Kevin Li

// Now

• Building jo — a personal AI assistant doing its thing since before Instinct, Muse, Town, or OpenClaw showed up. Built from everything I've learned across two YC companies.
• Training for black belt in judo. Currently brown belt, next competition March 2027. My tokui-waza is tai otoshi.
• Living in Alameda, CA with my 10-year-old daughter Kery and family.
• Playing Wild Rift and Path of Exile 2 when I should be sleeping.

// Story

I'm a two-time YC founder with 15+ years in growth marketing. Before jo, I co-founded Farmstead (YC S16) — an AI-powered "ghost grocer" delivering groceries in under 60 minutes from small-format micro-warehouse hubs.

We used machine learning for demand forecasting and kept food waste under 5% — supermarkets average around 35%. It started as a Nextdoor post in Mountain View offering weekly milk, eggs, yogurt, and bread. Two hundred replies in two days. Then COVID hit, orders went 10x, and we scaled to a $10M+ run rate across five markets before winding down in 2023.

→ Full dossier on YCpedia

// Building

I'm a two-time YC founder, and jo is my current focus — a personal AI assistant that understood context and took action before the current wave (Instinct, Muse, Town, OpenClaw) caught on.

I've spent years building products that people actually use. Now I'm building the assistant I wish I had: proactive, reliable, and genuinely helpful.

Also building AI agents and thinking a lot about how humans and AI should work together.

// Connect