David Linhardt · Track Record

Eight companies founded. Five Fortune 500 business units. Eight products shipped with AI this year.

Everything on this page is a thing I built or ran, with the number it produced. Where a number is a plan rather than a result, it says so.

01 — Case Studies

My method, in action.

$1.5BMarket-cap increase in three months

AT&T Wireless · Wireless

How 48 hours with customers created a $1.5B business in 90 days.

A "proven" launch playbook flopped in three days. Direct customer conversations produced the insight behind AT&T Digital One Rate — and reset the entire wireless industry.

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$1.2MMEBITDA, from a $6MM loss in 15 months

Yesmail · Email marketing

$6MM loss to $1.2MM EBITDA in 15 months, no new capital.

A publicly traded email company was losing $5MM a year. I shifted it to a data-first strategy and launched three new products that turned it profitable — and led to a sale to InfoUSA, with no new capital.

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+12%Top-line growth, reversed from -15%

Experian · Information services

From a -15% decline to +12% growth in under 10 months.

Experian's $57MM TEC division was shrinking every year. I reversed the decline with a customer-centric growth strategy — and turned it into a growth engine for the company.

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+400%Performance efficiency

e360Insight · Email marketing

AI email personalization that lifted performance 400%.

In the "spray and pray" era of email, I built ML models that predicted response and conversion across a 100MM+ database — enabling purely performance-based campaigns. Profitable in three months, then acquired.

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$3MMRevenue, profitable from month one

BargainDepot · E-commerce

From zero to $3MM, profitable from month one.

Mining my 200MM-record email database for buyer signals, I launched a targeted discount e-commerce business and scaled it to $3MM — profitable every month, then sold to a strategic buyer.

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204Consecutive months of profitability

Acquisition Science (A16E) · Consumer data

A data asset turned into 204 months of profit.

I turned the behavioral data inside my own businesses into a product — building one of the largest suppliers of consumer omnichannel data, profitable for 17 straight years.

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$350MMWrote the plan for a new $350MM B2B business line

Amazon · E-commerce / B2B

A new line of business inside Amazon.

Amazon had world-class on-demand manufacturing but no business selling custom merchandise to corporations in bulk. I built the entry strategy and launch plan for an $82 billion market.

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5×Lead-conversion efficiency vs. the market leader

LegitLead · Lead-scoring SaaS

Predictive lead scoring, 5× more efficient than the market leader.

In for-profit education, buyers couldn't tell good leads from bad. I built a machine-learning platform that predicts which inquiries convert to enrolled students — and beat a $4 billion incumbent 5-to-1.

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107%Month-over-month user growth

ComeWith · IRL social

A cure for loneliness — 30K users, growing 107% a month.

ComeWith got people off their screens and into real life. In 90 days it launched in 60 cities, curated 550+ experiences, and brought 20,000 people together, face-to-face.

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96%Cycle-time reduction — 2,268 hours to 84

Joyride · Rideshare / AI-native build

A 9-month MVP, built in 30 days by one person.

The estimate was three engineers and nine months. I handed the product manager Claude Code instead — and shipped the MVP plus additional features in 30 days, for $100 a month in tokens.

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02 — New lines of business inside Fortune 500 companies

Five business units, built or turned around.

Company	Role	What I built or turned around	Result
Amazon2019–2020	Senior Leader & Entrepreneur-in-Residence (L7)	New B2B custom-merchandise business, from blank PRFAQ to funding approval and launch Case study →	Wrote the plan for a new $350MM B2B business line; approved and launched with early customers
AT&T Wireless1996–1998	Director, Marketing & Product	Created Digital One Rate, the flat-rate national plan that moved the industry to digital Case study →	$1.5BN added to market cap in 90 days
Experian1998–2001	VP, Marketing, Product & Strategy — TEC	Turned around a $57MM division by asking its customers what the team had stopped asking Case study →	–15% to +12% annual growth in under ten months
Yesmail2001–2003	SVP, Data Services	Repositioned from email list manager to omnichannel data business Case study →	First profitable year in company history: –$6MM to +$1.2MM EBITDA in 15 months; sold to InfoUSA
Procter & Gamble1992–1994	Product Development Engineer	Oral care product development (Crest, Scope, Peridex)	Business case and roadmap for a U.S. launch

03 — Companies founded

Eight founded. Seven profitable. Three exits.

Company	Years	What it was	Result
e360Insight	2003–2008	Email performance-prediction platform, 500M+ emails/month Case study →	202% annual growth, 48 consecutive profitable months; acquired
BargainDepot	2003–2008	E-commerce with in-house fulfillment Case study →	Profitable in month one; bootstrapped to $3MM revenue; acquired
Acquisition Science	2004–2021	Opt-in consumer database, 250M+ records Case study →	Profitable for 17 years; exited
LegitLead	2013–2016	Lead-scoring SaaS for education Case study →	Outperformed the category leader 5×; profitable; sold
Datalove	2020–2021	Life-event targeting for custom audiences	Profitable; pivoted to loyalty
ComeWith	2021–2023	Real-world social platform Case study →	30K users, 20K in-person meetups across 60 cities
Joyride	2024–	Rideshare model built around drivers Case study →	Profitable
FounderDojo	2013–	Startup validation program and the Founder's Workbench SaaS	83% of trained founders profitable or exited twelve years on (n=6)

The studio behind them.

Maverick Direct Marketing / MCDM Holdings (2003–2018) built five profitable companies in a row on about $5K of invested capital, a 1,460× cash-over-cash return. InsightStudios is the current iteration of our venture studio.

04 — Built with AI in 2026

Eight production products since February. Just me & AI.

i12s

This site and the operating system behind it: CRM, pipeline, messaging, and email automation.

i12s.com →

FounderDojo

Startup validation program and the Founder's Workbench SaaS, for founders testing an idea.

founderdojo.com →

Boost

First-party site analytics: pageviews, CTA clicks, and the contact funnel, without third-party cookies.

boostos.rocks →

Beefcake

A workout tracker where logging a set takes two taps, with last time's numbers and a rest timer. Shipped to the App Store.

On the App Store →

Freethought

Content monetization for creators: publish into Spaces you price yourself, keep your subscribers, and own your audience.

freethought.co →

Joyride

A rideshare model built around drivers. The nine-month MVP estimate, shipped in thirty days.

Case study →

davelinhardt.com

The personal site: résumé, portfolio, and the tables this page is built from.

davelinhardt.com →

Journal

A private daily journal that opens like a native app: one feed of entries that autosaves as you type.

Installable web app

New — video series

Deep Dive Videos.

Watch how I apply AI to product development — real engagements, real numbers, including a 96% cycle-time reduction.

Watch the series →

05 — Education

Purdue Engineer. Harvard MBA.

1992

Purdue University

B.S. Chemical Engineering

1996

Harvard Business School

MBA

Proven validation method.

Integrate customer insight into product and business model design.

Bring it into your company · EIR → Bring it to your portfolio · Venture Studio →