Tomás Uribe – Co-Founder & CEO, Mavity
Podcast Notes, Episode 15 – The Creative Edge: A Musician’s Journey to Supercharging GTM Teams with AI
La Frontera 🌵 Podcast, Episode 15 - The Creative Edge: A Musician’s Leap into AI & Entrepreneurship
Tomás Uribe
We’re thrilled to finally welcome Tomás Uribe to La Frontera. His unconventional path, unique style and perspective is a refreshing one, and his journey has a bit of everything: from a childhood steeped in music and the arts to a leap from Colombia to New York City. He shares hard-won lessons navigating the U.S. immigration maze and building a startup that’s caught the attention of investors like Pharrell Williams and Morgan Stanley. In this episode, Tomás shares how his creative roots give him an edge in tech, why being authentic helped him fundraise, and how he’s using AI to supercharge creative work.
If you’re a founder from an unconventional background, an immigrant entrepreneur, or an investor interested in the creative economy, this conversation is packed with golden insights.
Tomás was kind enough to share a special discount code for 15% off Mavity just for La Frontera readers.
You can find the code at the bottom of this newsletter!
Episode 15 Summary
From Bogotá to NYC: How Tomás’s musical upbringing and love for New York set the stage for his founder journey.
Music & Tech – A Creative Edge: Why a background in music composition became Tomás’s secret weapon for problem-solving in business.
Early Pivots & “Necessary” Mistakes: The early false starts and painful lessons that ultimately shaped Mavity’s direction.
Authenticity in Fundraising: Tips from Tomás’s fundraising playbook – be yourself, prioritize good design and storytelling, and sweat the details.
Creativity Meets AI: How Mavity leverages AI tools to free up creators’ time and why human creativity remains “the most important currency” in the age of automation.
Navigating the Visa Gauntlet: Tomás’s advice for immigrant founders on doing your homework with U.S. visa options, finding sponsors, and building networks to achieve the American startup dream.
Building Community & Giving Back: Why Tomás engages in policy advocacy and how his Latino heritage influences Mavity’s inclusive culture.
In Today's Newsletter
🎨Mavity: Modern Creative Operations, Powered by AI
🚀 Founded: 2022 (New York, NY)
📈 Stage: Seed
💰 Total Funding Raised: ~$2M
🤝 Investors: Techstars, Black Ambition (Pharrell Williams), L’Attitude Ventures, Google, Morgan Stanley, among others
🎯 Mission: Empower go to market teams with fast, easy and scalable creative asset orchestration
Mavity is an AI-powered platform that orchestrates the creation, management, and delivery of go-to-market (GTM) assets like one-pagers, sales decks, social content, and ads, through a multi-format asset builder that ensures all assets are interconnected and consistently up to date. It integrates directly with CRM and sales tools to turn customers and deal data into personalized, performance-optimized creative. Mavity matters because GTM teams need to move fast and scale content across multiple channels, but traditional creative workflows are slow, fragmented, and expensive. Today, they have a team spread across New York, Colombia, and beyond, all working to “supercharge creative operations” for businesses and brands.
🎶 From Classical Composition to Startup CEO
Tomás’s path to tech founder is anything but typical. Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia in a highly artistic family, Tomás was immersed in music from a young age. By seven he was learning instruments, and in his teens he even formed a band – which, in true entrepreneurial fashion, he and his bandmates incorporated as a company to sell music for ads and build custom audio equipment for other musicians. This early mix of art and business planted the seed for his future startup life.
But it was Tomás’s love of New York City that ultimately pulled him north. Fascinated by NYC’s creative energy and diversity, he set his sights on studying there. He applied (to exactly one school!) and earned a spot in Parsons’ media technology program, moving to New York in 2013. That move kicked off a decade-long adventure: from building a music-tech app with his now co-founder, to marketing stints at the UN and a Brooklyn startup – all while moonlighting in the city’s music scene. The common thread? Tomás was constantly at the intersection of creativity and technology, whether hacking on a music discovery app or managing creative projects in advertising.
