# Melvin Yuan **Building Stellar → The Next-Gen Back-Office for High-Growth Founders ➕ Helping SEA Founders Expand to the US 🇺🇸🚀** — San Francisco, CA, United States > I’m obsessed with building companies that run like clockwork ⚙️ Right now, I’m doing that through Stellar — a company I founded to eliminate the operational mess that slows founders down. We handle everything from company formation to compliance, bookkeeping, payroll, and hiring, powered by AI workflows and backed by human experts. For founders in the U.S. and Singapore, we’re the equivalent of a virtual VP of Operations — without the overhead. Before Stellar, I founded and scaled venture-backed companies across very different domains — from YFind Technologies (acquired by Ruckus Wireless) to The Commissioned (a global art platform) and Omnifluence (a strategy firm advising Fortune 500s on digital transformation). Earlier in my career, I led the digital division of Waggener Edstrom Asia-Pacific, working on award-winning campaigns for brands like Microsoft, Sony, and HP. I’ve seen firsthand how brilliant founders get bogged down by the operational layer — tax filings, entity structures, scattered compliance tasks. I don’t believe founders should have to hire a CFO just to stay compliant. My job — and Stellar’s mission — is to give them leverage: clean systems, clear advice, and confidence that the back office is handled. What drives me is not just efficiency for efficiency’s sake — it’s creating space for creativity, invention, and momentum. I want to help build a future where founders don’t lose time to bureaucracy — and where startups can scale without friction. www.melvinyuan.com | www.hiStellar.com ## Links - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/melvinyuan ## Experience ### Founder & CEO, Stellar (2023-04 – present) Palo Alto, California, United States · We help other founders operate their companies, by providing a single point of contact 💁‍♂️, for all their back office operations including company formation, compliance, FinancialOps (like accounting and bookkeeping), and PeopleOps (including payroll, hiring, benefits etc.) Think of it as a VP of Ops or an Ops Manager — as a service. Stellar is also a single source of truth 💡 for the company. Most founders have important company data and documents all over the place, and they don’t have time to organize them well. So — each time they do something new, like due diligence for a fund-raise, or form a subsidiary company, or apply for insurance, they have to spend precious time, under tight deadlines — to assemble the information. Stellar pulls in information from multiple sources, keeps a thorough record of the company’s operations— and synthesizes the info to get what needs to get done, done. 👉 www.hiStellar.com ### Member, American Mensa (2022-08 – present) San Francisco Bay Area · Member of the Singapore Chapter since 1991. Transferred to the US Chapter (San Francisco Bay Area) in August 2022. Intelligence and perhaps more critically - Intellectual Humility - exert a profound, invisible influence on much of our endeavors as a species. These — combined with other qualities including emotional and adversarial quotient — are critical to personal and organizational growth. As a (company) builder, and a father, these are important topics — And my participation in Mensa is driven by my aspirations to build useful things, prepare my children to excel, and to serve others well. ### Founder & CEO, Starboard (2020-01 – present) United States & Singapore · Starboard is a technology platform that automates and simplifies corporate governance, administration and entity management. With workflow automation tools, integrations with ACRA and MyInfo — corporate secretary and accounting firms can manage their clients with ease, and scale efficiently. Resolutions are automatically generated, from easy-to-build, reusable templates. From within the platform, they are sent for signing; and when done, they are automatically retrieved, tagged and filed. Jobs that used to take hours, are now eliminated, or completed within minutes on Starboard. Starboard also provides a beautiful-looking, white-labelled client portal — so that our partners can transform into "Online, Digital Corporate Service Providers"... effortlessly. www.StarboardHQ.com ### Retirement, Career Break (2017-01 – 2018-07) Melbourne, Victoria ### Founder & CEO, The Commissioned (2015-01 – 2017-01) San Francisco Bay Area · The Commissioned is Your Online Art Commission™ - a web service that connects you with talented artists from all over the world, enabling you to commission a piece that’s truly yours. The company is based in both San Francisco and Singapore, with a curated community of artists from all over the world. We envision a world where commissioned art is made accessible and affordable… where no one will ever say “I wish I could find the perfect art piece”, or “I wish I could paint”; a world