PsyOptimal is an AI-ready sports psychology platform founded by Dr. Wayne Chappelle and Bryan Fetzer. Dr. Chappelle is a licensed clinical and sports psychologist (ABPP board certified) who spent 20+ years at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Wright-Patterson AFB, where he served as adviser to the Air Force Surgeon General and chief consultant to heads of Air Force major commands. His military research focused on psychological resilience in special operations battlefield Airmen and drone operator mental health. He is currently the Team Psychologist for the Oklahoma City Thunder (NBA), who won the 2025 NBA Championship with a 68-14 regular season record and the largest cumulative point differential in league history. Bryan Fetzer is a veteran coach and performance consultant with 30+ years in sports, including 20+ years coaching at NCAA Division I level and broadcasting for ESPN and ACC Network. The company is headquartered in Springboro, Ohio, founded 2023, early-stage (~7 people). The methodology originates from Dr. Chappelle's military psychological screening research — originally designed for Presidential aircrew, Special Operations Warfare personnel, and Air Force leadership — translated into sports and business contexts. Core assessments include ACE + Cohesion (team dynamics), Sports TACTICs (individual mental performance), Sports Wellness (burnout screening), and Professional TACTICs (business leadership). Reports feature color-coded results, trend analysis over time, and personalized "Pro Tips." The philosophy is mental performance optimization, not therapy. As CTO, Tom built the entire platform from the ground up — architecture, backend, data layer, and deployment. The platform is now at scale nationwide, serving thousands of students, athletes, and businesses. It ships in English and Spanish across professional sports, military, collegiate athletics, youth development, corporate performance, education, first responders, and ministry. Fully GDPR/CCPA compliant. Built on Python/Django with PostgreSQL on AWS. Dr. Chappelle co-authored "Heal Your Hurting Mind" (Zondervan/HarperCollins, Feb 2026) with NYT bestselling author Craig Groeschel.

The OKC Thunder's team psychologist had 25 years of military-grade assessment methods and no digital platform. Tom built one from scratch: a real-time scoring engine that benchmarks psychological profiles against team, league, and sport-wide norms. The Thunder won the 2025 NBA Championship in the platform's first full season. Now at scale nationwide, serving thousands of students, athletes, and businesses.

Fuse (formerly DeckFusion) is an AI-powered marketing intelligence platform headquartered in New York, NY. Co-founded by Jeff Cherkassky (CEO, 4x founder with one exit — Box Boulevard acquired 2018, formerly SVP Revenue at Hawke Media) and Jill Randell (COO, 13 years at Google in global partnerships and revenue operations, formerly VP Client Strategy at Found Search Marketing). The company started in 2023 as DeckFusion, focused on AI-generated presentation decks from marketing data, then pivoted in 2024 to a real-time marketing intelligence platform — an "AI operating system for growth marketing decisions." The core problem: marketing teams were manually pulling data from siloed platforms (GA4, Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn Ads) into spreadsheets or BI tools, relying on data analysts to build dashboards, struggling with fragmented stale data that couldn't answer strategic "why" questions. Fuse connects directly to live marketing data sources with no ETL or batch sync, uses AI agents to auto-map metrics across platforms, and provides a natural language interface for complex performance questions. 400+ growth marketing teams on the platform with $470K contracted ARR as of Q1 2026, with visibility to $1M by June 2026. Largest client is Ziff Davis (CNET Group, 375M impressions). 8,957 live data sources connected. Official Shopify Partner. SOC2 and GDPR compliance in progress. Raising $100K bridge at $8M cap ahead of Seed round. Target segments: agencies managing multiple client accounts, in-house marketing teams, and enterprise teams across multiple brands. Advisory board includes Bill Macaitis (former CMO at Slack and Zendesk, SVP Marketing at Salesforce), Chris Copeland (former CEO of GroupM Search/WPP), Claire Capeci Sucre (President of Arnold, former Global President of Retail at JWT/WPP), and Julian Zilberbrand (Global Head of Data Solutions at Paramount and LG). Team of ~10 people, angel-funded/bootstrapped. As CTO, Tom architected the entire system using PydanticAI and Claude MCP servers for data orchestration, building and leading all engineering. He pioneered the MCP server pattern for dynamic tool generation months before Anthropic released their industry standardization — connecting Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Meta APIs through auto-generated tool interfaces. Engineered a "zero hallucination" guarantee through verified data pipelines, critical for enterprise customers making business decisions. Developed a PromptTemplate system that achieved 40% token reduction, directly cutting API costs. Led from zero to production MVP in 6 months with enterprise-ready multi-tenant architecture. After Tom's tenure as CTO, the platform continued scaling to $470K ARR. Paul Tuck was promoted to Principal Engineer. Technologies: Python, PydanticAI, OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, AWS, Next.js, Redis, prompt engineering, data pipelines.

