Home | Finbarr Taylor

Hello, I'm Finbarr Taylor - a Scottish software engineer, founder, and angel investor based in San Francisco.

I'm a Visiting Group Partner at Y Combinator, helping early-stage founders make something people want. Before YC, I co-founded Shogun and ran it as CEO for eight years, scaling past $10M ARR and raising $100M+ in venture capital. Earlier, I was a software engineer at Pebble, Groupon, and YC itself. I've also backed 60+ startups as an angel.

In my free time I'm building software, playing board games, or working through my goal of visiting every US National Park - balancing my love of the indoors with my love of the outdoors.

Select Projects and Work History

Y Combinator (2026-present) · Visiting Group Partner

Helping early stage founders make something people want.

Shogun (2014-2025) · Co-founder and CTO->CEO->CTO

Co-founded Shogun, an e-commerce storefront optimization startup that raised over $100 million in venture capital funding. Helped tens of thousands of merchants drive billions in sales annually. Led the company as CEO for ~8 years and CTO for ~2 years. Shipped multiple AI products.

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Y Combinator (2016-2017) · Software Engineer

Contributed to the development of Y Combinator's tools and platforms, supporting the growth of numerous startups, and YC's investing activities. Wrote a blog post about work on Investor Day. Built the first version of Startup School.

Pebble (2013, 2014) · Software Engineer (contract)

Built software to manage the launch of Pebble Time and Pebble Steel. Rebuilt entire order management system. Built a pre-order management system for the Pebble Time Smartwatch - a $20m Kickstarter campaign.

Giveit100 (2013-2014) · Co-founder and CTO

Co-founded Giveit100, a video site for inspirational progress videos. Attracted over 100,000 members with 40m+ combined video views. Innovated in video technology, implementing instant-play on hover and tackling performance challenges for hundreds of videos per page.

Exec (2012-2013) · Software Engineer

Developed core products including algorithms to schedule thousands of deliveries, errands, and house cleanings. Improved worker schedules and utilization, significantly increasing Exec's operating margin.