It’s no surprise, then, that when Tomás started Mavity, he approached it with a creative mindset. He sees clear parallels between composing music and building a business.
“He’s just using his music and his way of being creative to channel different ideas and solve problems. And that’s literally what music is… you’re solving a problem at every single measure,” Tomás says, referring to Nine Inch Nails frontman-turned-tech executive Trent Reznor as an inspiration.
Tomás Uribe
In Tomás’s view, writing a song and running a startup both boil down to continuous problem-solving and iteration, you’re always refining, adjusting, and improvising to get to a harmonious result.
That creative edge gives Tomás a unique perspective as a founder. He admits he’s “more of a creator than an executioner” at heart, brimming with new ideas. One of his favorite sayings is “the worst thing that can happen to one idea is another idea.” In other words, focus is key – a challenge for any creative person. Tomás has had to learn to balance that imaginative flair with the discipline to see an idea through. As he puts it, creators often fall in love with the next shiny concept (whether it’s the best song ever or a new product feature), but success comes from doubling down on the rightidea long enough to make it real. It’s a lesson in persistence that any founder can relate to.
Finally, Tomás believes creative people have never been more important in tech. With AI on the rise (more on that later), human originality is a priceless asset.
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“Human creativity is the single most important currency from here onwards”
Tomás Uribe
He emphasizes that ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking are what will differentiate companies in an age where so much can be automated. As a founder who straddles both art and tech, Tomás embodies that principle, and encourages more folks from artistic backgrounds to dive into entrepreneurship. The startup world, he insists, needs creative perspectives now more than ever.
💡 Early Pivots, Hard Lessons
Mavity’s vision didn’t spring forth fully formed. Tomás is refreshingly candid that the journey was messy and full of mistakes, each one a learning experience that shaped the company.
“We could stay here forever talking about mistakes,” Tomás laughs. “In retrospect, it was like a necessary evil to get to where we are” he says of the bumps along the way.
Tomás Uribe
One of the earliest forks in the road came during Mavity’s time in Techstars. Back then, the startup was focused exclusively on agencies. The team assumed creative agencies would love a platform to manage freelance creators. Spoiler alert: they didn’t. “Complete crickets – nobody cared,” Tomás admits of that initial hypothesis. They had poured time into building features for agencies, only to realize the real demand was elsewhere.
Fortunately, being in an accelerator helped Mavity find its true North Star. Other founders in Tomás’s Techstars cohort started clamoring for creative help: pitch decks, marketing assets, you name it. Unlike agencies, startups desperately needed a reliable way to get these things done. The lightbulb went off – Mavity pivoted to serve startup and small business customers, not agencies. That pivot was a turning point: suddenly Mavity had paying clients and a clearer value prop. But new mistakes were made in the process, too.
Tomás recounts another early misstep: spending too much effort on the creative “supply” side of the marketplace. In trying to please the freelancers on Mavity, the team built out robust dashboards and features for creatives – only to later scrap much of it. Why? Because the priority had to be the paying customers’ experience. Mavity learned the hard way not to over-engineer for one side of a marketplace at the expense of the other.
“We spent a lot of time and resources building for [creatives], rather than the end customer… It’s painful, but it’s not there anymore.”
Tomás Uribe
The takeaway: focus on delivering value to whoever pays the bills (and in a marketplace, avoid “happy ears” that lead you to build stuff people say they want, rather than what they’ll actually use).
Another lesson from the trenches was around hiring. As a first-time CEO, Tomás admits he made some hiring mistakes – bringing on people who looked perfect on paper but weren’t the right fit in practice. Early on, he was slow to address those mismatches. Now, he’s quicker to act. Firing fast is never easy, but it saves the whole team pain in the long run. Tomás has learned to trust his gut if something feels off in the first few weeks with a new hire – and to make the tough call before a minor issue becomes a major drain.
