How & Why — Upscale AI

From idea to team, tech, and now product

How We Decided to Focus on Performance Streaming for E-Commerce

It Started with Shopify

My journey toward founding Upscale AI began in 2016, when I made my first investment in the e-commerce and Shopify ecosystem with Attentive. That experience opened my eyes to just how vast — and underserved — the infrastructure layer of e-commerce was. The potential was massive: brands were scaling faster than ever, but their ability to grow efficiently and profitably was being limited by fragmented tools, inconsistent attribution, and an over-reliance on a few performance channels. I saw firsthand how important it was to build tools natively for the Shopify ecosystem, where brands already live, sell, and grow. Since then, I have invested in Accelpay, Crstl, and Ghst.

The CTV Performance Puzzle

Over the last three years, I became obsessed with solving a very specific challenge: performance marketing on Connected TV (CTV). CTV had long been seen as a top-of-funnel channel, great for building awareness but impossible to measure or optimize like Meta or Google. That didn’t sit right with me. While at Moloco, I worked closely with Herman Yang to tackle this exact problem — we worked on building one of the industry’s first performance-focused CTV ad servers. The goal was simple but bold: deliver measurable outcomes like installs and in app purchases from CTV, not just vague metrics like impressions or reach. That work laid the groundwork for how we’d later approach Upscale AI — viewing CTV not as a legacy branding tool, but as a performance channel that could scale with machine learning, just like the walled gardens.

The AI Breakthrough

Everything changed two years ago when catching up with Mike Chang and he walked me through a bold idea: “What if we could automate 95% of the creative production process for TV using AI and include creatives for free?”

That conversation was a spark. We realized that if you could pair automated, high-quality creative production with ML-based media buying, you could finally crack the CTV performance code — making it accessible, scalable, and profitable for DTC brands. Suddenly, what had been reserved for Fortune 500 brand budgets could be opened up to Shopify merchants running lean growth teams. We didn’t just want to make streaming TV measurable — we wanted to make it perform.

Founding Upscale AI

After dozens of working sessions and countless experiments, we committed full-time to Upscale AI in April 2024. Our goal was clear: Help DTC brands win on the biggest screen in the house — without spending $100K+ on agency-made commercials.

We were confident that by offering free or low-cost, TV-quality creatives and pairing that with performance-driven AI optimization, we could help to turn streaming into a channel that performs just like Meta or Google — with clear attribution, creative testing, and scalable spend.

Rebuilding the Creative Agency — With AI

We started by deconstructing how traditional creative agencies operate — how they storyboard, script, cast, and produce TV commercials that often cost six figures or more. Then we rebuilt the process from the ground up, leveraging AI at every step. With help from our earliest design partners, we created workflows that could scale on-brand, high-performing creative in days — not months.

Where We Are Now

Today, Upscale AI combines off-the-shelf models, proprietary infrastructure, and purpose-built AI to deliver TV-quality ads that drive outcomes.

Our system can:

• ‘Listen’ to the transcripts from UGC and influencer videos, ‘Watch’ videos to tag people, places, and other objects like desks, boxes, etc
• ‘Pick’ relevant moments that will make good visuals for the scene, and ‘Match’ key objects in footage with the voiceovers.
• ‘Draft’ creative concepts, ‘Read’ brand kits, and then ‘Write’ scene-by-scene scripts
• ‘Generate’ AI-generated voiceovers, ‘Direct’ assets to match specific scenes, and ‘Edit’ to improve narrative and drive improved performance

What once took a team of editors, voiceover artists, creative directors, and brand strategists now happens in a matter of minutes. And we’re just getting started. Our vision is to make streaming TV not only accessible, but scalable and ROI-positive for every brand selling online

Why I cofounded Upscale AI — A Founder’s Journey

Introduction

I couldn’t be more excited to share why I decided to join (and co-found) Upscale AI. For me, Upscale AI represents the perfect alignment of my skills, passions, and long-term goals. After decades in the advertising technology world, I’ve learned that my true passion lies in building game-changing products that help businesses grow. Upscale AI offers exactly that opportunity: it lets me tackle a massive problem in performance marketing using cutting-edge artificial intelligence. More importantly, it allows me to do so from day one with an AI-native foundation — meaning we can build everything with AI at the core, not as an afterthought. This is a rare chance to start with a clean slate and create something truly transformational. In short, Upscale AI brings together everything I love: an incredible team, a big vision to reinvent how brands grow, and the technology actually to make it happen.

Partnering with an Amazing Founding Team

One of the most rewarding aspects of co-founding Upscale AI has been collaborating with an exceptional team of industry veterans. Our collective experience spans leading tech companies like Google, Twitter, Salesforce, and Moloco, and this diversity of backgrounds has been instrumental in shaping our vision and execution.

First, partnering with Herman Yang (again and again) is one of the main reasons I cofounded Upscale AI. We’ve built several successful businesses together since the early 2010s, starting at MoPub where we grew from zero to $1 billion in revenue before Twitter acquired us. Our subsequent time working on Facet and Moloco cemented our working relationship.

