Michael Burnett

Founder

San Francisco, California, United States

About

I’ve had the opportunity to lead the design organization at 5 startups. Their story is the story of all startups — creating a launch product from scratch, pivoting, iterating, expanding, and maturing to a public company. These startups have grown to 10’s of millions of users and unicorn valuations. As a member of startup leadership teams, I have elevated Design to a driver of strategy and key business partner with product, engineering, operations, finance and marketing. The discipline of design and the teams I have managed encompass research, innovation, company strategy, product architecture, UX, UI, branding, and product marketing. With a master’s degree in business administration and design strategy, I apply principles of finance and business to achieve product market fit and scalable economics. My specializations have been in fintech, social, and emerging technologies.

Experience

  • Founder, CEO at Lapspeed
    Feb 2025 - Present · 1 yr 5 mos

  • Lead Investor, Trans-Atlantic Angel Conference at SIA - Startup Investor Accelerator
    Jan 2025 - Aug 2025 · 8 mos

  • Co-Founder at Undugu Farms
    Feb 2024 - Feb 2025 · 1 yr 1 mo

  • Head of Design at Enterprise B2B SaaS Company
    May 2023 - Jan 2025 · 1 yr 9 mos

  • Head of Design at Plastiq
    Apr 2021 - May 2023 · 2 yrs 2 mos