From botched product ideas to personnel dilemmas, these experiences underscore an encouraging point: mistakes are part of the process. Tomás doesn’t shy away from them; instead, he views each stumble as fuel for growth. Founders, take note – even a “necessary evil” of a mistake can push you toward clarity if you’re willing to adapt. As Tomás reflects, every pivot and hard decision at Mavity ultimately led to a stronger business. The key is maintaining humility and staying responsive to feedback, no matter how far off-course you might find yourself.
💰 Fundraising with Authenticity and Design
When it comes to fundraising, Tomás Uribe has an unorthodox playbook. How many founders do you know that begin pitch presentations with a cat video? Tomás does. (You read that right.) As a former musician, he’s no stranger to winning over tough crowds – and he brings that performer’s flair to pitching investors. During workshops he gives on fundraising, Tomás likes to open with a famous meme-worthy clip of a cat trying (and hilariously failing) to jump between two roofs. Why? It’s his tongue-in-cheek way of telling founders: take all advice with a grain of salt. “As an entrepreneur, you have so many people telling you, ‘do this, do that’… I always tell them, anything you hear in my workshop, just take it like the cat,” Tomás says – in other words, no single formula guarantees success. Ultimately, you have to make the leap yourself, adjust on the fly, and learn from the falls.
That philosophy underpins Tomás’s top fundraising tip: be unapologetically yourself. For him, that meant embracing his creative identity rather than trying to play the stereotypical tech CEO.
“I’m a musician… I tried [wearing] the suit because I thought it would be easier to fit in… then I realized it’s not me, it’s not authentic.”
Tomás Uribe
He emphasizes that authenticity must be tempered with awareness (know your audience and don’t completely alienate them), but it’s crucial not to pretend to be someone you’re not. Early-stage investors, after all, are betting on the founder as much as the idea.
“Especially at pre-seed and seed, they’re really investing in who the person is… VCs can cut through the BS. So don’t try to be anything you’re not.”
Tomás Uribe
Another pillar of Tomás’s approach is good design and storytelling. As a creative, he has a keen eye for aesthetics – and he adamantly rejects the notion you sometimes hear in VC land that “design doesn’t matter.” “That’s BS. We consume everything through our eyes,” Tomás says plainly. In his experience, a well-designed pitch deck that crafts a compelling narrative will always beat a dull memo full of facts. Investors are human: an ugly, typo-ridden deck is an easy way to signal a lack of care. “The devil is in the details. People will notice when you’ve spent time to make sure all those blood, sweat and tears you’ve put in are correctly represented,” Tomás insists.
So what does a Tomás-approved pitch look like? It’s visually engaging, authentically you, and tells a story end-to-end – who you are, why you’re uniquely positioned to solve this problem, what your product does, and where it’s headed. Tomás also recommends founders build a system for their raise: do your homework on which VCs to approach, leverage warm intros where possible, and keep potential investors updated on your progress (he’s a fan of tools like Visible.vc for managing investor outreach and updates). Essentially, treat fundraising like another product: iterate, optimize, and market it well.
Tomás’s own results speak to the effectiveness of this approach. Mavity’s cap table includes a mix of notable backers like Techstars, Pharrell Williams (via his Black Ambition fund for Black and Latino founders), L’Attitude Ventures(focused on Latino-led startups), Google, and even Morgan Stanley. It’s an eclectic group that reflects Tomás’s ability to resonate with different audiences, from traditional finance to celebrity investors, by leveraging his story.
🤖 When Creativity Meets AI
One of the most fascinating parts of Mavity’s story is how it sits at the intersection of creative work and artificial intelligence. Tomás and his team are leveraging AI not to replace creatives, but to empower them. The platform is rolling out AI-driven features that handle the boring, repetitive stuff – generating draft designs or social media copy, organizing project assets, even suggesting talent matches – so that human creators can focus on the high-level creative thinking.
