Who
Michael Queralt founded Startup IQ to help underrepresented entrepreneurs start, ideate, and scale their business.
Michael Queralt is a seasoned investor, business strategist, patent holder, and technology innovator with over 30 years of proven experience.
His journey spans from pioneering secure, passwordless authentication solutions to advising and investing in disruptive startups.
As a proud Y Combinator, FedTech, and NSF-I Corp alum, Michael thrives on identifying emerging trends and nurturing ideas that redefine industry standards.
He’s mentored inventive startups to growth, including international startups looking to land in the US market.
Promoting a customer-centric product-market fit approach, he has enabled his client’s organizations to define their revenue strategies, leverage innovation and define sales & operations to drive top line revenues.
His technology focus is on identities, authentication, privacy, and contextual decisions, and he has partnered with organizations like the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology, FIDO Alliance, DC Government, and John Hopkins Advance Physic Laboratory.
Michael holds multiple technology patents. His business expertise is built on his successful time at Xerox, Vanstar, Compucom, as well as decades as a successful startup consultant.
After working together at two previous companies, Jack Nolan joined Michael to boost Startup IQ’s pedigree in the Enterprise space.
Jack Nolan has a distinguished four-decade career in professional enterprise sales.
His extensive experience includes individual contributor excellence and global leadership roles at tech giants like IBM, AWS, SAP, and AT&T, as well as launching successful sales organizations from scratch with multiple investor-funded technology startups.
With a track record of closing hundreds of millions of dollars in technology sales deals in Hardware, Software, Cloud, SaaS, AI, and Services, he has earned a reputation as a master in optimizing sales organization performance.
Jack's consistent success in surpassing revenue targets has earned him numerous sales accolades and awards.
He’s proud of the endorsements and recommendations from dozens of business associates across North America, Europe, and APAC.
Jack is a Pavilion Executive Member and a frequent contributor to the Global GTM Community.
Bogdan Stanciu was responsible for overseeing the product development and management efforts both as a manager and individual contributor.
Driving the product portfolio roadmap from individual contributor to C-level, he was able to advise companies in a broad range of industries from science (Atlas Computing, Runtime Verification) to healthcare (Healthfirst, Medstar Health, Inova Medical Group, VCU Health, and McKesson Medical-Surgical).
As an active member in the international UX community, Bogdan was given the opportunity to share his expertise both as a speaker at The Web And Beyond (Amsterdam, 2012), IA Konferentz (Berlin, 2013), EuroIA (Amsterdam, 2016), UX Camp (Edmonton, 2018), UXD Healthcare (London, 2019), EuroIA (Riga, 2019) and as a poster presenter at EuroIA (Rome, 2012) and the IA Summit (Baltimore, 2013).
Olga Perfilieva is a founder of Olga & Pixel Product Design Consulting specializing in early- and growth-stage startups.
With a background in product design leadership and hands-on execution, Olga has successfully designed and launched automation-driven platforms and tools in accounting technology, online catering marketplace, and automotive industry. Her focus is on creating scalable, user-centric solutions that enhance user outcomes and drive business impact.
Her top skills are: Design Strategy, Information Architecture, Iterative Prototyping, User Testing, Visual Design & Illustration.
Fun fact: Olga began her career in commercial interior design, which shaped her human-centered approach to problem-solving. Outside of work, she enjoys running, creating art, and singing Ukrainian folk songs.
Larry Thacker is a product strategist and design leader with 20 years of experience helping teams turn ambiguity into action.
For over 15 years, he has focused on software design as his medium of choice—leading teams at CarMax and LendingTree and currently accelerating 0-1 product cycles at goHappy using AI-augmented workflows. Through his practice at Thacker&Design Studio, Larry works with founders on the most challenging early-stage challenges: finding product-market fit, validating problem-solution fit, and building creative confidence to visualize what's next.
His philosophy is "slow thinking for fast company"—using structured workshops, design sprints, and collaborative discovery to help founders compress learning cycles without skipping the insights. Larry believes the best products emerge when teams sketch, map, and prototype their way to clarity.
A Responsible AI (RAI) Strategist, Jill Stover Heinze has spent twenty years in the research sector, and the past ten implementing technology with a strong user focus.
Today, she’s an RAI strategist enabling organizations to adopt AI practices that prioritize safety and positive outcomes.
As a Research Director and Lead, Data and AI Research team for a major digital consultancy, she launched a new RAI evaluation framework to guide clients in high-risk industries in implementing generative AI proofs-of-concept. In addition, she initiated and implemented the consultancy’s first-ever executive AI governance committee, and was closely involved in rolling out its AI use and governance policies.
She helps clients responsibly design their AI product and governance strategies, and upskill their teams to seize market advantage with AI-enabled tech. She is the Responsible AI Program Director for The American College of Financial Services’s Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics in Financial Services. She is also a member of the AI Leadership Institute, has been a mentor with All Tech is Human, and hosts a regular video series, Responsible Tech Talks.
Contact us
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!
Michael Queralt | michael@startup-iq.com
(914) 450-0879
Jack Nolan | jack@startup-iq.com
(917) 509-8171