Almost anyone picked off the street can come up with ideas that have the potential to be fresh new takes on industry practices or business operation strategies. Ideas are cheap and plentiful; ideas aren’t the thing that make ambitious entrepreneurs, inventors, investors, and leaders great in the eyes of history. The ability to turn ideas into opportunities, to execute on a concept and actually bring it to life (and to market) is what makes the difference between a dime-a-dozen ‘ideas guy’ and a true innovator.

Jess Mah is one such innovator, and has been honing her process for turning ideas into opportunities since childhood. The young entrepreneur and investor launched her first six-figure business in middle school and has relished every opportunity to build businesses since. She’s currently the CEO and founder of Mahway, a venture creation company supporting high-conviction founders across the fintech, biotech, AI, and legaltech, and more. The Mahway team uses Jess Mah’s process to turn bold ideas into durable, successful companies.

“We’re re-writing the rules of venture, building companies and having a great amount of fun along the way,” Jess Mah says. “We have built great companies with great people.”

A Proven Business Building Process

Jess Mah started her business journey building custom gaming computers for her classmates in middle school, and that experience inspired her to follow her creativity and dive headfirst into the entrepreneurial world. Since then, she has been on the founding team of 10+ companies, has led hundreds of teams as a CEO, and currently serves on five different boards. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the young entrepreneur has a sound grasp on building businesses.

“I did it because I enjoyed the art of it all,” she says. “This led me to want to follow my creativity and work with cool people with cool things. It made me want to do a business that wanted to be related to computers and tech. So I have!”

Much of this success comes from how Mah has operated her companies and teams. Jess Mah and her team recognized long ago that the difference between a struggling founder with a good idea and a successful entrepreneur laid in the systems they rely on, not random luck. The Mah Process works by applying proven, battle-tested frameworks for talent acquisition, executive recruiting, company creation, and operational excellence to acquired brands and companies.

Despite having experienced early success, Jess Mah isn’t one to hoard business strategies and secrets for herself and her companies. She makes her process, her frameworks, and her entrepreneurial playbook available online through the Billion-Dollar Startup Bundle. This free resource, available on HubSpot contains guides for attracting talent, building an idea into a successful company, and how to structure operations and secure funding for long-term entrepreneurial success. From interview strategies and onboarding systems to compensation structures and capital efficiency frameworks, Jess Mah’s process is laid bare for any interested parties.

Innovative and Authentic Leadership

Unfortunately, not every aspect of successful entrepreneurship can be neatly written down and defined as operating structures, guides, or frameworks. Someone can have all the tools and organizing systems they could ask for, and still fail to build up a successful business because of their own lacking leadership qualities. For better or worse, a great deal of what it means to be an effective business leader cannot be neatly codified—some of it must be understood through firsthand experience.

The responsibilities of leadership change drastically as companies scale up and roles become more defined and subservient to the demands of the given industry, and that experience can have a steep learning curve. Learning to balance the pragmatism, vision, and decision-making skills of leadership roles with the principles and authenticity so central to leading teams of people is as challenging as it is rewarding. Jess Mah has learned that lesson herself over the years; defining her own style of leadership has been a unique journey.

“I lean towards extreme authenticity,” Mah explains. “It gets me in trouble sometimes and I accept those consequences. I’m leaning into sharing about difficulties and challenges more because my followers and fans resonate with that type of content.”

Her personal style seems to be effective, as her journey has been consistently marked by accomplishment and ambition. Mah was the youngest woman ever accepted into Y Combinator when she joined in 2010, the youngest to join the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) in 2013, and the youngest graduate of Harvard Business School’s Presidents’ Program in 2024. She’s the founder and chairwoman of inDinero, and the Head Honcho of Mahway, through which she builds billion-dollar enterprises across her chosen sectors. Finally, she’s the creator of Badass Female Founders, a woman-only, highly curated community of hundreds of venture-backed and scale-stage company founders designed to create the same kind of close-knit, bold, ambitious networking groups that male entrepreneurs have benefitted from for decades.

Through all of these ventures, two things have held true: a commitment to authenticity, and a deep hunger for greater achievement across industries. For Mah, authenticity has been critical to both her leadership style and her personal branding. To her, leaders are meant to bring people together and connect them in common cause, and it’s hard to do that without genuinely connecting with her teams. That means leading with transparency, humility, and empathy, and inspiring others to follow suit.

“Be willing to admit challenges, weaknesses and learnings to team members,” Mah says. “You aren’t complaining or looking weak, but actually point out the problems and work on solutions together. Don’t brush problems under the rug for the team, but inspire them to fix the problems.”

Live and Laugh

While building businesses and growing her impressive portfolio is both a career and passion for Jess Mah, and she’s achieved a great deal, she knows how important it is to keep humble and grounded. She deeply values her friends and family for their support, but also for they've kept her grounded through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. While she’s re-writing the rules of venture capitalism and investment, she’s also focused on what matters: living life and keeping positive. Challenges and change are part and parcel of entrepreneurship, and she’s experienced losses and setbacks alongside her successes. Jess Mah takes it in stride, whether it’s an unfortunate turn in the market or misinformation online.

“I laugh at it all,” she says. “I think about how it’ll be fun to show it all to my grandkids one day. I’ve had to change my vision so many times and usually what comes out of it is people who enjoy working with me and I enjoy working with them better. We have built great companies with great people and that deserves to be front and center.”