Linda Dao is an entrepreneur and AI product leader. As one of the new generation of product managers who combine strategy and execution, she has personally built and shipped AI-powered products using the newest AI tools. One of her biggest achievements was when she scaled up Picture Me, an AI headshot app, through viral TikTok marketing, resulting in over $300k in revenue.
“What truly sets me apart is my combination of strategic thinking and hands-on technical execution. While many product leaders focus solely on strategy and management, I personally build products using cutting-edge AI tools while also taking care of the distribution of the app. I prototype, I ship, I iterate,” says Dao.
Dao started her career in the corporate world and even worked at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC). After a while, she made the decision to switch her career by joining a venture capital firm so she could be closer to innovation.
“While the roles at different banking institutions provided foundational business knowledge, I quickly felt a growing frustration: my work didn’t contribute to anything meaningful. I wasn’t solving real problems or creating value that I could tangibly see improving people’s lives. This realization became impossible to ignore,” says Dao.
Though working at a venture capital firm gave her insight into entrepreneurship, she didn’t want to spend her time just analyzing startups. She realized she wanted to be hands-on in building them. The desire to be directly involved in problem-solving and experience tangible results was the driver that propelled her into entrepreneurship.
“I decided to join early-stage startups at their most vulnerable and impactful moments,” Dao says.
After working at a health-tech company where she was intimately involved in building products that directly helped patients with chronic conditions in the United Kingdom and Germany, Dao became the first employee at a quick commerce startup. There, she applied the knowledge from her earlier work experiences as she led the product and engineering teams. Within the first month, Dao helped the startup achieve multiple figures in revenue, to much hype, a success partly driven by a smart distribution strategy that initially limited access to select users to create FOMO and identify early technical issues before scaling broadly.
“This wasn’t just about the revenue. It was proof that rapid execution, deep customer understanding, and a willingness to experiment could create extraordinary results,” Dao says.
Dao’s career continued to accelerate when she was selected to work at a company that builds AI startups within two to three weeks before focusing on distribution. The founder of the company was the creator of one of the most popular websites in the world and had built a business worth over a billion dollars. This position taught her to get more into artificial intelligence (AI) and building businesses from the ground up. It also enabled her to collaborate with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in Europe.
While working at the venture studio, she led cross-functional teams and built entire businesses. One of her biggest product development achievements was when she created Picture Me.
“Back then, I identified a specific pain point: professionals needed high-quality headshots but found traditional photography expensive and time-consuming. By leveraging cutting-edge AI technology, personally building and iterating on the product, and implementing a viral UGC TikTok marketing strategy, I scaled this venture to over $300K in revenue,” Dao says.
The app generated over 100,000 professional headshots, helping people present themselves professionally in the digital age.
For Linda Dao, success isn’t measured only in revenue or downloads but in how quickly she can test, learn, and apply. Every failed experiment becomes a framework for the next launch. It’s this cycle of curiosity and adaptation that keeps her ahead in a field where yesterday’s breakthrough is today’s baseline.