Our Founding Story
John Carbery
I started my entrepreneurial journey at a young age. During high school, I taught myself how to program and develop web applications. At 16, I built my first website and won an award from an MIT affiliate. In 2002, I dropped out of the University of Toronto after winning a large contract with a Fortune 500 company and founded Intrafinity, a suite of enterprise web content solutions. I later started SharpSchool, which grew to serve nearly 10% of K-12 schools in the US and handled billions of web and mobile views per year. In 2015, I sold Intrafinity and SharpSchool to West Corporation and led a global technology team serving over 100 million parents and students.
I had always thought, like almost every entrepreneur, that selling my company would be a triumphant moment. Instead, I felt empty and lost and realized I didn't truly understand my reason for hustling and the meaning of success. During a sabbatical, I reflected on my life and work and resolved to do something more meaningful in the next phase of my life — something beyond striving. I realized my passion for being a catalyst for the growth of entrepreneurial leaders and that values-driven leaders can make a positive impact on the world. With this in mind, I had two convictions that shifted my focus from striving to calling, and eventually led me to start FutureSight.
Today, I am dedicated to co-creating the next generation of world-class companies with SaaS entrepreneurs through my latest venture, FutureSight — to truly harness my skills, experience and expertise to change the world, one venture at a time. I am also an avid reader, speaker, and author. However, I am most proud of the people I have had an opportunity to invest in over the years.
Joshua Auslander
I have spent 20 years in the software industry in the CFO role, working with established founder-led companies ranging in size from 50-500 employees and ultimately leading them through successful M&A exits. Prior to that, I started my career in public accounting, working primarily with owner-managed businesses in a wide range of industry sectors.
I am able to leverage my deep business experience at FutureSight, covering accounting, finance, legal, tax, and general business matters to assist co-founders from the ideation stage through to growth and exit. By taking on these matters, I enable them to stay focused on building their businesses in terms of product, sales, and market awareness.
I’m truly excited to work with tech founders from the very beginning in the stages of a business where both the risks and rewards are maximized.
Prathna Ramesh
90% of all startups fail. That is a scary truth that has haunted me over the past decade that I’ve spent in tech as an investor and operator.
Gaps I see in the ecosystem today:
- Founders in their early days need more than just mentorship
- Founders don’t spend enough time questioning their hypotheses and are too focused on proving scale fast
- Investors who claim to be active are often not
- Investors cannot scale their time efficiently across their portfolio
- The venture capital model works for some, not all, and needs to be innovated
These five problem areas drew me to the mission of FutureSight. I understand seed and pre-seed very well, and my experience as an early stage investor for over 6 years running Maple Leaf Angels and as an active mentor in the Canadian venture ecosystem allows me to assess new venture opportunities and founders while being able to contribute to their development in areas related to their business model design, go to market strategy, team composition and capital strategy.
Being aware of the gaps that exist in our ecosystem, combined with my background and the superpowers on our team, it gives me great joy to help founders write their 0 to 1 chapter.
Kevin Nguyen
As a Product leader, I have always been driven by the pursuit of discovering problems in untapped markets and for underserved users. This passion led me to join FutureSight as the first Entrepreneur in Residence, with the goal of building a new venture in the Civic/Municipality space. However, through my time at FutureSight, I discovered that my true calling was in helping entrepreneurs test their business ideas quickly and decisively.
With a decade of experience as a product manager in B2B SaaS, I had accumulated a wealth of insights and could see the potential for an impactful business if given the right mandate. I know that many of you reading this can relate - you have a persistent idea but don’t know how to turn it into action. That’s where I come in.
Today, I am thrilled to be a part of founders' and businesses’ early journeys in finding problem-solution fit and product-market fit. It is incredibly rewarding to be able to guide entrepreneurs through the process and see their ideas come to fruition.