Miguel Guerrero embodies the spirit of a wunderkind. At under 30 years old, he has already founded three successful companies—one of which he launched in middle school.

The world has taken notice: he earned a spot on Forbes' 2023 30 Under 30 list in Marketing and Advertising, and his latest venture, Otis AI, was named Startup of the Year at the 2023 Startup Grind Global Conference.

Miguel’s meticulous attention to detail and cool, calm demeanor is evident upon first meeting.  What is less obvious but definitely present is his willingness to take risks.  Maturity, capacity for risk and leadership – all necessary traits for an entrepreneur. Miguel always had entrepreneurship in his blood.  His grandparents on his mother’s side ran a successful oral surgery practice in the Philippines. His grandparents on his father’s side were also entrepreneurs in Greenhills, Metro Manila. When they moved to the States, they helped build San Francisco Minibus, a now 40-year-old company with a large fleet of minibuses serving California. Miguel grew up around entrepreneurship with the family business, and even built San Francisco Minibus’s first website at 11 years old.

A Long Island native, Miguel’s first real foray in successful solo entrepreneurship was establishing Meepcraft when he was just fourteen. He was interested in gaming, and his desire to host a server and build custom experiences such as a virtual economy and real estate system led to his creation of Meepcraft. Its unique offerings enabled Miguel to grow it into one of the world’s largest servers on Minecraft. Through this business, Miguel learned about scaling infrastructure, engineering and building a team. This in turn, led to his founding Meeplabs, an agency that works on products, growth and strategy solutions particular to small and medium-sized businesses.

The NYU Decision That Changed Everything

Miguel accomplished all this while still in high school so he might have been at a crossroads when deciding whether to go to college at NYU or commit 100% to his entrepreneurial projects. While he recognized that he might lose some momentum by choosing university, he also knew that the doors NYU would open are extremely valuable. He acknowledged that the network he has built, with his NYU peers and the early-stage startup, tech and investor ecosystem in New York, has contributed greatly to his success.  He co-founded TABu, a mobile payments app, with classmates from NYU and then started Otis AI with a connection he met through an NYU program.

Building the Future of Marketing Automation

With Otis AI, Miguel is knee deep in developing revolutionary technology that will fully automate strategy and execution of performance marketing for SMB’s.  Apart from product, he’s also working on go-to-market, driving strategy for increasing sales and revenue as well as closing Otis AI’s next seed round of financing.  A lot of Otis AI’s early investors in the initial $4.5 million round of financing came from Miguel’s TABu connections through the NYU and mobile payments networks.

As CEO, Miguel wears a lot of hats but he’s built a good team which includes his COO Tom Madsen, who was a VP and CIO at Verizon prior to joining Otis AI. “His expertise is complementary to mine in many ways,” Miguel notes. A synergistic executive team is critical to a young start-up’s success.

When asked about the current challenges of running a business, Miguel observes, “Entrepreneurship, especially in a venture-backed business, can be very challenging. There’s a lot of urgency baked into your business model, much higher expectations and stress. You’ve got to plan ahead to meet those capital milestones. You need to have resilience and good problem-solving skills to navigate the challenges. An average person might have just given up on the business and chose to go corporate.” Despite these circumstances, Miguel also notes, “There’s a lot of sacrifice in entrepreneurship but the upside is a big reward.”

“Entrepreneurship, especially in a venture-backed business, can be very challenging. There’s a lot of urgency baked into your business model, much higher expectations and stress. You’ve got to plan ahead to meet those capital milestones.“

With a significant customer base, a strong product in the market, and the investors that they’ve brought on board since its inception, Otis AI is well positioned in the marketing solutions space for SMBs. They’ve even expanded into the Philippines, one of the fastest growing digital economies, running advertising for large enterprises such as an ISP and an insurance company.

From his younger years helping his family’s small business, to starting Meepcraft, to building a full product stack with Otis AI that will provide a meaningful marketing solution SMBs, there’s no question that Miguel is fully committed to the entrepreneurial life.  “What motivates me day-to-day is our mission to make an important impact – we’re helping business owners effectively grow and run their business. It’s a big opportunity and we’ve got to move quickly.” It’s not all work though. Miguel’s dad might have introduced him to computers and tech in his youth and counsels him on finance but it’s his mom who advises him on living a more balanced life, taking care of business but not neglecting his health. And wedding bells are soon to ring as Miguel and his fiancé are planning their island wedding in the Philippines in the next year.  He’s already accomplished so much but to Miguel, he’s just beginning.