Tandem Drums is on a mission to elevate the drummer's workstation. From our Northern California studio, we design thoughtful products used by drummers all over the world.

Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures (MSIV) is the first regional venture capital fund focused on the North Bay Area’s Marin and Sonoma counties. We’re helping local startups build the next great North Bay company.

Design Lens is the startup studio and idea laboratory of Daniel Kushner, an IDEO alum and entrepreneur based in Marin County, California, with 20 years of experience building design-driven companies. Learn more at designlens.co

GCM is building the first global impact marketplace. Through GCM, organizations can now purchase Verified Impact Assets™ as blockchain tokens, fundamentally changing the paradigm of how we fund, measure, and solve the world's greatest problems. Learn more at commongoodmarketplace.com

BandLab is the world's largest music collaboration platform, with over 30 million artists collaborating in real time. Learn more at bandlab.com

GYANT is the digital front door to patient care. Using proprietary AI and chatbot interfaces, GYANT's platform is now used by the world's leading healthcare providers including Kaiser Permanente and The Mayo Clinic. Served as advisor from formation to acquisition in 2024. Learn more at gyant.com

Trustworthy was founded in 2019 by a team of ex-IDEO and Microsoft executives to solve a problem facing every American household: the overwhelming amount of information that modern families must manage. The founding team researched the problem and invented a system for protecting, organizing, and automating family information. The Family Operating System® is now an award-winning subscription service trusted by thousands of families. Learn more at trustworthy.com

Pixinote was co-founded by an ex-IDEO designer and ex-Google developer to reintroduce physical artifacts as a way to deepen relationships. Pixinote combined the ease of sending a text, with the meaningful experience of receiving a custom-printed photo in the mail. With an intuitive app interface on the front-end, mass-customized printing on the back-end, and beautifully designed packaging, Pixinotes began to replace the greeting card as a less formal, more fun communication channel for close friends and family. One of Pixinote's unique features was the elimination of the mailing address. To reduce friction, Pixinotes were delivered to @usernames which the company mapped to physical mailing addresses using proprietary technology. This innovation made pier-to-pier photo delivery simple for senders. Pixinote was launched on iOS and Android, and grew to tens of thousands of members with over 100,000 photos delivered to all 50 states, including a promotional campaign with Gap, Inc. & Athleta. The company was closed in 2019 to allow the founders to focus on new ventures.

Founded in 2007 by IDEO designer Daniel Kushner, MONO's mission was to set the bar for what a design-driven brand in the music industry could be. MONO quickly became the global leader in luggage and travel accessories for musicians, DJ's, and creators, with over 65 products distributed in over 45 countries. MONO's innovative product line won the IDSA's Industrial Design Excellence Award, was awarded several utility patents, and received endorsements from Grammy Award winning artists. MONO was acquired by BandLab (2016). Learn more at monocreators.com

IDEO was my dream job. I had the fortunate experience of working across multiple teams including product design, human factors, brand strategy, sustainability and corporate transformation. Along with my very gifted colleagues, I created award-winning products, services, spaces and experiences for clients including Samsung, Microsoft, The Mayo Clinic, Bank of America, Marriott Inc., Gap Inc., Proctor & Gamble, Kaiser Permanente, HP, Steelcase, Pepsi Co., and others.One of my most impactful projects at IDEO was Keep The Change™ for Bank of America, a fintech product that rounds up to the nearest dollar on every debit card purchase and automatically places the change into a separate savings account. This product was a paradigm shift in banking, and became a model for how human-centered design can disrupt the financial industry. Keep The Change™ drew more than 2.5 million customers in its first year, including 700,000 new checking accounts and one million new savings accounts. It won design awards from FastCompany and received worldwide press. But the best part about working at IDEO was the life-long friendships I developed, and the mentors who shaped my design lens.Learn more at ideo.com