Too many ideas. Building the best ones.
I'm Johnny, co-founder of Signalize. I've always had more ideas than time, and the jobs I've worked so far, from bakery counters to coworking floors, keep teaching me how work actually gets done. Based in San Francisco, by way of Minnesota.
Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Spencer. The bridge is drawn to scale; the skyline is enlarged for effect.
Journey
- Stop 1
Minnesota
Where it started. I was the kid who always loved learning, and I spent most of my free time on the basketball court. But getting anywhere meant needing a car, and I wanted more room to explore. One tour of USF and I fell in love with San Francisco.
- Stop 2
USF
Moved to San Francisco to study Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of San Francisco, with a minor in Economics. I graduated magna cum laude in the School of Management Honors Program, helped found the Entrepreneurship Incubator, and spent my spare hours as a TA and peer tutor.
Transfer to Education - Stop 3
Experience
Bakery counters, front desks, classrooms, and coworking floors. I helped launch a startup bakery that turned profitable within 18 months, worked the front desk for six high-rise residential buildings, tutored and TA’d at USF, and now work the Community desk at WeWork. These are the jobs that taught me how work actually gets done.
Transfer to Experience - Stop 4
Signalize
Co-founding Signalize, an AI-native deal orchestrator that tells B2B sales reps what to do next and then does the follow-through. We started by interviewing sales reps about where their deals stall, and now we’re bringing on our first design partners.
Transfer to Signalize - Next stop
What's next
Co-founding Signalize alongside my full-time role, and looking for my next step in analyst, operations, or business administration work. I want a team where I can learn fast and own real problems. Building a company on nights and weekends has taught me a lot about how businesses actually run.
Education
Up the steps on Lone Mountain.
- School
- University of San Francisco
- Degree
- B.S. in Business Administration, graduated December 2024
- Major
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- Minor
- Economics
- Honors
- Magna Cum Laude; School of Management Honors Program
- Coursework
- Finance, accounting, economics, and business analytics
- Activities
- Helped found the USF Entrepreneurship Incubator; Teaching Assistant for Principles of Finance; Peer Tutor
Experience
Across the lagoon at the Palace of Fine Arts.
Tap a swan to see a role.
Ideas
Cell house, Alcatraz. Every cell holds an idea I can’t stop thinking about.
WYApp
One bulletin board for everything happening on campus.
Students, clubs, college orgs and local vendors would all post events in one place. We pitched it to schools as a paid tool that gives student organizations far more visibility and helps students find friends who share their hobbies, while vendors would pay just $1–2 a month to post. I built it with a college friend for about a year and we won a small amount of funding, but neither of us was technical, so we set it down.
Status: shelved · my first big idea
Never Miss Gifts
Your personal gift idea generator and AI shopping assistant.
Add your family’s birthdays, hobbies and interests, and the AI comes up with genius gift ideas, and can even buy them for you, depending on how much you want automated. Schedule gifts for holidays all year, plus spontaneous surprises in between that remind the people you love that you’re thinking of them. I developed it with classmates in a college course but chose not to take it further.
Status: shelved · class project
Spotify “Spot”
What if Spotify made its own smart speaker?
Spot would connect straight to your Spotify and let you build AI playlists by voice. Using Spotify’s AI tools, it could brief you while you get ready for work, mixing your favorite music with news from your field and updates from your own schedule: basically a custom radio station made just for you. It could even bring back the car device Spotify scrapped, this time with smart speaker features that make it worth having.
Status: concept · name still up for debate
Snowbird Rides
Put a snowbird’s parked car to work all winter.
Every winter, tons of Minnesota snowbirds fly south and leave their cars collecting dust in the garage. What if a ride-share service, Uber or a more refined version of it, had registered professional drivers use those cars to give rides while the owners are away? Owners get full insurance coverage and a cut of the profits, since it’s their vehicle doing the work.
Status: concept · working title
Alcatraz Island
Every idea I can’t shake is locked up out here. Click the cell house to go inside.
Signalize · Ground floor
Your CRM stores. It doesn’t steer.
Reps lose hours to CRM admin, deals go quiet with no flag, and the real priority list lives in a spreadsheet, a notepad, or someone’s head.
Use the elevator to ride up the tower.
Floor 30 · What we’re hearing from reps
“The only reason I’m doing manual data entry is so the people above me can see what I’m working on. But everything I’ve ever done has already been recorded, by Gong, in an email, or in a Slack message. That information should just go straight to them.”
Account Executive, B2B SaaS
“The most tedious part of my job is inputting data into our CRM. Everyone kind of has their own Google Sheet tracking their own deals.”
Account Executive, fintech startup
“It’s a lot of noise for something that’s just overwhelming more than anything else.”
Area Sales Manager, lighting manufacturer
The crown
Signalize
The AI-native deal orchestrator. It decides what to do next, then does the work.
Catches stalled deals
Watches for silence and flags the deals going quiet before they go cold.
Tells you what’s next
A short must-win list with the next best action for every deal on it.
Does the follow-through
Approve a step and Signalize does it, then writes it back to the CRM.
No prompts, no setup
Connect Salesforce or HubSpot and get your first stall digest within 24 hours.
Where we are
In discovery with sales reps and bringing on our first design partners. Get early access
Arcade
Daily games I've built with Claude. Each player on the field is a game. Pick one to play.
- 1Play
Needle Drop
Drop each song into your timeline by release year. Three strikes and you're out.
- 2Play
Deep Cuts
One artist, 60 seconds. Name as many of their songs as you can.
- 3Play
Depth Chart
Name an iconic NFL offense, then call its record and how far it went.
- 4Play
Box Score
Name a classic NBA team's starting five and sixth man, then call their season.
- 5Play
Time Capsule
Guess the hidden year from five clues, from champions and No. 1 songs to headlines.
- 6Play
Lineup Card
Name a classic MLB team's lineup by position and its ace, then call their season.
Contact
Greetings from Postcard Row.
Drop me a line.
I'm open to analyst, operations, and business administration roles, happy to talk about Signalize, and always up for a coffee in the city.
Send a message- jwmay2230@gmail.com
- in/johnathonmay
- City
- San Francisco, CA
Thanks for riding along.
Building in San Francisco, usually somewhere under the fog.