Marketing teams were drowning in siloed data across Google Analytics, Ads, and Meta. Tom took the platform from zero to production MVP in 6 months, pioneering MCP server patterns before Anthropic's standardization. Built the data verification layer that eliminates AI hallucinations. The platform now serves 400+ teams at $470K ARR, including Ziff Davis.

Official is "The Relationship App" — a couples-focused product that was acquired by Bumble Inc (NASDAQ: BMBL) to become part of Bumble Studio. Tom joined Official as tech lead before the acquisition, then led all technology through the Bumble acquisition process, supporting the founder with his exit. He transitioned from Technical Advisor (Oct 2022 - May 2023) to Head of Engineering (Apr - Dec 2023), based remotely in Greater London. Post-acquisition, he led a complete technical transformation: rebuilding the entire 8-person dev team in 6 months while maintaining product velocity — zero missed sprint commitments throughout the transition. He was the hiring manager for full replacement of the London-based dev team. Tom integrated data pipelines for the BI and Finance departments that reduced report latency by 75%, enabling real-time business intelligence for the first time. He managed the technical handover of the React Native app (serving 100K+ monthly active users) to Bumble Inc's engineering organization, aligning the startup's engineering practices with the NASDAQ-listed parent company's operational standards and compliance requirements. Implemented Scrum methodology throughout. Testimonial from Zac Stern at Bumble Inc: "an indispensable asset to our team.. the best engineer I've had the privilege of working with.. Tom fostered a positive and collaborative work environment, serving as a natural leader who inspired the entire team to strive for excellence." Technologies: React Native, data pipelines, scaling infrastructure, gen AI, Scrum.

Tom joined Official as tech lead, then led all technology through the Bumble acquisition, supporting the founder's exit. Post-acquisition, he rebuilt the entire 8-person engineering team in 6 months with zero missed sprint commitments, handed the React Native app (100K+ MAU) over to Bumble's org, and integrated data pipelines that gave the business real-time visibility for the first time.

Simplenight is a B2B2C global distribution platform for travel and in-destination experiences, founded by Mark Halberstein (CEO) in 2013. Halberstein has 20+ years in technology, travel, hospitality, and finance — previously JP Morgan Investment Bank, Allied Partners, and founder of a luxury concierge company serving corporate clients and celebrity clientele. Headquartered in Miami, Florida. The platform offers a universal API and white-label booking engine with 10+ million bookable products across 5,000+ cities in 191 countries, spanning 30+ categories: accommodations, flights, rental cars, tours, attractions, events, dining, nightlife, wellness, parking, and more. In February 2023, Simplenight signed a multi-year strategic technology agreement with Sabre, gaining access to Sabre's travel content (air, lodging, NDC) and exclusive use of Sabre Virtual Payments. The company has raised $11.6M over 2 rounds (seed 2018, Series A June 2020) from investors including Endeavor Miami, Beresford Ventures, Florida Funders, Nima Capital, and Plug and Play Tech Center. ~25 employees, ~$3M revenue in 2024. Competitors include Hotelbeds (HBX Group), Amadeus, Travelport, Livn, and Holibob. As Cache Architect, Tom designed and built a custom Redis-based caching system for 700K+ hotels worldwide, sitting between GDS data feeds and the consumer-facing API. The system engineers real-time ETL processing handling 70GB/min of rates and availability data from multiple GDS providers — ensuring pricing and availability data stays fresh while keeping response times under 100ms. This architecture reduced API response times by 85%, enabling sub-100ms booking flows that dramatically improved conversion rates. Tom implemented geospatial indexing for location-based hotel search across the full global inventory. Technologies: Redis, ETL systems, geospatial databases, scaling infrastructure.

Hotel pricing changes constantly, and Simplenight's system couldn't keep up with real-world rate updates. Tom designed a Redis caching layer for 700K+ hotels worldwide, processing 70GB/min from multiple GDS providers. Response times dropped 85% to sub-100ms, keeping prices accurate across the platform.

