Justin Laing

Justin Laing is a seasoned entrepreneur and software engineer with a diverse background in founding, growing, and selling innovative SaaS software companies.

His experience includes co-founding and successfully selling two SaaS software companies: MerchantOS and Crank Logic.

Justin has served as a Director of Engineering at two hypergrowth startups, Lightspeed and Looker, contributing significantly to their engineering and product strategy.

He is passionate about creating software that effectively addresses real customer needs and excels in software development, with a deep-rooted interest since his early days of coding on a TI85 graphing calculator with Basic.

Justin has a track record of building large-scale systems, notably leading the development of MerchantOS from inception to a widely used tool by over 2,000 retailers processing billions of dollars in sales yearly, culminating in a successful acquisition by Lightspeed Retail.

His expertise spans architecting and managing software at scale, having overseen the expansion of Lightspeed Retail to serve numerous retailers and billions in annual payment processing, establishing it as a prominent player in the retail industry.

At Looker, Justin spearheaded the development of industry-specific analytic apps, which played a pivotal role in the company's acquisition by Google.

As a leading expert in inventory-centric software for small retail, Justin possesses in-depth knowledge of Cloud technologies, including AWS services, Linux, MySQL, PHP, React, Python, and more.

He successfully delivered a large-scale analytics platform using Looker and Snowflake, showcasing his proficiency in leveraging cutting-edge technologies.

Justin excels in team building, creating work environments that inspire and engage employees, fostering a culture of collaboration and problem-solving.

In addition to his technical acumen, Justin has a solid understanding of marketing strategies, leveraging SEO, SEM, trade shows, and word of mouth to bootstrap MerchantOS to profitability and eventual success.

Justin Laing holds a BA in Computer Science and Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

He has held key positions in various organizations, including VP of Engineering at Jane Technologies, Inc., Staff Software Engineer at Google, Director of Engineering at Looker, CEO, and Co-Founder at Crank Logic, among others.