Yanni Hufnagel professional background is in internet marketing and product development. He is the founder of YLN, a product optimization company that has been featured in Forbes, Inc Magazine, TechCrunch and other publications.

He studied computer science at Cornell University and received an MBA from Oxford University. Yanni Hufnagel started his career at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company before taking a break to start two companies of his own: Vemanti Group Inc., an e-commerce company specializing in the production of promotional products; and Growthink Inc. an internet-marketing company.

Hufnagel started Growthink Inc. in 2004 with a focus on long-term investments and building relationships with clients. According to Hufnagel, this strategy was successful because: “We were charging for our time, not for products like most others in the industry. We would use our expertise and experience to help our client build their own products. Our customers didn’t have to worry about developing their own website or hiring people to do it for them. We would find a way to help them with their product and its success.”

In 2011, when Hufnagel started YLN his former company Growthink was still lending to start-ups without charging interest. As of 2015 Growthink has ceased lending.

Yanni Hufnagel founded YLN in 2011 at the age of 41. His first product was a videoconferencing tool. He developed it in order to increase productivity by allowing professionals to get together at a moment’s notice via his company’s app, YLNMeet.

By 2016, Hufnagel had 12 employees and 11 contracts with clients including PepsiCo, Red Bull and MTV. YLN was also ranked #35 in Inc Magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the United States. In 2016 Hufnagel and his company YLN had 3 funding rounds in which they raised $27.1M.

Hufnagel has been a member of several boards of directors including CX Partners LLC, a financial advisory and capital raising firm. In addition he was on the board of Directors for the non-profit organization Education 4 Employment(E4E) which provides members with skills training and financial literacy education to help participants achieve economic prosperity. Hufnagel currently serves on the non-profit’s advisory board.