Dave Folk.

Multi-time founder · Advisor

I take raw ideas
from null to zero.

I do the earliest, riskiest work: customer discovery, validation, and prototyping, to find out whether a real opportunity is hiding inside an undefined problem. Then I build it, automate it, or help a founder run with it.

Work with me See my work

What I've worked on.

All of it

Cloverly

Conceived the idea and built the initial business model. Pitched for funding and designed the algorithms used to calculate the carbon footprint of activities. After launch, led supply strategy, building relationships on the supply side of the carbon markets and sourcing RECs and carbon offsets, while driving early go-to-market efforts and securing first customers.

Co-founder

Mangrove Systems

Supplier tooling for carbon credit project developers. Led customer discovery and early go-to-market efforts including branding and founder-led sales. Secured initial clients and grant funding.

Co-founder

Toucan

Digital rails for climate finance, creating liquidity pools for carbon removal credits. Led carbon markets strategy, partnerships, and customer discovery efforts around a pivot.

Head of Carbon Markets

Techstars

Managed a global startup sourcing effort to create partnerships between early stage companies in the carbon dioxide removal space and members of the Global Concrete and Cement Association. Also worked on startup sourcing efforts for companies like Maserati and Ikea.

Global Mentor Engagement Lead

How I work

A few operating principles.

All of them
  1. 01

    Discovery before conviction

    10–15 customer conversations before I believe an idea. Real signal beats a good opinion every time.

  2. 02

    Discovery gets a deadline

    60 days to find the signal, then decide: build the case or shelf it. No perpetual exploration.

  3. 03

    Build enough to prove it's real

    A scrappy prototype that sells something not yet built beats a flawless deck. Make it, then test it.

  4. 04

    Sequence, don't parallelize

    One thing to steady state before the next. Focus is the scarce resource at the early stage.

Musings

Latest writing.

All musings

Null to zero

Everyone talks about zero to one. The harder, more valuable work happens before it, when the problem itself is still undefined.

Building something early?

I'm always up for a conversation with a founder at the null-to-zero stage, especially in climate, AI, and hard, undefined problems.

Get in touch