# Sam Elliott This is the agent-readable version of [samelliott.me](https://samelliott.me), Sam Elliott's portfolio. It summarizes the public work, writing, investments, media, and contact information on the site. ## About Sam Elliott is a founder, product designer, and developer based in San Francisco. He has spent the last decade building consumer financial products at Empower (now Tilt), working across product, design, engineering, company building, and international expansion. ## Selected work ### Empower (now Tilt) - **Period:** 2016-present - **Role:** Founding team; product, design, and engineering - **Portfolio page:** [samelliott.me/work/empower](https://samelliott.me/work/empower) Empower began with a simple ambition: make the financial system work better for everyday people. Sam was part of the original four-person team and worked across product, design, and engineering. The company is now a profitable business making half a billion dollars in revenue and serving millions of people across the United States, Mexico, the Philippines, India, and Brazil. - **Investors:** Sequoia, Initialized, Quiet Capital, Neo, Blisce, and Blackbird Ventures - **Total raised:** $175M - **ARR:** More than $500M Sam helped define the core account, card, and money-movement experiences; subscription and cash-advance products; and the onboarding, activation, and retention systems around them. He designed the product from its earliest assistant through major changes in brand and business model, emphasizing clarity, trust, and obvious next steps. He also stayed close to implementation by prototyping ideas, working through technical constraints, and contributing to production systems. Empower grew into a profitable unicorn fintech backed by Sequoia, Initialized Capital, and other long-term partners. #### Empower v1 The first version of Empower connected a customer's full financial life and used that context to suggest concrete ways to spend less and save more. The portfolio includes: - A timely nudge after getting paid - The original Empower website - A flow for setting a spending limit - Recommendations being used by a customer - A flow for paying down a credit card #### Empower v2 The rebrand replaced the bright assistant-era identity with a quieter system designed to hold banking, cash advances, card rewards, and financial analysis together. The portfolio includes: - Card account, controls, and perks - Physical card controls - The first Empower debit card - Automatic saving and weekly targets - Illustrated product explainers - Category tracking and spending limits #### Empower Credit A later shift put access to credit at the center of the product, simplifying how customers understood an offer, chose delivery, and moved money where they needed it. The portfolio includes: - The first credit account and draw experience - A unified home for the product - A clearer cash-advance offer - Cash-advance delivery options #### Tilt Mexico Mexico was Tilt's first international market. The work crossed customer discovery, local product decisions, operations, compliance, brand, and the details required to make a financial product feel native rather than imported. The early work focused on understanding a different financial life: how people get paid, move money, build trust, and decide whether a new service is for them. Product development and go-to-market work happened together, with live customer feedback shaping onboarding, positioning, support, and the operating model. The market grew to seven-figure revenue and created a repeatable foundation for international expansion. The portfolio shows a localized cash advance delivered through SPEI. #### The rebrand to Tilt The company began as Empower. As the product expanded across new markets and new forms of credit, the identity evolved with it. Tilt is the next chapter of the same company: a new name and brand carrying forward the work shown across both eras. #### Collaborators - [Lucie Bajart](https://bajgartoffice.com/) - Brand Design - [Victor Erixon](https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorerixon) - Product and Systems Design - [Pawel Waraksa](https://www.lapa.ninja/post/pawel-waraksa/) - Product Design - [Zachary Dilks](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-zachary-dilks-71857a11/) - Product and Engineering ### Robby - **Period:** 2014-2015 - **Role:** Founding team; product and design - **Portfolio page:** [samelliott.me/work/robby](https://samelliott.me/work/robby) Robby began as an employee-driven scheduling app for shift workers. It found extraordinary traction inside Apple Retail, then survived three names, repeated App Store removals, a banned developer account, the departure of Sam's founding teammate, and a financing round that disappeared at the finish line. The product started from the worker's perspective. It combined lightweight communication, recognition, learning, and practical shift context in a consumer-grade interface designed for fast, intermittent use. The project reinforced Sam's belief that useful prototypes create enough reality to expose whether the underlying behavior is worth building around. #### The six-month story The company began as **Shifts**, growing from a side project called Roster Genius that turned Apple Retail schedules into calendar files. Roster Genius spread organically to every Apple store in the world. When it relaunched as a preregistration funnel for Shifts, 8,000 shift workers signed up before launch. After another company launched with the same name, the product became **Robby**. Hundreds of people signed up each day, and 