Good Fortune

Writing about sustainable startups and interviewing Impact Founders to inspire your next impact project, startup, or side hustle. 

Good Fortune will help you:
🌱 Discover sustainable businesses
🧠 Learn from Impact Founders
🌍 Meet likeminded change makers

Founder

Swinburne Design Factory Melbourne

Developing new products, services, and experiences for the innovation world.

Working with Industry, Government, and Individuals to better understand their world and design new solutions to make it a better one.

Senior Product Development Manager

Create Kaizen

I design tools, workshops, and learning programs for tech leaders to:
- Build innovative teams
- Improve creative collaboration
- Build human-centered organizations
- Create systems to navigate uncertainty
- Develop creative problem solving practices

Strategic Designer & Facilitator

Designit

- Lead discovery research, persona building, and journey mapping for transformation projects
- Designed and facilitated AI enablement workshops for exploration and implementation
- Partnered with BizDev to identify customer needs across partner orgs
- Implemented Design Thinking to tackle creative business transformation problems

Strategic Design Lead

NOBA

NOBA partners with companies to build and launch new products, services, or business models.

I supported digital, innovation, and marketing teams in different stages of the development and launch of new products:
- Defining the value propositions and business model for new products and services
- Testing and learning through business prototyping - building and launching an alpha version of the business, gathering metrics, and iterating with real customers
- Driving a soft market launch to start growing the customer base before scaling

Business Designer

NerdWallet

- Software development planning and visibility at all levels of management
- End to end quarterly planning for cross-functional pods
- Manage communication touchpoints between Product, Engineering, Design, Data
- Agile coaching for NerdWallet feature teams
- Program Management for Content Design team

NerdWallet is on a mission to provide clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. We provide consumers with expert, personalized, and actionable guidance across a range of personal finance topics. Whether you’re shopping for a new credit card or mortgage, hoping to refinance a student loan, interested in learning more about investing, or just want to stay on top of your money, we do the homework for you, simplifying complex ideas so you have the information and tools you need to make the right decision for you.

Backed by IVP, RRE Ventures, iGlobe Partners and Silicon Valley Bank, among others, NerdWallet has been certified a Great Place to Work and named one of the Best Workplaces in the Bay Area™ 2020 by Fortune. We’ve been recognized for our stellar benefits, too, from world-class health, vision, and dental insurance to our matching 401(k) program to our generous time off and parental leave policies. 

Based in San Francisco, we have more than 400 passionate “Nerds” around the country, and we’re growing every day. Whether you’re committed to helping consumers or  excited about working for a profitable tech company or interested in growing professionally—or all of the above!—we’d love to hear from you. Check out our job openings here: http://www.nerdwallet.com/careers

Program Manager

- Project manager for Content Design team, creating graphics, illustrations, animations and editorial videos
- Certified ScrumMaster, Scrum Alliance
- Refine and streamline department processes to maintain efficiency and scalability in a fast growing startup environment
- Facilitate projects for a stakeholder team of 90 Content Strategists, Assigning Editors, Copy Editors, and Writers in team operations and communication
- Develop and oversee quantitative success metrics and key performance indicators for Content and Content Design teams
- Advise Content team on institutional knowledge, the fluid inner workings of startup company operations and their position in it

Content Operations and Project Management

Interscope Records

- Coordinated photo shoots and graphic design work for 100+ artist roster
- Oversaw and refined end to end project portals for photographers, stylists, graphic designers, etc.
- Created and resolved photography and art contracts for all creative services provided to Interscope artists
- Organized and facilitated all travel, setup and production operations  for Interscope directors, photographers, producers, and stylist  teams
- Refined organizational strategy, including artist archiving, scheduling, and soliciting promotional materials

Creative Marketing

Opus Bank

- Consulted high net-worth banking clientele, managing accounts $500k-$1mm in balances
- Spearheaded sales team who aquired $50mm in deposits since inception 10.17.2011
- Integral part of opening and growing de novo banking office
- Integrated new sales, appointment, and follow up pipelines for Opus Bank de novo offices
- Generated qualified large acquisition meetings for VP/Retail Banking Manager

Client Services

Want to build a business that makes money AND makes a difference?

I break down exactly how successful impact founders are doing it.

Through conversations with founders and detailed case studies, I uncover the strategies and tactics that actually work in social impact.