Interestingly, Tomás points out that music has long been a sandbox for new tech, including AI. He reminds us that many major tech shifts started in the music industry. Think about it: digital files (MP3s) disrupted music before any other medium, Napster pioneered peer-to-peer sharing via songs, and even early AI experiments – like algorithms that recognize chord patterns or generate melodies – found a home in music tech.
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“Creative industries, particularly music, have long been the guinea pig for any big innovation.”
Tomás Uribe
In fact, Mavity’s CTO Kristian is an example of this crossover: he did his Master’s thesis on AI chord recognition in music years ago. That same technology is now mainstream, underpinning all kinds of content recommendations and generative AI models. The takeaway? Creativity and technology evolve together, each pushing the other forward. What starts in a music studio might end up changing how we all work.
At Mavity, the integration of AI is very intentional. Tomás’s vision is to “democratize access to high-quality creative services by integrating AI with on-demand teams.” The AI handles scaling the service efficiently, while the humans ensure the output is original and tailored. In practice, this could mean a small business owner uses Mavity to get a logo designed; behind the scenes, an AI might generate several rough logo concepts and pull a shortlist of vetted designers, then a human designer polishes the chosen concept to perfection. The client gets fast, affordable results without sacrificing quality. And for the creatives, AI becomes a collaborative tool – taking away tedium (who really wants to resize 50 images in Photoshop manually?) and even sparking ideas. Tomás notes that we’re already seeing a “new era of creatives” who are tech-savvy and use AI in their workflow. These creatives aren’t threatened by automation; they wield it as another instrument in their arsenal.
✈️ Cross-Border Founder: Navigating Visas and Immigration
Starting a company is hard enough on its own. Now imagine doing it while contending with visa expiration dates, immigration interviews, and ever-shifting legal requirements. That’s the reality Tomás faced as an immigrant founder in the U.S., and in our interview he opened up about the challenges and lessons from that journey. His story offers a playbook (and some cautionary tales) for international entrepreneurs pursuing the American dream.
For Tomás, coming to the U.S. was a long-held goal – one inspired by his mother’s academic ambitions and a personal infatuation with New York’s creative scene. But getting here and staying here was no simple feat. He arrived on a student visa (F-1) for his master’s program, which allowed a year of work authorization after graduation (known as OPT). The clock was ticking to find an employer sponsor for a longer-term visa. Tomás didn’t originally plan on immediately launching a startup; he first took a job and went through the H-1B lottery, the traditional route for skilled foreign workers. He was lucky to get an H-1B visa (it truly is a lottery – only ~85,000 are granted out of hundreds of thousands of applications). But even that was just the beginning.
Tomás shared that he did his homework on every possible visa path – and advises other founders to do the same. The U.S. immigration system is complex, full of “loopholes” and lesser-known options. “I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘I didn’t know that visa even existed,’” Tomás notes, reflecting on how many peers simply aren’t aware of programs that might help them. In his case, after the H-1B he transitioned to an O-1 “Extraordinary Ability” visa, a category often used by artists, researchers, or entrepreneurs with notable accomplishments. Tomás’s unique background in music tech helped him qualify – as he puts it, “I had some press mentions and an award… I could make a case for [the O-1]”. Still, even the O-1 was nerve-wracking; it’s subjectively evaluated, and at one point a renewal was nearly denied. (He actually received a green card in the mail one week after an immigration officer had initially moved to reject his O-1 renewal – talk about a close call!) The takeaway for aspiring immigrant founders is to explore every avenue: student visas, work visas, O-1s, and newer startup visa programs if available. And importantly, build a network of contacts who can support you – professors, employers, even university programs that sometimes sponsor visas for entrepreneurs.
