James Edward Dillard

I'm an entrepreneur, product builder, Emergent Ventures awardee, and dad.

At the moment, I'm searching for my next project. If you have something audacious and exciting, reach out to me because it's a great time to chat.

Some work I'm most proud of:

I co-founded Macro Oceans, and led the company to its first products and revenues. Macro Oceans makes high performance biomaterials from kelp for the beauty industry, using the waste material in packaging applications like kelp pots.
Prior to Macro Oceans, I worked at Stripe, where I led the launch of the Stripe Apps ecosystem, and at YouTube where I worked on Creator Tools and Search.

I'm deeply curious and keep a blog to help keep me in the creative habit. Some of my posts I'm most proud of include:

Product 101: Some lessons I've learned building products and leading product teams.
Each year, I keep a list of things I learned. Here is my 2024 list (and 2023 too).
Building a superstar career outside a superstar city. Some inspiration for those of us living outside of SF and New York.

More about me and my background is available here. Like many others, I like getting email. Send me a note and say hi: hello@jdilla.xyz.

Be brave and have fun.