From ML Engineer to CEO: Brightwave's Mike Conover on Turning Technical Vision into Company Strategy

Mike Conover started his career as a machine learning engineer. Today, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Brightwave, an AI startup helping financial professionals make faster decisions with massive, unstructured data. In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Mike shares how he made the leap from technical contributor to strategic leader—and the hard lessons he learned along the way. From translating technical vision into a focused go-to-market strategy, to learning how to coach, hire, and scale intentionally, Mike unpacks the mindset shift required to move from building code to building a company. We also get into: How Brightwave validates new product bets in a high-stakes industry Why founder-market fit is emotional, not just strategic Mistakes to avoid when hiring your early team How to create focus loops and feedback channels before feature creep sets in Why emotional intelligence and execution velocity matter just as much as AI architecture If you're a technical founder — or thinking about becoming one — this conversation offers an unvarnished look at what it actually takes to scale yourself while scaling your startup. RUNTIME 55:09 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (1:12) Mike explains how Brightwave works. (3:49) Where the idea came from. (7:47) How he connected with co-founder Brandon Kotara. (10:58) The biggest challenges he faced shifting from an engineering role to founder/CEO. (14:22) “As a CEO, you have to do a lot of jobs that you have no preparation for.” (15:07) Working with a coach has been “such a sustaining source of inspiration, but also continuity.” (18:45) “There's a rap lyric I really like, which is, ‘you can't crush me, I'm dirt.’” (20:29) Turning “reasonable” feature requests into new products helped Brightwave build customer trust. (25:30) “ It's unusual,” but co-pilots and POC programs were not part of their early success. (30:12) Tips for building feedback loops between customers and the product team. (36:04) Seed to Series A “ was about four months.” (40:02) “ Most startups are not that defensible.” (45:54) “A lot of the product-led growth techniques that you might use don't always fit the market especially well.” (47:45) How to create a self-assessment framework for founder-market fit. (50:43) “ Brightwave — in its full totality — has material substance in my mind already.” (53:05) The one question he'd have to ask the CEO before taking a startup job. LINKS Mike Conover Brandon Kotara Brightwave Fred Kofman, Conscious Business SUBSCRIBE 📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/   Thanks for listening! – Walter.