AI-Enabled, Founder-Led
The New Blueprint for Bootstrapped Startups
In today’s hyper-competitive startup landscape, bootstrapped founders face a daunting challenge: building, shipping, and scaling without the luxury of deep VC pockets.
Yet a new breed of founder is proving it’s possible to do more with less—by leveraging AI, lean operations, and relentless focus.
We are proud to welcome Phil Ingram, Founder of meed, a cloud-based loyalty platform reimagining how brands engage customers, on stage at Startup Grind Hong Kong. With decades of experience in marketing, tech, and entrepreneurship, Phil will share his blueprint for building with AI, owning product strategy, and turning early traction into long-term growth.
📅 Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM HKT / 1:00 PM CET
📍 Location: Online (Virtual Event)
💡 What You’ll Learn
✅ How to bootstrap a SaaS product using AI without compromising quality
✅ The underrated power of product managers in AI-assisted workflows
✅ The biggest myths about AI-generated code—and how to avoid painful surprises
✅ How to balance automation with human insight in marketing and customer experience
...and...
✅ Why “mise en place” 😋 matters more than ever when you build with AI
🎯 Who Should Attend?
🚀 Founders building tech products on a budget
📈 Teams experimenting with AI in product or dev workflows
🎤 Product managers wondering about their role in AI-driven teams
📢 Marketers and operators looking to do more with less—and grow smarter
🎤 Meet the Speaker
Phil Ingram is a veteran marketer, coder, and founder who built meed, a unified loyalty platform, without external funding. With 35+ years in publishing, eCommerce, travel, and Web3, his previous roles include CMO of Lepricon and VP of Marketing at Remote Lands. At meed, he’s using AI to power a small team doing the work of many—shipping fast, iterating smart, and staying lean.
Agenda
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Speaker
Phil Ingram - meed (Founder & CEO)
Phil Ingram founded meed in 2022, a cloud-based platform that unifies the loyalty experience for billions of consumers worldwide. Leveraging AI in coding, marketing, and soon, customer support, meed launched a sophisticated cloud-hosted product without external investment.
A strategic marketer with over 35 years of experience across publishing, travel, eCommerce, and Web3, Phil previousl…
Hosted By
Jens Wernborg, Director
Over 25 years of experience doing business with companies in Hong Kong, China and India across a wide range of industries.
Have worked with companies to successfully increase sales, save costs through purchasing and outsourcing, establish local presences, recruit and train staff and use digitalization to improve their productivity.
Always looking for ways to streamline and make businesses more efficient using digital tools and services. Knows how to get things done.
Margaret Leung, Co-Director
Margaret is a seasoned Business Consultant and Project/Event Manager with experience in assisting foreign companies, large and small, in their new business development and expansion in Hong Kong and Greater China. She also has 20+ years in managing events such as seminars, exhibitions, official-cum-business delegations across multiple industries, which involves working closely with principal government officials, C-level executives, and collaborating with project team members from different countries and cultures.
Margaret became a Startup Grind team member in October 2017. She is fascinated by the energy of the startup space and enjoys building communities and help connecting people.
Amrit Sethi, Startup Grind Moderator
Guest moderator Startup Grind Hong Kong.
Over 30 years of experience helping clients explore the world and make travel stress free.
Individual and corporate travel. Specialist groups, cruises, tours, worldwide hotels, sightseeing, sport competitions. Visa services in Hong Kong.
I combine my teams expertise with a personal touch to ensure that your travel plans meet your needs and wishes while eliminating all the hassle.
Marin Magré, Ambassador
A Frenchman who grew up in Poland, studied in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and started a coffee business in Guatemala before deciding to go back to Hong Kong to be closer to the world of Tech and AI.
My strengths are my international and broad vision combined with a keen sense for operational detail, my fearless go-getter attitude and my attraction to building mutually beneficial relationships.
Excited to be part of the SG community to learn and grow alongside inspiring and innovating people seeking to make a positive impact!
Keith Engine, Mentor
Life is too short to... I love to explore new things - globetrotter, bookworm, and you can see me in most of the startup events in Hong Kong (and beyond) - hunt me! Besides Startup Grind, I was the organizer of Startup Weekend and AngelHack. Some topics can get my immediate attention: emerging technologies, youth entrepreneurship, corporate innovation, startup ecosystem in Asia Pacific. I'm approachable, so, feel free to drop me a message on LinkedIn!
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Global Partner
Google Cloud (https://cloud.google.com/resources/content/future-of-ai-report?utm_source=events-with-google&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=FY25-Q1-NORTHAM-SMB31054-website-dl-AIThoughtLeader-52420&utm_content=startup-grind&utm_term=-&hl=en)
Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in more than 600 cities and 125+ countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Our monthly fireside chat interviews, startup mixers and annual conferences provide ample opportunities to connect with amazing startups and the people behind them, tap into a strong support network, form meaningful connections and gain inspiration for the startup journey ahead. For more information visit StartupGrind.com or follow us on twitter @StartupGrind.
Complete your event RSVP here: https://www.startupgrind.com/events/details/startup-grind-hong-kong-presents-ai-enabled-founder-led-with-phil-ingram/.
