Developer Advocate & Founder @ ML Data | Data Science & AI Content Creator

I didn't write my first line of code until I was 26. Now I get sponsored by companies like Anthropic, Amazon and IBM to create coding videos as a tech content creator.

My career path has been anything but linear - finance analyst to consultant to data scientist to full-time content creator. At each stop, I felt like I was starting over, but those diverse experiences became my superpower. My finance background taught me business fundamentals, consulting showed me how to solve complex problems, and data science gave me technical skills. 

When I combined all three and took the leap into content creation and developer advocacy, companies started paying attention.

Now I help others navigate their own career transitions by sharing what I've learned across industries and roles.

When I'm not creating content, you'll find me exploring running, playing pickleball or cuddling with my fur babies, Belle and Lola.

I'm always excited to connect with fellow career changers or anyone building something interesting. Feel free to reach out at megan@thedriveagency.co or send me a message here on LinkedIn 👋

Megan Lieu

90% of people are either wasting money on AI tools…

Or missing out on powerful tools that are literally FREE.

Including me — until I finally understood the real difference between Free vs Paid AI Tools.

Here’s what nobody tells you about AI tools:

Paid doesn’t mean better.
It just means better for a specific workflow.

So I’m finally sharing my full Free vs Paid AI Tools Framework (by category) 👇

✅ Writing & Content
↳ Paid: Jasper AI, Writesonic, Copy. ai, Frase, LongShot AI
↳ Free: ChatGPT, Google Gemini, QuillBot, Grammarly, Wordtune

✅ Image & Design
↳ Paid: Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Leonardo AI, Seedream 4.0, Runway Images
↳ Free: Bing Image Creator, Canva, Stable Diffusion, DALL·E, Nano Banana

✅ Video & Multimedia
↳ Paid: Synthesia, Pika Labs, Runway Video, Descript, Veo 3 Fast
↳ Free: CapCut AI, InVideo, Runway, Synthesia, Pexels AI Video

✅ Coding & Dev
↳ Paid: GitHub Copilot, Cursor AI, Tabnine, Replit Ghostwriter, Codeium Pro
↳ Free: GitHub Copilot, Gemini Code Assist, Codeium, AWS CodeWhisperer, OpenAI Playground

✅ Productivity & Research
↳ Paid: Notion AI, Perplexity Pro, Coda AI, Otter. ai, Evernote AI
↳ Free: Perplexity, Notion, Microsoft Copilot, Obsidian AI Plugins, Google Gemini

✅ SEO & Marketing
↳ Paid: Surfer SEO, Clearscope, MarketMuse, SEMrush AI, Ahrefs AI
↳ Free: Ubersuggest, Google Trends, AnswerThePublic, SEO Minion, Mangools Tools

✅ Audio & Speech
↳ Paid: ElevenLabs, Murf AI, Play. ht, Resemble AI, Descript Audio
↳ Free: Google Text-to-Speech, Mozilla TTS, Audacity AI Plugins, Talkie AI

✅ New & Trending AI Tools
↳ Paid: Claude Pro, Gemini Advanced, Lovable AI, Flux Pro, Runway Advanced
↳ Free: Nano Banana, Lovable. ai , Flux, Captions. ai, Playground AI

I went from randomly subscribing to AI tools…

To building a stack that actually matches my work.

And that’s the truth about AI tools…

Free tools help you start.
Paid tools help you scale.

♻️ Reshare this if it helped and follow me for more AI tools + workflow breakdowns.

a16z just dropped their list of unicorn startup ideas for 2026. 

The Silicon Valley VC firm just released a list of the biggest ideas their investing teams believe builders need to tackle this year.

So make sure you save this if you’ve been looking for the next unicorn startup idea:
 
 1. AI-native banking & insurance infrastructure
 2. Enterprise multi-agent orchestration platforms
 3. Physical observability platform
 4. Compliance-first AI development tools
 5. ChatGPT-native apps (via OpenAI apps SDK)
 6. Autonomous scientific discovery labs
 7. Multi-modal voice agent platforms
 8. Prompt-free, proactive AI applications
 9. AI-native industrial base companies
10. Reasoning/multimodal/computer-use-enabled companies
11. Industrial data collection & annotation platform
12. Forward-deployed AI consulting
13. AI startup tooling for greenfield companies
14. Voice-first AI operating system
15. AI-powered contingency business models
16. "See Me" consumer AI products
17. Synthetic biology design studio
18. AI-native insurance products
19. AI-powered sales qualification platform
20. Electro-industrial stack components

Which of these ideas are you betting on?
 
Check out the full article from a16z linked in my comments below 👇

Tech Startups by A16z

🦄 <- This you bro ??

.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but you probably suffer from Unicorn Dysmorphia.

Symptoms include:
→ An irrational belief that your startup is a "rOcKeTsHiP 2 da mOOOON 🚀"
→ Holding out for a mythical VC to swoop in and save you
→ Wondering why every other startup is successful and you're not

Let me liberate you with a fact: only 0.00006% of startups become unicorns.

You're playing a game where the odds are stacked against you.

But the good news is you don't have to play the game.

You can absolutely:
→ Run your startup without trying to always please others
→ Find investors who actually want to help you and don't just see you as a potential paycheck
→ Fulfill your mission and find success on your own terms


The Anti-VC can get you there.

I've helped 1000+ founders find the best path to capital that worked for them.

And I can do the same for you.


So if you're ready to drop (Uni/Corn) from your pronouns...

If you're ready to undo years of VC brainwashing...

If you're ready to capitalize your startup ridiculously fast... visit my Featured section 👇🏽

taplio

The Battle

Megan Lieu

Saleem Ahmad 🤎

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreMegan Lieu's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Megan Lieu

Saleem Ahmad 🤎

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);}Megan Lieu's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMegan Lieu's LinkedIn Performance