Ben Sullivan

My life

1st Love: Computers

My first computer was an Apple IIe, then a Macintosh II. Some of my fondest childhood memories are computer games like Lucasarts’ Monkey Island 1 and 2. I started learning BASIC programming at age 9, and web development at age 13. I received no formal education through middle- or high-school which allowed me to focus on my interests.

2nd Love: Film

At age 15 I began an effort to watch all 100 films on the “AFI 100 Years…100 Movies” list. I’m partial to David Lean epics, John Hughes comedies, Sidney Lumet with Jason Robards, life-affirming humanity pieces, stories about moral conflict and tragedy, thriller/suspense masterpieces, and works that achieve a grand scale. Some of my favorite films include Doctor Zhivago (1965), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Pretty In Pink (1986), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Masayuki Suo’s Shall We Dance? (1996), Age of Innocence (1993), The Iceman Cometh (1960), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962), Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Heat (1995), Blue Velvet (1986), Das Boot (1981), Rear Window (1954), The Godfather I and II (1972, 1974), Bondarchuk’s War and Peace (1967), Thames’ The World at War (1974), The Last Emperor (1987), The Right Stuff (1983), Granada’s Brideshead Revisited (1981), Ben-Hur (1959), Reds (1981), Casablanca (1942), Blade Runner (1982), The Searchers (1956), Porco Rosso (1992).

3rd Love:
Language & Japan

I began studying Japanese at age 16, due to a desire to learn a second language and an interest in Japanese history and traditional art. I first traveled to Japan in 2004 for a summer exchange program at Hokkaido University. In 2005 I attended the JCMU Summer Intensive Japanese language program in Shiga, Japan, which packed a standard academic year’s worth of language study into 2 months. In 2005 I was selected for the Japanese Language and Culture Studies Program (Nikkensei) with a Japanese Government (MEXT) Scholarship at Hokkaido University (1 year). After graduating college I moved to Tokyo and taught English for 3 years. At age 24 I passed the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test highest level. At age 25 I got my first permanent position (Seishain) at a Japanese company where only Japanese was spoken.

4th Love: Startups

When I was 25 I got my first job as a software engineer in Japan and began to delve into the world of web startups. I met many people in the Tokyo startup scene through a Ruby On Rails meetup group I started called Tokyo On Rails. Through this group I got my first job as a fullstack web developer. I was heavily influenced by Paul Graham of YCombinator and Eric Ries’ Lean Startup. In 2012 I started a popular meetup group called Tokyo Startup Circle, hosting 58 bi-weekly small lunch events until 2015. In 2013 I cofounded a “cooking lessons at home” marketplace called Tadaku, acquired in 2015. In 2015 I moved to San Francisco to join Instacart where I helped build the infrastructure and tooling for their massive grocery catalog. In 2019 I joined Unstoppable Domains to lead their Ecommerce team. In 2025 I left my job to start my first company as a solo founder.

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