I am an entrepreneur who loves making products and growing startups. Currently, I am the Cofounder & CTO of Maxwell, a company that builds software and services to power the future of home financing.

Before Maxwell, I founded Bright Funds in 2012 with a mission to design experiences that unlock passion and capital from a new generation of donors focused on impact. Before creating Bright Funds, I worked in marketing, product design, and software engineering at various successful bay-area startups and venture-backed private companies including Coverity (acquired by Synopsys), Omneon (acquired by Harmonic), Topspin (acquired by Cisco) and Procket Networks (acquired by Cisco).

I also serve on the board of Lemontree Foods, a nonprofit with a mission to alleviate food insecurity.

Some of my public software projects and code can be found on GitHub.

---

Professional Principles

A collection of ideas, quotes, thoughts, and stories that guide my daily actions and decision-making.

• Consistency
• Happiness
• Monkeys and Pedestals
• Questions
• Stoicism
• Simple is not easy
• Storytelling
• Wealth

Books that have shaped my thinking

• Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
• Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
• When Breath Becomes Air
• Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Projects

• StoryCoach App - Develop your storytelling skills using AI-powered writing tools, buliding daily habits, and doing skill-building exercises.
• Decision Ninja Blog - Tools, tips, and tricks to improve the quality of all your personal and professional decisions.
• SaaS Startup CTO Checklist - Checklist of all things to consider for CTOs of SaaS startups.
• Product Pick Two - Visualizing the challenge of Product Management.
• Idea List - iOS App - My first iOS native app created in Swift 2.0.
• Startup Bookmarks - An active list of resources for building a better startup.
• C/C++ Tests - Test projects and code samples in c and c++ created as I navigated the world of systems programming.
• Flow - App for Reroute Hackathon on 19th Oct, 2012.
• IsItAStartup? - A simple Q&A bot that helps you evaluate if you should launch a startup based on your idea.

Awards / Notable mentions

• 2024 Inman Best of Finance Award Winner.
• 2023 HW Vanguard Award Winner.
• Top 25 Financial Technology CTOs and CIOs of 2023 by The Financial Technology Report.
• 2022 HW Tech Trendsetter: Rutul Davé
• CTO Talk: Q&A with Rutul Davé of Maxwell with Verdict.
• CauseArtist’s list of Social Entrepreneurs to watch for in 2014.
• Featured in The Wall Street Journal and on a KRON news segment on on startup visas.