Built for founders who mean it.
As Lead Product Strategist at Appetiser Apps, Jay works on multi-million dollar products daily — and brings that same rigour to founder advisory. If you're building something that drives real change, this is where it starts.
The partnership between Jay and you — the founder. You bring the vision. Jay brings the strategy, the network, and the honest feedback others won't give you. A real partnership, not a vendor relationship.
AI isn't a buzzword here — it's a force multiplier baked into everything. Research, market analysis, deck feedback, strategic synthesis. At a depth and pace no single human can match alone. Always on. Always compounding.
The challenges that kill startups don't respect categories. Neither do we.
Real market signals and competitor analysis before you spend a dollar on development. AI-accelerated, human-filtered.
Data-driven design and roadmap decisions, backed by access to world-class designers and a decade of shipped, funded products across APAC.
Unit economics, pricing strategy, go-to-market playbooks. The commercial foundation your product needs to generate revenue, not just downloads.
Pitch decks that land. Narrative that makes investors lean forward. Built by someone who's raised capital and sat on both sides of the table.
Decision fatigue, co-founder dynamics, the messy psychological reality of building — we go through the human layer, not just the spreadsheet.
Ongoing partnership — one call away when things go sideways. A fractional co-founder, genuinely invested in your outcome.
The old model was transactional. JI Founders exists because the best founders need more than that — someone genuinely invested in their success who understands validation, fundraising, product strategy, commercialisation, and the psychology of building. That's not a vendor. That's a partner.
Jay isn't just an advisor — he's a founder. He has raised capital, felt the weight of a cap table, and knows what it means to back an idea with everything you have. That experience shapes every conversation.
Jay has been a fintech founder and worked in the fintech industry since 2014. He cut his teeth at Finn Ventures in Madrid — Spain's first fintech venture builder — for more than a year, before founding Fintech Hub Europe, a product-focused startup accelerator that began in Slovakia, expanded into Czechia, and partnered with Mastercard and Vacuumlabs before later merging with the LongRiver fund. He then moved to the capital side as Head of Product at Threshold Capital in Prague — a digital investment platform for small SMEs — deciding what to back and why. Investor and accelerator, capital and builder — he has stood on both sides of the fence.
Today Jay carries that European foundation into the APAC region as Lead Product Strategist at Appetiser Apps — founded by Michael MacRae and Jamie Shostak. Headquartered in Australia with global reach and strong ties to the US, Appetiser ships multi-million-dollar digital products — yet the focus here stays firmly on APAC founders. That depth of execution, design rigour, and access to world-class talent flows directly into every JI engagement.
The aim is simple and ambitious: make JI Founders the go-to platform for startup founders across APAC. When the real questions emerge — Am I building the right thing? Will investors care? — JI Founders is the formalisation of those conversations: strategic, direct, and genuinely invested in your outcome.
Words from colleagues, co-founders, and founders he's worked with.
Testimonials from colleagues and founders — coming soon.
This space is reserved for the people who know Jay best.
Real words from real people — updating soon.
JI Founders isn't just advisory. It's a growing community of founders across APAC — learning together, building together, holding each other accountable.
Deep-dive sessions on the things that actually matter when building a company from zero — taught by people who've done it.
Regular gatherings in Melbourne and Bali for founders who want real conversations — not networking theatre. Come for the ideas. Stay for the people.
Be part of the network. Access sessions, meet-ups, and a circle of founders who push each other forward.