Despite the headaches he went through with immigration, he firmly believes the opportunities in America outweigh the drawbacks. He pointed out a few reasons: access to a huge domestic market, a relatively more flexible business environment, and even things like lower taxes compared to parts of Europe (yes, the U.S. has its high taxes, but Tomás humorously notes places like Italy take 68% of income in tax versus ~30% federal in the U.S.). For an ambitious entrepreneur wanting to scale globally, the U.S. is still a very attractive launchpad.
That said, Tomás doesn’t sugarcoat the personal challenges. The visa grind is stressful. It can dictate your life choices – when to found a company, whether you feel free to leave a job, etc. He acknowledges the mental toll it takes: “If [your visa falls through], you might have to drop everything here, go back to your home country and start over…that’s something that’s not talked about enough,” he empathizes. For him and many others, securing permanent residency (a green card) was the ultimate relief and turning point that allowed 100% focus on the startup without fear of being forced to leave.
Tomás’s advice for fellow immigrant founders boils down to this: be proactive and persistent. Work every angle – use university programs or big company jobs as stepping stones if you must. Stay informed (immigration laws change, new visas pop up). And don’t be afraid to ask for help; lots of schools and accelerators are beginning to assist international founders with visa guidance. It’s not an easy path, but as Tomás’s own success shows, it is navigable with enough determination. The United States is far from perfect on immigration policy, but for those who can weather the storm, it still holds unparalleled upside.
🌍 Community, Culture, and Paying It Forward
Beyond building his company, Tomás Uribe is deeply committed to building community. In our conversation, it became clear that his identity as a Colombian immigrant and a creative professional drives him to uplift others in those communities. He’s not just focused on Mavity’s bottom line; he’s equally passionate about advocacy and mentorship to make the startup ecosystem more inclusive.
One way Tomás gives back is through policy advocacy for underrepresented founders. A few years ago, he got involved with a non-profit in Washington, D.C. called Engine, which champions startup-friendly policies. Tomás was invited to join an “entrepreneur fly-in” – basically a day of meetings on Capitol Hill where founders share their experiences with lawmakers and regulators. He flew to D.C. (Engine literally “flew him in”) along with other Latino, female, and immigrant entrepreneurs to make their voices heard. In one meeting, Tomás found himself sitting down with officials from the SEC to discuss updating the accredited investor rules. It might sound wonky, but this policy has real implications: loosening the definition of who can invest in startups could unlock generational wealth for more middle-class and minority investors.
“There’s a ton of people, say first- or second-generation immigrants, who have built wealth… but they don’t even have a clue that [being] an accredited investor exists.”
Tomás Uribe
Opening up investment opportunities beyond the ultra-rich could both empower those individuals and channel more funding to diverse founders. Tomás lent his perspective to encourage these changes.
In another meeting, Tomás met with representatives from USCIS, the immigration agency, to advocate for a startup visa. The U.S. notably lacks a straightforward founder visa (something many other countries offer). “We talked about the entrepreneur visa… this thing that has been ongoing for I don’t know how many years and still hasn’t gone through,”Tomás says with frustration. By sharing his own visa saga, he hoped to underscore how current policies often force promising founders to leave the U.S. or never come at all. These conversations are slow-moving, but Tomás believes they’re worth it. “If solved or improved, it can apply to a ton of different people,” he says, recognizing that even minor policy tweaks could help thousands of future immigrants and entrepreneurs. Not many startup CEOs take the time to speak to government, but Tomás sees it as part of his duty to “pay it forward” for the next generation.
Closer to home, Tomás also fosters community within Mavity and his personal network. He actively mentors younger founders and creatives, often telling them to reach out if they need guidance. Being a Latino CEO in tech, he’s conscious of being a role model. His Colombian heritage is a source of pride and perspective. Tomás deliberately keeps Mavity’s operations connected to Colombia – the company has team members in Medellín, and he finds ways to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem there.
“My Latino identity influences my business by fostering connections with Colombia and supporting its ecosystem… It also shapes our company culture, emphasizing inclusivity and understanding different work styles.”
