Just Left My 900K ARR Startup to Build New Things – Open for Collaboration

TL;DR: Spent 3+ years as CTO building e-commerce tracking infrastructure from 0 → 900K ARR. Left because I missed building new things vs. optimizing existing ones. Now exploring what's next through hands-on projects. Looking for founders/teams who need technical co-founder or architect for time-boxed collaborations.

What I Just Built

Led technical architecture at Mable AI (AdTech/e-commerce analytics):

• 500M events/month (~1TB) real-time processing infrastructure
• 300+ brands using our tracking & attribution systems
• Identity resolution engine that reduced user overcounting by 15% (probabilistic matching, cross-device graphs)
• Sub-3-second latency event pipelines (down from 60s through platform rewrite)
• 25% ROAS improvement for customers through better attribution accuracy
• Scaled from idea to profitable B2B SaaS with paying enterprise customers

Before that: Health tech app (consumer), Audio SaaS platform (40K+ users), insurance tech consulting.

What I'm Great At

My unfair advantage is e-commerce/AdTech domain expertise + real-time data architecture at scale:

• Designing event-driven systems that actually work in production
• Identity resolution & deduplication (the hard problems in tracking)
• Real-time processing architectures (Kafka, streaming, sub-second latency)
• Cloud infrastructure that scales without falling over (AWS, GCP, K8s)
• API integrations with finicky third-party platforms (Meta CAPI, Google Ads, TikTok)
• Zero-to-one: I've built the full stack from idea → architecture → production → revenue

Tech stack: TypeScript, Go, Python | PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, BigQuery | AWS, GCP, Kubernetes | Event-driven architecture

What I'm Looking For

I'm in an exploration phase – testing what I want to do next through real projects:

Open to:

• Technical co-founder roles (equity-based)
• Time-boxed collaborations (3-6 months to test chemistry)
• Architect/advisor for early-stage startups
• Building MVPs to validate ideas quickly

Testing:

• Solo founder vs. co-founder dynamics
• B2B SaaS vs. consumer products
• Deep tech vs. quick-win opportunities
• Build for learning vs. build for revenue

What makes me say "hell yes":

1. The person/team – I need to vibe with you. Honest communication, shared values, mutual respect.
2. The problem – Something that stretches me technically OR matters in a way I care about.

My ideal collaboration style:
Give me the problem → I'll architect the solution → Build v1 together. I'm at my best when there's a clear vision and I solve the technical "how."

What I'm NOT Looking For

• Finance/trading (just not my thing)
• Pure consulting without building
• Projects where technical quality doesn't matter
• Teams that just need "a developer"

Why Now?

Honest answer: I realized I'm a builder, not a CEO. At 900K ARR, my job became optimizing systems, managing people, and business operations. I missed the early days – architecting new solutions, solving hard technical problems, shipping v1 of things that didn't exist yesterday.

So I left to do that again.

How This Could Work

If you're a founder/team:

• You have a problem worth solving
• You need someone who can architect + build the technical foundation
• You're open to time-boxed collaboration first (let's see if we work well together)
• You value technical quality and data correctness

What I bring:

• 0→900K ARR experience (I know what works and what wastes time)
• Deep domain expertise in data systems, event processing, identity, and e-commerce
• Ability to build v1 fast, then architect for scale
• Technical leadership without ego

Logistics:

• Available full-time (or close to it)
• Based in Germany (Karlsruhe area), work remote
• Open-ended timeline – let's figure it out together

Let's Talk

If this resonates, reach out:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthias-schedel

In your message, tell me:

1. What problem you're solving
2. What stage you're at (idea, MVP, product-market fit?)
3. What you need help with specifically
4. A bit about yourself/your team

Not looking for "opportunities" – looking for people building interesting things who need a technical co-founder or architect to make it real.

Let's build something.