Intelligent Trading Foundation (ITF) is a fintech company serving cryptocurrency and alternative asset traders, based in Prague, Czech Republic (Jan 2017 - Aug 2020). As CTO, Tom led a team of PhDs to build the entire platform. The "Signals" platform pairs traditional market trading concepts with pattern recognition and machine learning capabilities — price prediction and sentiment analysis models covering 200+ cryptocurrencies with real-time market analysis. The "Portfolio" platform enables tracking and auto-rebalancing of digital assets and currencies, managing $10M+ in aggregate digital assets. The company served 50K+ active crypto traders. The entire codebase was open-sourced across 22 repositories (github.com/IntelligentTrading) with contributions from multiple developers. The company's research and education initiatives dove deep into fundamental analysis of decentralized networks, establishing thought leadership in the emerging crypto trading space. Technologies: Python, blockchain, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, AI, statistical data analysis.

Led a team of PhDs to build an ML-powered trading signals platform covering 200+ cryptocurrencies with price prediction, sentiment analysis, and portfolio auto-rebalancing managing $10M+ in digital assets. Grew to 50K+ active traders and open-sourced the entire codebase across 22 repositories.

B Hub Prague was a blockchain startup incubator in Prague's Karlin financial district, providing shared office space (40 desks in a fully serviced 220sqm office), mentorship, funding connections, and legal support to early-stage companies. Tom founded and led the incubator as Executive Director (part-time, Sep 2017 - Oct 2019). The incubator supported 20+ early-stage blockchain companies, whose members collectively raised $6M+ in seed funding through ICOs and traditional VC. Notably, B Hub took no equity from member startups. Tom built partnerships with local incubator and accelerator programs and university entrepreneurship centers. He organized 100+ weekly education events led by volunteer advisors from established blockchain projects, ran a Founders Club for first-time entrepreneurs, and facilitated Design Sprints 2.0. Active advisors covered legal, finance, Czech accounting, blockchain technology, and mobile apps.

Prague's blockchain scene needed infrastructure for founders, not just meetups. Tom founded an incubator that supported 20+ early-stage companies whose members collectively raised $6M+ in seed funding. Ran 100+ education events, took no equity from member startups.

Agoda is a Booking Holdings property (NASDAQ: BKNG) and Asia's leading online hotel reservation service with over 40 million monthly active users across 39 languages, based in Bangkok, Thailand. Tom joined as Senior Engineering Team Lead (Jan - Sep 2016) to work on the non-hotel accommodations team (Airbnb-style vacation rentals). While in this role, he separately prototyped and pitched a greenfield customer service product to the executive staff. The concept secured C-level buy-in, was widely accepted, and was spun into a dedicated 15-person department within 4 months. That department went on to transform customer engagement across Agoda's 40M+ MAU in 39 languages, opening new operational efficiencies. Tom's own team focused on the non-hotel accommodations vertical, recruiting senior developers to create an agile, high-energy engineering team. Technologies: messaging, chat, AI, API design, product architecture, scaling infrastructure.

While leading a team in Agoda's non-hotel accommodations department, Tom separately pitched a greenfield customer service product to the executive staff. It was greenlit and spun into a dedicated 15-person department that went on to improve customer engagement across Agoda's 40M+ users.

Anou is Morocco's largest artisan e-commerce platform, founded on the vision that online marketplaces can empower talented artisans to run successful businesses despite low levels of education. Tom co-founded the company with Dan Driscoll while serving as a US Peace Corps volunteer, living in Morocco's Sahara desert for 2 years and learning Arabic — an incredible test of perseverance and resourcefulness. As Technical Director, he led the IT strategy, building a Python/Django platform that connected Moroccan artisans directly to international buyers and eliminated middlemen. He pioneered a language-free mobile commerce UX designed for artisans with varying literacy levels, enabling them to manage their own inventory and sales through the app. This was achieved through extensive human-computer interaction (HCI) research, performing studies to iterate on culturally-responsive design based on environmental and cultural factors specific to rural Morocco. Tom bootstrapped the platform to profitability using Agile Development methods as a Lean Startup. Today, Anou does $1M+ in annual sales and is the largest artisan e-commerce site in North Africa. Together with founder Dan Driscoll, they empowered the community to become the largest national cooperative in Morocco. The economic impact includes creation of 3,000+ jobs, primary schools, community orchards, and health and wellness programs in rural communities. Critically, Tom trained local Moroccan leaders to replace himself and all leadership staff, ensuring the organization could sustain itself as a locally-led and locally-run nonprofit — in line with the founding vision for long-term sustainability and community ownership. Technologies: Python Django, e-commerce, HCI research, AWS S3, Telerivet, Cloudinary, Sendgrid, Etsy and eBay APIs.

While serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco's Sahara, co-founded what became the country's largest artisan e-commerce platform. Designed a language-free mobile UX so artisans — many of them illiterate — could run their own businesses. Scaled to $1M+ annual revenue and 3,000+ jobs, then trained local leaders to take over so the organization could sustain itself as a Moroccan-led nonprofit.