEO (Acquired by PagerDuty)
HeadsUp - Advisor to Founders (Acquired by Hightouch)
Clarent - Advisor to Founders (Acquired by ProCare)
Jelled AI - Investor & Advisor (Acquired by Inflection AI)
OddsJam - Advisor to Founders & CCO (Acquired by Gambling.com)

Supporting Founders & Execs from 0 to $100m+ in ARR

Formal

Automate least privilege at the packet level

Head of Sales & Advisor

Retool

The fastest way to build your own custom tools. 

Started working with the founders when the company was only 3 people in an apartment (3.2B Valuation).

Investor & Advisor

Zip Intake-to-Procure

Challenging the old guards in procurement. 

Working with founders since the product was a POC (2.2B Valuation).

Cortex

Cortex helps your engineering team understand and improve their service-oriented architecture.

LiveKit

The open source platform for real-time communication.

Arcee.ai

Empowering Domain Adapted Large Language Models

Pylon (YC W23)

Helping CS & Sales leaders increase NRR & speed up sales cycles.

Avoca AI

Giving every business a 24/7 AI assistant.

Lindy

An AI assistant that can help with tasks, from calendar management and email drafting to contract sending and beyond.

Founder - Vibe Scaling (Advisory Firm Supporting Founders, Execs & Employees from $0 to $100m+ ARR)

Co-Creator of Silicon Sands (Private San Diego Founder/Exec/VC Network with over 200+ members)

Advisory:

6 of our 60+ portfolio companies (<$20m cap when we started working with them) are either public or private decacorns or unicorns in 2025, including Dropbox, Retool, Zip, Box, Front, and Productboard

12 others have 9 figure valuations and have surpassed 8 figures in ARR. 

10 have been acquired by companies like Stripe, PagerDuty, Hightouch, IBM, Checkr, Inflection AI, Procare HR, Honeycomb, and Gambling.com

Focus Areas: Sales Development, New Business Acquisition (SMB, MM, Enterprise), Customer Success, Account Management, Partnerships, RevOps, Solutions Engineering, Marketing, Recruiting (technical / non-technical roles), People Operations, Compliance, Equity Strategy, Fundraising, etc.

Current Portfolio:

Cortex, Grain, LiveKit, SecurityPal, Lindy, Continu, Hifive, Zip, Retool, Lavender, Grit, GlenCoco, Ratio, Paramark, Loyee.io, Avoca AI, Pylon, Parcha, Siro.ai, CandorIQ, GoGo Grandparent, Render, Ozone, Quarter20, Daydream, Opine, Inductive Bio, Supio, Arcee.ai, AireXpert, Variance, LiquidText, Tome, Prospect, Daloopa, Mach9, Gather, HockeyStack, Airfold, Joist.ai, Centralize, Freeplay.ai, Ldgr, Wayfaster, Select.dev, Faliam, SubBase, Wellfound (Formerly AngelList Talent), Mastra.ai, Bluebirds.ai, Applied Labs, Solidroad, Multiple companies in stealth.

Highlights:

Dropbox - First GTM hire, Series A to Series C (IPO, $12B market cap)
Box - First GTM hire, Seed to Series C (IPO, $5B market cap)
Front - First 8 employees & Head of Sales, Seed to Series B ($1.7B valuation)
Truework - First 10 employees & VP Sales, Seed to Series B ($550m valuation)
RevenueCat - First GTM hire & VP Sales, Series A to Series B ($350m valuation)
Retool - Investor & Advisor @ 3 employees ($3.2B valuation)
Zip - Investor & Advisor @ 2 employees ($2.2B Valuation)
Productboard - Investor & Advisor @ 2 US employees ($1.7B valuation)
Cortex - Investor & Advisor @ 3 employees ($470m valuation)
LiveKit - Investor & Advisor @ 2 employees ($110m valuation)
Arcee.ai - Investor & Advisor @ 2 employees ($120m valuation)
Okay Software - Fractional CRO (Acquired by Stripe)
Jeli.io - Advisor to CEO (Acquired by PagerDuty)
HeadsUp - Advisor to Founders (Acquired by Hightouch)
Clarent - Advisor to Founders (Acquired by ProCare HR)
Jelled AI - Investor & Advisor (Acquired by Inflection AI)
OddsJam - Advisor to Founders & CCO (Acquired by Gambling.com)

Cailen DSa

Every now and then, you come across someone whose potential isn’t obvious to others, but becomes very obvious to you as time goes on.

That was my experience with Chris Balestras.

I met Chris back in 2023 when he was trying to break into startups after a stint in management consulting. We didn't know each other well at the time, but I found myself being drawn to the task of helping him navigate the messiness of early-stage startup hiring -- the endemic of subjective & disorganized processes, unreasonable judgement for the lack of well-known logos on a resume, no ties to a strong "insider" network that would offer a golden ticket that so many others rely on.. the list goes on and on.

Over time, I introduced him to more than 30 startups, with a vast majority opting to pass without even offering a phone screen.

The pattern was almost comical to me: a Columbia MBA, which many hiring managers classically interpret as “too academic". Feedback arrived in my inbox like "MBAs don't want to do the gritty, unglamorous, roll-up-your-sleeves work. We're going to pass here."

All of this just reinforced what I've seen over my 20 years in tech: hiring is deeply imbued with bias and subjective decision-making.