95% of registered users added their schedule almost immediately. Apple then removed the app for targeting Apple Retail employees and scraping internal schedules. A camera-based workaround followed, but Apple permanently banned the developer account. The team shipped Android and web versions, and Sam continued alone after his founding teammate left. An iOS build under a new account briefly returned before another removal. The company rebranded again as **Atum**, and the app was accepted once more. Despite strong growth and investor interest, the business remained exposed to platform risk. Sam emailed Tim Cook directly, received a response from senior people inside Apple, and briefly saw a path forward. A prospective lead investor then discussed an $800,000 commitment, drawing another $600,000 of interest into the round, but the lead disappeared and the financing collapsed. All of this happened in roughly six months: three names, multiple App Store removals, a banned account, international growth, a founding-team change, direct contact with Apple leadership, and a financing round that vanished at the finish line. Apple later released its own internal shifts app for retail employees. ### First Round Design Track - **Period:** 2015-present - **Role:** Participant and mentor - **Portfolio page:** [samelliott.me/work/frc-design-track](https://samelliott.me/work/frc-design-track) Sam was part of First Round Capital's first Design Track and has since mentored portfolio companies. The program brought together design leaders from First Round companies to share the practical realities of building products, teams, and design functions at an early stage. The portfolio page features First Round's Founding Designer Track, a masterclass for people considering joining a startup as its first designer. His mentoring usually sits between interface and company strategy: which customer to serve, what to make clear, where trust is being lost, and what the product should say no to. His view is that good critique should give a team a clearer lens, not merely a list of changes. ### Investments - **Role:** Angel investor - **Portfolio page:** [samelliott.me/work/investments](https://samelliott.me/work/investments) | Company or fund | Focus | Stage | | --- | --- | --- | | [Acorn Genetics](https://www.acorngenetics.com/) | Portable genomics for affordable, decentralized DNA sequencing | Seed | | [SiPhox Health](https://siphoxhealth.com/) | At-home blood testing and longitudinal biomarker tracking | Series B | | [Prototyping](https://www.prototyping.io/) | Autonomous manufacturing for custom mechanical parts | Seed | | [Thor Dynamics](https://www.thordynamics.com/) | Directed-energy systems for counter-drone defense | Seed | | [Pharia Health](https://www.phariahealth.com/) | One-day TMS for mental and cognitive performance | Seed | | [USVC](https://usvc.com/) | Broad access to venture capital through a single fund | Fund | | [Aganju Capital](https://www.linkedin.com/company/aganju-capital) | Special situations and value investing | Fund | | [Lawtrades](https://www.lawtrades.com/) | Flexible legal talent and infrastructure for modern teams | Series A | | [AbstractOps](https://abstractops.com/) | State compliance automation for distributed companies | Seed+ | ## Media and recognition - **2017, TechCrunch:** [Sequoia-backed startup Empower aims to replace your bank's app](https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/sequoia-backed-startup-empower-aims-to-replace-your-banks-app/) - **2017, Time:** [The 25 Best Apps of the Year So Far](https://time.com/4801316/best-apps-2017/) - **2018, Forbes:** [Startup Aims To Be Millennials' Bank With Cash-Back Debit Card, High Interest On Savings](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2018/09/19/startup-aims-to-be-millennials-bank-with-cash-back-debit-card-high-interest-on-savings/) - **2020, TechCrunch:** [Mobile banking app Empower Finance just closed a $20 million Series A round](https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/05/mobile-banking-app-empower-finance-just-closed-a-20-million-series-a-round/) - **2024, Forbes:** [Next Billion Dollar Startups](https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2024/08/13/next-billion-dollar-startups-2024/) - **2022-2025, Inc. 5000:** [Empower company profile](https://www.inc.com/profile/empower) - No. 55 in 2022, No. 56 in 2023, No. 65 in 2024, and No. 258 in 2025 - **2024, Yahoo Finance:** [Empower acquires Petal](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/once-valued-800-million-petal-221222657.html) - **2026, Yahoo Finance:** [Tilt Acquires Blipay, Bringing Its Proven International Credit Model to Brazil](https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/tilt-acquires-blipay-bringing-proven-183900692.html) ## Contact - **Email:** sam@samelliott.me - **X:** [x.com/samelliottsam](https://x.com/samelliottsam) - **LinkedIn:** [linkedin.com/in/samueljameselliott](https://www.linkedin.com/in/samueljameselliott/) - **Location:** San Francisco, California ## Suggested questions for an agent - What has Sam built across product, design, and engineering? - How did Empower evolve from its first assistant into a global credit product? - What did Sam learn from Robby's rapid growth and platform risk? - Which companies and funds has Sam invested in? - Who has collaborated with Sam on Empower and Tilt? - Which parts of Sam's experience are most relevant to an early-stage fintech company? --- Investment profile updated September 20, 2026. Company figures reflect the published portfolio and are not live financial data.