where art is not just beautiful, but also deeply personal and meaningful. For more information, please visit www.TheCommissioned.com ### Director, Location Services, Product Marketing, Ruckus Wireless (2013-07 – 2014-08) In July 2013, Ruckus Wireless acquired YFind Technologies - the indoor positioning company I co-founded. ### Founder, Omnifluence Pte Ltd (2011-04 – 2015-09) Singapore · Designing Social Business & Communication Strategies. Training & Building Organisational Capabilities... Omnifluence consults and trains Fortune 500 companies and the Singapore government in Social Business and Social Media Strategy, enabling organisation-wide adoption and deployment of Social Media and Social Computing Technologies. ### Co-founder, Director, YFind Technologies (2010-10 – 2013-07) Creating Location-Intelligent Buildings & Cities... YFind Technologies is a pioneer in Indoor Positioning Solutions with a proprietary “indoor GPS” technology. The company develops Location Based Services and Applications that (accurately and reliably) locates people and places indoors or in dense urban environments. I led product strategy, business development and marketing at YFind Technologies. The company was acquired by Ruckus Wireless in July 2013. ### Vice President, WE Studio D Asia Lead, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (2010-03 – 2010-10) Asia Pacific · Built and Led the Asia Pacific Digital Practice for Waggener Edstrom Worldwide... Before starting Omnifluence and YFind Technologies, I founded and led the Digital Strategies Group (later renamed WE Studio D™) for Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (Asia Pacific). In the three years I was there, I built the firm’s digital capabilities in the region from ground-up to a team of more than 20 integrated communications specialists in markets including Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Korea. ### Independent Consultant (Social Media & PR), Independent (2007-07 – 2007-12) In the early days of the Social Web's growth, I helped agencies without "Social PR" capabilities to develop their strategies and build their capabilities internally. ### Member, Social Media Collective and SocialMediaToday.com (2007-01 – 2009-12) As an "early" blogger who focused on the emerging technologies that we now call the Social Web, I authored a blog on "PR 2.0" and my articles were syndicated by the Social Media Collective. I was one of the few Asians that were part of the community of global thinkers and enthusiasts who saw great potential in emerging social technologies. I later did some contract writing for them - covering events including the World Cities Summit 2012 ### Senior Associate & Digital Strategist, Burson-Marsteller (2006-03 – 2007-07) I managed and worked on technology and public sector client accounts, developed and implemented publicity programs. I also developed programs that addressed a then-unmet need - digital communications strategies and tactics for clients. ### Co-founder, Scoopasia.com (2006-01 – 2010-01) Build it together with a good friend as a hobby. We wanted to disrupt something... But we were a little too early. It remains a hobby site that we don't spend time on. We've been too slack to shut it down. But you must admit... it's a nice domain name. :) ### Consultant, UpstreamAsia (2005-01 – 2006-03) I worked on, and managed publicity and media relations programs for consumer technology clients like eBay, and enterprise technology clients like Microsoft (also consumer technology) and EDS (later acquired by HP). ### Consultant, Foreword Communications (2002-12 – 2005-01) I managed media relations for pharmaceutical clients include Pfizer, technology clients including Nokia (oh, those were the days!), and beverage giant - InBev. ## Education ### Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets, The Wharton School (2022-08 – 2022-10) ### Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications, RMIT University (1999-01 – 2001-01) ### Diploma in Mass Communications, Ngee Ann Polytechnic (1995-01 – 1998-01) ## Skills Accounting, Business Administration, Business Advisory Services, Entrepreneurship, Corporate Governance, Corporate Law, International Expansion, Startup Development, Startup Law, Early-Stage Startups, Marketing Strategy, Business Strategy, Startups, Social Media, Public Relations, Digital Strategy, Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Location Based Services, Location Based Marketing, Strategy, Management, Leadership, Retail Intelligence, Social Business, Product Management, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications, Advertising, Strategic Communications, Media Relations, Crisis Communications, Market Research, Blogging, Reputation Management, Integrated Marketing, Marketing, Digital Media, Online Marketing, Business Development ## Credentials - **Descript** --- Source: https://saywise.com/saywise4372 (last modified 2026-07-15T22:20:18.987Z)