DADaniyal Ashraf

02About · the journey

Hunza to Bangkok.

Half-marketer, half-maker — obsessed with the gap between a good idea and its first user.

Hi! I'm Daniyal, and I love all things startups. I believe in people's ability to change the world for the better — and to me startups are a representation of people choosing to dedicate their talent and time to solving problems.

I grew up around the mountains of Hunza in northern Pakistan and now build and write from Bangkok. The thread running through all of it is the same: I'm fascinated by the moment an idea meets its first real user — and the marketing, product, and storytelling it takes to get there.

At the Founder Institute, I focus on helping people learn about our programs and community, and showing them how to build startups using 15+ years of accumulated knowledge and modern AI tools. Alongside that, I write a weekly newsletter for roughly thirty thousand readers and build tools that take founders from idea to launch faster.

Timeline

Founder Institute 2024 — Now

Helping founders find our programs and build fundable companies — pairing 15+ years of accelerator knowledge with AI tooling, and writing to a growing audience along the way.

MarketingCommunityAI
Qaim 2021 — 2024

Early-stage growth and marketing at a young venture — channels, messaging, and the unglamorous work of building momentum from zero.

GrowthMarketing
Citizen Lab 2019 — 2021

Digital-rights research at the intersection of technology, security, and civil society — learning to investigate carefully and tell the truth clearly.

ResearchDigital rights

The one-page version.

Prefer a résumé? Here's the timeline, roles, and tools laid out on a single, printable page.

View résumé