Tomás Uribe
In practice, that means Mavity’s culture values diverse voices and adapts to a globally distributed team. Whether someone’s in New York or Bogotá or Barcelona, the company strives to be flexible and culturally aware. Tomás believes this inclusive ethos makes the team stronger and more creative, too.
Finally, Tomás is balancing startup life with family life – another area where values shine through. He mentions that despite the grind of building Mavity, he prioritizes time with his young son and wife. That hint of personal balance (or at least striving for it) reflects a grounded attitude: success isn’t just measured in dollars raised or revenue, but in the well-being of those around him. It’s a refreshing reminder that founders are human, and sustaining your mission long-term means keeping sight of what matters most.
All these facets – engaging in policy change, celebrating his cultural roots, mentoring others, and caring for family – paint a picture of a founder who leads with empathy and purpose. Tomás is building more than a company; he’s building community capital. And as La Frontera listeners know, that’s very much in the spirit of our cross-border, inclusive innovation ethos.
🧠 Wrap-Up: Key Takeaways for Founders
Tomás Uribe’s story is a testament to the power of blending worlds: art and technology, Latin America and the U.S., creativity and business execution. As we wrap up, let’s distill a few key lessons from his journey that any founder or operator can apply:
Embrace Your Unique Edge: Rather than seeing his non-traditional background as a liability, Tomás turned it into an advantage. Your experiences – whether in music, art, or any field – give you a perspective that can differentiate your startup. Lean into that. Authenticity isn’t just a buzzword; it builds trust. As Tomás demonstrated, being yourself (tattoos, cat videos and all) can actually attract the right investors and partners who believe in you. In a world of copycat entrepreneurs, let your originality be your superpower.
Design & Storytelling Matter: Don’t underestimate the impact of a well-crafted story and a beautiful presentation. Whether you’re pitching investors or recruiting a teammate, how you communicate is crucial. Take the extra time to refine your deck, polish your demo, and eliminate errors. It shows respect for your audience and confidence in your vision. Remember, humans are visual creatures – as Tomás said, we process with our eyes and love a good narrative. Make your company’s story compelling at first glance.
Learn Fast from Failure: The road to product-market fit is paved with wrong turns. Tomás’s ability to pivot Mavity (multiple times) and kill ideas that weren’t working was key. He treated each setback as a chance to iterate. The sooner you acknowledge a mistake, the sooner you can fix it. Create a culture where it’s okay to mess up, talk about it, and move on. As Tomás joked, we could spend forever swapping mistake stories – the point is to make new mistakes, not the same ones. Iteration is the name of the game.
Build Your Tribe: From visa struggles to fundraising, Tomás benefited from networks and community. He tapped professors, accelerators, and fellow founders for help. So build your tribe. Surround yourself with mentors and peers who will open doors (or occasionally fly you to DC to meet a senator!). And be that ally for others when you can. The startup journey is hard enough; having a support system can make all the difference – and it’s rewarding to lift others up as you climb.
Think Globally and Long-Term: Tomás maintains roots in Colombia while scaling in the U.S., showing that startups today can be truly global from day one. He also looks beyond his company to the broader landscape – getting involved in policy and community initiatives that may only pay dividends years down the line. Founders who zoom out to the big picture often spot opportunities and pitfalls that others miss. Yes, focus on executing your business, but don’t get blinders on. Keep an eye on industry trends, regulations, and global talent pools. As Tomás implies, playing the long game and contributing to something bigger than yourself isn’t just altruistic – it’s savvy.
In Tomás Uribe’s own words: “Be obsessed with solving the problem you’re passionate about… embrace the process and stay committed to your vision.” It’s advice he lives by. From the music studio to the startup board room, from Bogotá to NYC, Tomás’s journey shows that when you mix passion, creativity, and grit, remarkable things can happen.
📢 Listen to the full episode here.
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And check out Mavity if your team could use a creative boost.
Mavity: Orchestrate your GTM assets on one single platform.
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