At Good Fortune, I'm creating:
🎙️ Deep-dive conversations with impact founders sharing their playbook
📧 Weekly newsletters breaking down successful impact businesses
🛠️ Free, actionable tools for bootstrapped teams (like our Tactic Cards)

Everything I make is designed to help you:
- Validate your impact business idea
- Find and connect with your first customers
- Grow sustainably while maximizing impact
- Navigate the unique challenges of social enterprise

Want actionable insights for your impact business?

→ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter
→ Download free Tactic Cards
→ Listen to the latest founder deep dives


A bit more about me and why I love doing this:
🏄 I've always been an "experience channel surfer" (look at my work history)
💭 I love finding the overlap between creativity, strategy, and impact
🙏 I want to create things that enable others to do their best work

Give me a follow 🔔 for free content and learnings shared daily, or reach out if you want to talk strategy and social innovation (whatever that means to you).

Jake Carroll

Freelance Consulting

• Coached a solo creator from a demo script to starting a production company specialized in cross-cultural collaborations between Netflix, Lucasfilm, Disney, and filmmakers in Asia.
• Coached a yoga celebrity out of 72-hr work week burnout. Consulted directly to launch their business online within 8 weeks, generating $M in passive revenue within 6 months (3x increase).
• Ran strategic development for wellness influencers. Created online programs resulting in 20K+ MoM increase in new subscribers. Largest pitch covered $250K for a private wellness weekend.

Leadership Coach

• Co-advised 10 startups in Google for Startups Women Founders Residency via 1:1 founder coaching and team workshops. In 12 weeks, coached 5 launches across 3 startups, increased eng efficiency by 30% for a computer vision startup, and streamlined quarterly planning by 12% for a biotech startup.
• Led Gaza Sky Geeks developers to deliver end-to-end projects for remote clients from concept to launch in 10 weeks. Co-created international job pipeline at 2x local pay rate.

Technical Advisor

• Served as Post Production Manager on Star Wars: Visions, managing deliverables across 7 animation studios, 4 post-production facilities, 4 time zones, and 2 languages.
• Co-ran pre-production as Head of Story & Producer for an unannounced Netflix series.
• Co-produced Eden, the first Netflix Original anime, announced at Annecy 2019.

Producer

humu

Google

• Co-founded GSuite Intelligence, a team integrating ML and NLP across products.
• Launched intelligent Goals in Calendar, launched a natural language processing bot to negotiate meetings in Hangouts Meet, and helped bootstrap the Keep Intelligence team.

TLM & Staff Software Engineer, GSuite Intelligence

• Co-founded experimental prototyping initiatives within Machine Intelligence, providing early proofs of concept for AI-enabled predictive features for the Google Assistant.

TLM & Staff Software Engineer, Machine Intelligence

• Led frontend engineering for the Google+ homepage, creating best practices and shared components still used company-wide. Led I/O Keynote launches to billions of users.
• Pitched and led the G+ Experiment Program, allowing 1300+ people to test ideas quickly.
• Co-founded Adventure Labs, the G+ lean incubator. In 6 months, delivered 2 product integrations, 6 company-wide prototypes, and 2 long-term initiatives.

TLM & Staff Software Engineer, Google Plus

• Co-created Google Appointments, an enterprise self-scheduling product.

Software Engineer, Google Calendar

• Co-created an index and application to rapid-search ads data for campaign optimization.

Software Engineer, AdSense

Amazon.com

Software Development Engineer

Software Engineer

Production I.G

Intern

Intel Corporation

RC_ARINC

Hi there! I'm an advisor and coach with 20+ years of industry experience leading global organizations across tech, animation, and wellness.  love building teams and talent to deliver work that matters.

• Strategy •
10+ years pitching and delivering new initiatives. Built three experimental prototyping initiatives for Google. Co-pitched and co-produced the first Netflix Original anime. Coached 30+ startups across the US, UK, UAE, Gaza, Ghana, Taiwan, India, and Brazil. My work has impacted billions of people.

• Teams •
10+ years building teams. Direct teams ranged from 7 to 20+ individuals. Distributed teams spanned 4 countries, languages, and cultures. Runner-up for Google’s Great Manager Award.

• Execution •
Led engineering initiatives across 40+ teams and 1000+ individuals (co-own 7 patents). Co-led productions across 8 animation studios, 4 post-production facilities, and 2 streaming giants.

• Mindfulness •
RYT-500 certified yoga instructor. Practitioner of mind-body exercises to complete open stress cycles and reduce burnout.

taplio

The Battle

Jake Carroll

Irene Chung

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