Meanwhile, I saw something entirely different.

I saw someone with strong desire to break through, going to any and all lengths to get his shot, while carrying himself with grace and humility. "Ivy League MBAs are not supposed to be humble" is the conventional belief. Chris starkly flips that narrative on its head.

So I did what any great founder would do - I capitalized on the opportunity and brought him on at VibeScaling to lead various strategic initiatives here.

Fast forward to today - Chris has reshaped the business in ways that are immeasurable (and ironically, measurable!) He’s expanded our content engine to span across events, podcasts, and newsletters that are consumed by thousands of subscribers; pushed the boundaries of our firm's surface area within the advisory practice, created a talent vortex where the best GTM folks and companies want to co-mingle, and frankly, brought a perspective that has meaningfully inflected how we operate as a firm.

There’s a lesson in here that I hope everyone takes away from this: The market is often wrong about people. And sometimes, the best hires are the ones nobody else understands yet.

Hiring Chris wasn’t a “bet.”

It was simply paying attention when others weren't.

Supporting Founders & Top Talent @ VibeScaling.ai | First GTM @ 6 Unicorns | Placing the Top 1% Talent at the Most Promising AI Startups

As I'm sure you've all heard by now - Metronome got acquired by Stripe for $1B this week.

At VibeScaling, it's comments like this that validate why we do what we do.

Unlike most firms, we're working 7 days a week to make sure our portfolio companies live up to their full potential, while de-risking the downside and drama that comes with building a startup.

Congrats again to our friends, Scott, Kevin, Su, Mark, Todd, and the entire Metronome team on this incredible milestone.

The moment I saw Jensen Huang at the White House dinner last night, I knew we were in for a good report.

Nobody flies across the country the night before the biggest market-making earnings call for a dinner and misses estimates.

When anyone says that you can't have a great exit building a services business, show them this.

At VibeScaling, our vision is to build the "McKinsey for Startups" - including arms for Advisory, Talent, Investment and Media. Although we have zero ambitions to exit, this is a perfect moment to share with the world why we exist. 

Here's a sample of the work we do with over 120+ of the top Seed to Series C startups today:

Advisory: We work directly with founders to build the GTM / Operational strategy, share working growth tactics & channels based on our 120+ company data points, coach founders on how to assess GTM talent, Co-run deals to teach founders how to effectively run a sales process, Pricing & Packaging ideation, etc.

Talent: Placing top 1% GTM & Marketing hires at portfolio companies. We partner with both ICs and Leaders, and a vast majority of our talent pool is referred in by people we trust (ex-managers & peers) and are/were top perfomers.

Finance & Rev Ops: Bridge founders until they hire a full-time finance/biz ops / rev ops hire. Work includes building financial/operating model, setting up GTM systems, funnel analysis, BOD prep, running board meetings, coaching ops hires, etc.

HR & Ops: Take all HR related work off founders plates - setting up HRIS, Benefits/Healthcare Admin, Compliance, AR/AP management, general operational needs. We believe the opportunity cost of this work for an early stage founder is trivial.

Fractional Exec: For companies with PMF, but no leadership yet, we can play the fractional leadership role until timing is right to make a full-time hire (coaching AEs, BDRs, CSMs, etc.)

Investment: Writing checks into companies that we believe will become the next iconic companies of tomorrow.

Honored to get to build this amazing business with Chris Balestras, Conrad McKinnon, Ankur Passi, and Shalina Mann everyday.

It's been incredible to work with the team at Factory to help them build a world-class GTM org.

Congrats to Andy Taylor on the new role -- it's been an honor to work with you at VibeScaling.

(As always, thank you Caroline Ricksen, Francesca LaBianca, and Andy Codner!)

We are excited to have Andy Taylor join Factory’s GTM team.

Andy joins us from Anysphere / Cursor. Andy has spent his career selling to developers and deeply technical engineering teams, building early sales motions at companies like Teleport, Temporal, and Baseten.

Andy joins our killer GTM team and will be working with distinguished enterprises to bring agent-native development and the Droids into production. Welcome!

VibeScaling placed Tarek Al Khatib at Attention just a few weeks back and these are the kind of outcomes they're getting from a top 1% hire.

If you're a Seed to Series B startup and want to hire the top 1% in GTM & Marketing, give us a shout. Unlike most firms, we're all ex VPs & CROs and actually know what "great" looks like (aka spend less time talking to sub-par candidates and only engage with the best-of-the-best).

Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gCHFVbsm

Supporting Founders & Top Talent @ Vibescaling.ai | First GTM @ 6 Unicorns | Placing the Top 1% Talent at the Most Promising AI Startups

From 0 to Closed-Won in 10 Days. 

Tarek had only just joined the sales team, but he closed his first deal in less than two weeks. 

That’s what happens when reps have AI systems built for revenue teams that are surfacing the right talk tracks, deal insights, and next steps in real time.

This isn’t a one-off story. He took his first month (32k closed won) and more than doubled it in his second month (82k closed won), using Attention.

It’s the start of a new standard for how fast teams can ramp, execute, and win when every seller has Attention in their corner.

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Hussein Yahfoufi

Cailen DSa

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taplio

The Battle

Hussein Yahfoufi

Cailen DSa

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Hussein Yahfoufi's LinkedIn Performance

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