What makes our partnership work is simple: complementary skills and shared values. Herman’s product expertise balances my go-to-market focus, while our mutual commitment to transparency and accountability creates a foundation of trust. This allows us to move quickly and decisively at Upscale AI, building a culture where clear goals and honest feedback drive results for our customers.

Second, the opportunity to work with Mike Chang (again), our Head of Product & Operations, brings a wealth of experience from his time at Krux Digital, where he played a pivotal role before its acquisition by Salesforce. His deep understanding of data platforms and product development has been invaluable. Mike’s recent reflections on our journey highlight our commitment:

“After more than a year of building alongside incredible partners like Branch Furniture, Lalo, Duderobe, and many others, we’re excited to officially launch Upscale AI — the first AI-native platform to create, run, and optimize high-quality brand-approved TV ads on Streaming and YouTube.”

Finally, it has been amazing to be able to collaborate alongside Seth Yates, our Head of Technology, who is a seasoned technologist with a rich history in ad tech. Having co-founded BRANDSCREEN in 2008, one of the first ML-driven programmatic DSPs, Seth’s expertise in machine learning and distributed systems is unparalleled. His enthusiasm for our mission is evident.

“Today, it feels like I’ve come full circle — this time at the intersection of generative AI, real-time ML optimization, and the future of TV.”

Working alongside Mike and Seth has been both inspiring and invigorating. Their dedication, vision, and expertise have been critical in bringing Upscale AI to life. Together, we’re not just building a product; we’re shaping the future of performance marketing.

The Upscale AI Revolution

The Problem: Marketing Fragmentation for DTC Brands

DTC brands on Shopify hit a growth ceiling because their marketing data is scattered across multiple platforms. I’ve experienced this firsthand — spending hours combining reports from Shopify, Meta, and Google, calculating performance manually, and making decisions with incomplete information. This fragmentation turns marketing into guesswork and prevents brands from scaling efficiently.

Our Solution: Unified, Automated Marketing Intelligence

Upscale AI connects directly with Shopify and marketing channels to centralize data and automate optimization. Instead of marketers spending hours analyzing spreadsheets, our AI continuously evaluates performance and adjusts campaigns in real-time. The system identifies winning creative content, optimizes targeting, and reallocates budgets automatically — work that would typically require a full team of analysts.

Unlocking Connected TV for All Brands

Our biggest breakthrough is making streaming TV advertising accessible to Shopify merchants of all sizes. CTV has evolved from a branding-only channel into one that’s fully measurable and performance-driven. With Upscale AI, e-commerce brands can automatically create TV-quality ads and optimize them just like social campaigns. Our AI adjusts targeting, creative, and spending in real-time based on actual sales data — essentially providing a 24/7 marketing team for your TV campaigns.

Breaking Through Growth Plateaus

Upscale AI empowers DTC brands to compete with retail giants by eliminating marketing guesswork. No more cobbling together different tools or flying blind on ad spend. Whether you’re finding new customers, improving ROAS, or expanding to television, our integrated system helps you scale faster and more profitably. This mission — helping Shopify stores become success stories — is what drives us every day.

Built AI-Native From Day One

Unlike companies that bolt AI onto existing products, Upscale AI was designed around artificial intelligence from the start. This isn’t just marketing talk — it fundamentally changes how we operate.

In our system, AI handles complex tasks autonomously while humans provide goals and guardrails. The technology makes decisions within defined boundaries and continuously improves as it processes more data. This allows us to operate with smaller teams and move much faster than traditional companies.

For customers, this means a platform that’s constantly optimizing without requiring their intervention. Our AI manages everything from creating ad content to adjusting budgets, learning what works for each brand, and improving over time. The longer you work with us, the better your results get.

This approach also enables outcome-based pricing — we succeed only when our clients do. Instead of charging flat fees, we tie our revenue to the value we create, which proves our confidence in the system.

In short: we’re not just using AI; we’re built as AI. This makes all the difference in the value we deliver.

Vision for the Future

Our Vision: Democratizing Growth

Our mission is simple: empower small brands to grow like big ones. We’re building a world where any Shopify merchant can access marketing capabilities previously available only to large companies with massive budgets.

Performance marketing can be radically simplified. Imagine launching a campaign by simply telling AI your goals — and it handles everything else. By combining our industry experience with artificial intelligence, we’re creating tools that accomplish in minutes what used to take weeks.

Soon, people will look at how marketing was done in the early 2020s — all the manual work, siloed systems, and guesswork — and wonder how we ever managed. Upscale AI is accelerating that future, starting with what we know best: helping DTC brands grow through smarter advertising. This vision of transforming how businesses achieve growth is what drives us every day.

Join Us on This Journey

As we launch Upscale AI, I’m grateful to everyone who shaped my path — from my early days at AdBrite through MoPub and Twitter. To Herman, Mike, Seth, and our team: building with you makes the startup challenge worthwhile.

To everyone reading — whether you’re a brand founder, marketer, or AI enthusiast — we invite you to join our mission. We’re just beginning and welcome your feedback and ideas. Together, we can transform performance marketing and create the future of AI-driven growth.

Cheers! The future of Streaming is Performance! 🚀📺