This firsthand account originates from an extended conversation with Michelle Lim — the visionary founder and chief executive officer of Flint, an emerging AI technology startup headquartered in San Francisco. The narrative has been carefully refined to ensure clarity, coherence, and conciseness while remaining faithful to Lim’s lived experiences. Business Insider has independently confirmed her professional credentials as well as her educational background, ensuring the authenticity of her story.
Back in her high school days in Singapore, entrepreneurship was not something that occupied Michelle’s imagination or ambitions. Her academic and personal aspirations leaned toward more conventional paths, and the idea of launching a business seemed distant and abstract. However, the course of her life began to shift dramatically once she entered Yale University. Immersed in a new cultural and intellectual environment that encouraged experimentation and curiosity, she found herself increasingly drawn toward exploration beyond the boundaries of traditional career plans. It was in this transformative context that she began to view entrepreneurship not as an elusive dream but as a viable professional pursuit — one capable of merging her creativity, intellect, and appetite for innovation.
Motivated by this emerging sense of purpose, Michelle decided to major in computer science, a discipline that offered both technical rigor and limitless potential for problem-solving. This decision opened opportunities for her to intern at several leading technology companies — notable names such as Meta, Slack, and Robinhood. Each internship represented not only a chance to refine her technical expertise but also a stage in her evolving pursuit of greater independence and direct impact. Her growing desire for ownership over her work guided her from large corporate environments to increasingly nimble organizations. Her progression tells a striking story: beginning with Facebook, which then employed roughly 12,000 people, moving next to Slack with a leaner staff of about 1,200, and culminating at Robinhood, a rapidly scaling company with only 300 employees at the time. That trajectory reflected a conscious search for proximity to innovation’s core — the environments where individual contributions truly shape outcomes.
She found that smaller teams cultivated a deeper sense of responsibility and gratification; every feature coded or product launched felt consequential. Through these experiences, she came to appreciate that working within a startup is one of the most effective ways to prepare for the eventual challenges of founding one. The pace, the uncertainty, and the necessity for adaptability simulate the entrepreneurial journey in miniature.
Upon graduation, Michelle took a decisive step that many might consider unconventional: she joined Warp, a nascent startup developing an advanced coding terminal. She was its very first hire — a responsibility that demanded both technical acumen and entrepreneurial intuition. While most of her peers sought stability within large, established firms, she chose the uncharted road. Starting her career in the summer of 2020, at the height of the COVID‑19 pandemic, only intensified the sense of risk surrounding that decision. Living in New York City during such a tragic and uncertain time, she was constantly reminded of life’s fragility — the smoky haze in the air from constant cremations served as a haunting metaphor. This sobering reality crystallized her conviction: life is fleeting, and meaningful risk is often the surest path to growth. She resolved that she would rather live boldly and make unconventional choices than look back with regret over paths not taken.
Over the next four years at Warp, Michelle immersed herself in nearly every aspect of startup life. Her role transformed as the company evolved — she began as a software engineer, later transitioned into marketing to understand customer acquisition dynamics, and eventually took charge of product development and sales strategy. She represented the company in board meetings, presented detailed progress updates, and regularly communicated with investors, among them Figma’s CEO Dylan Field, on quarterly calls. Each new responsibility expanded her perspective on how technology companies scale — and what it means to cultivate investor trust while balancing vision with disciplined execution.
These experiences were profoundly formative. When she co‑founded Flint in January after leaving Warp, she carried with her a multidimensional understanding of startup operations that many founders take years to acquire. Flint, designed as an AI-driven tool to automate website creation for businesses, began facing immediate scrutiny from investors who felt the market was saturated. Yet Michelle was undeterred. She had learned that skepticism is an inevitable component of the entrepreneurial journey — particularly for those building in spaces where others have already attempted and failed. What ultimately set her apart during the fundraising phase was her existing credibility: her work at Warp, where she had helped grow the product’s user base from zero to over half a million, established a tangible track record. This credibility became invaluable, prompting some investors to approach her proactively, motivated purely by their confidence in her prior performance.
Still, being a founder brought its own formidable challenges. Michelle came to view the role as, in her words, that of a “chief rejection officer.” Founders endure rejection in every direction — from potential investors who decline to participate in funding, to talented recruits who choose other offers, to clients who hesitate to embrace an emerging product. Resilience becomes a necessary discipline. Yet within that hardship lies growth and clarity: every ‘no’ offers insights that refine both product and strategy.
Throughout Flint’s early development, mentorship and professional networks played an indispensable role. While Michelle’s time at Warp had exposed her to many facets of startup life, she had never personally led a fundraising round. When it came time to raise capital for Flint, she leaned heavily on her mentor, Ali Partovi — CEO of Neo, a venture fund and startup accelerator that supports high‑potential founders. Michelle had first met Ali through the Neo Scholars program, which mentors ambitious college students exploring technology careers. It was Ali who initially connected her with Warp, setting the trajectory for her startup education.
As Flint’s fundraising plans materialized, Ali and the Neo team provided sustained, hands‑on guidance. They helped her refine her pitch, anticipate investor questions, and even facilitated introductions — including to prominent figures such as Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s former chief operating officer. Sandberg would later invest in Flint’s seed round through her family office, Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners. Michelle also practiced her pitch extensively — rehearsing not only with Neo’s advisors but also with two fellow founders, who offered candid feedback and helped her strengthen her narrative. Through repeated practice sessions, she learned to deliver her message with confidence and precision, so that when the actual investor meetings arrived, her responses flowed naturally, driven by muscle memory rather than anxiety.
The result of her disciplined preparation and authentic storytelling was a successful $5 million seed round. Flint secured funding from prominent investors, including Neo and Accel — the venture capital firm known for backing technology giants like Facebook and Spotify. Additional individual investors joined in, some of them executives from software companies such as Linear and Atlassian. For a first‑time founder, assembling such a sophisticated group of backers was a remarkable achievement, reflecting not only her technical promise but her professional maturity.
Looking back on her journey, Michelle attributes much of her success to one defining decision: beginning her career at an early‑stage startup rather than a large corporation. That experience provided an unfiltered education in the realities of entrepreneurship — the uncertainty, the problem‑solving under pressure, and the necessity of owning both victories and failures. It fortified her confidence and equipped her with operational knowledge critical to building Flint from the ground up.
To aspiring founders, her advice is direct yet deeply considered: if you dream of starting your own company someday, seek out opportunities within very small, early‑stage startups. Work alongside founders who recognize and invest in youthful potential, who are willing to grant responsibility and trust beyond what might seem comfortable. Such environments accelerate personal and professional growth far faster than any traditional corporate ladder. In those compact, high‑intensity teams, every challenge becomes a lesson, and every small success becomes proof that you are capable of building something far greater — perhaps even the company of your own future.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/pitched-sheryl-sandberg-accel-tips-raising-millions-2025-11
