We Are Founders. Just Like You.
“Chaos is a ladder.
Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again.
Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”
– Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish
OUR STORY
We are Na’ama Moran and Vincent Matranga, and we have worked together for almost a decade. We built a tech-enabled food distributor called Cheetah, which was founded in the Bay Area. Together with our co-founders and team, we led this high growth startup to $150M in sales, across multiple states, with over 350 employees and raised over $130M in venture funding. All the while we scaled the competencies, processes and culture of our organization.
During the COVID pandemic our company lost >80% of our revenue. We had to downscale massively and reorganize in order to survive. The robust systems we built allowed us to both scale responsibly and mitigate the impact of this major crisis. We can confidently say that we understand what it’s like to lead in times of chaos.
The frameworks, tools and systems we developed empowered us to manage through this uncertainty. A testament to the internal structures we built are the individuals who entered our company at a manager level and went to become directors and VPs at Fortune 500 level companies
Expert Network
We augment our core team with subject matter experts to provide additional lift during complex integrations.
Na'ama Moran
Operator and Systems builder
- Seasoned operator with 20+ years scaling tech companies
- Co-founded Cheetah, grew to $150M revenue
- Raised $130M, scaled Cheetah to 350+ employees
- Rebuilt Cheetah after losing 80% COVID revenue
- Serial founder with exits to Groupon and Xenon
- Mentor at Stanford’s StartX and Alchemist Accelerator
- Leads Waya, coaching Series A–C founders
Vincent Matranga
Lean Process Optimization
- Seasoned operator and entrepreneur with Lean expertise
- Built Lean Process Optimization at Sutter Health
- Trained in Toyota Production Systems with executives
- Co-founded Cheetah, scaled to $150M revenue
- Raised $130M, grew Cheetah to 350+ employees
- Rebuilt Cheetah after near-fatal COVID revenue loss
- Brings battle-tested frameworks to Waya founders
Bjoern Lasse Herrmann
Leadership Transformation
- Technology entrepreneur and AI transformation leader
- AI executive at Sage, co-founded multiple AI ventures
- Bridges AI with real-world operational systems
- Transforms isolated AI initiatives into enterprise-wide change
- Combines technical insight with executive-level systems thinking
- Mentors leadership teams on practical AI strategy
- Drives sustained competitive advantage through AI adoption
Sephi Shapira
Founder Funding Expert
- 4x founder with 4 exits
- Raised $100M+ and helped founders raise 1.2B+
- Author of “Fundable” and creator of the Fundable Method
- Founder of WarmIntro a founder-to-founder investor intro network
- Helps founders become fundable and secure investor meetings
- Brings battle-tested fundraising frameworks to founders
Chris Traub
Executive Search & Community Creator
- Global executive search pioneer and leadership community curator
- Co-founded Strategic Executive Search Group in 1988
- Managing Partner leading C-Suite and Board practices
- Leads Technology and Private Equity search practices
- Partners with world’s largest enterprise companies
- Works with exponential tech and PE-backed ventures
Josh Brajtman
Customer Experience & Support
- 20+ years scaling CX and operations across tech, logistics, and telecom
- Head of CX at Easyplant (~$300M ARR), owning full CX strategy
- Led CX across consumer, courier, and merchant verticals at Wolt , managing 1,500+ staff
- Head of CX at Cheetah, building 24/7 global support across US and Philippines, working closely with CEO on leadership development
- Founded global support operations at Juno, improving driver and rider experience
Gia Ilole
Human Resources, People & Culture
- Executive HR consultant across public and private sectors
- Experience spanning healthcare, tech, and energy industries
- Improves culture, talent pipelines, and performance management
- Partners with leaders on strategic workforce initiatives
- Serves startups through Fortune 500 companies
- Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt with data-driven approach
- Transforms organizations through culture and continuous learning
Steve Kilts
AI Strategy for SMB Leaders
- Founder, executive, and AI strategist building software to optimize operations
- Background in engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics
- Published in Neural Networks magazine and a high-speed computing textbook
- Founded and exited multiple tech companies, then led business units as VP
- Provides AI strategy and agent implementation to optimize workflows and revenue
- Partners with leadership teams to align AI with core business processes
Sacagawea
The Inspiration Behind Our Name
Our name is inspired by Sacagawea—the Native American guide who helped lead the Lewis and Clark expedition through unknown territory with resilience, clarity, and trust.
At Waya, we take a similar role. We partner with founders navigating the chaos of growth—helping them stay aligned, make confident decisions, and scale with purpose.
Our Core Principles
The compass that guides our own operations.
Mission
Waya brings human-centered business operations enabled by AI to founders navigating high-stakes transitions - scaling, pivoting, or reinventing - so they can build a business aligned with their purpose and bring their vision to the world.
Our Core Values
Walk the talk
We use our own methodology internally. Every tool we sell, we run on ourselves first. We don't advise from the sidelines — if we haven't done it ourselves, we don't teach it.
Human first, AI-powered
AI amplifies human judgment — it never replaces it. We build tools that make people more capable, not more dependent.
Purpose over profit
We choose clients and projects that align with our mission, even when easier money is on the table.
Treat the system, not the symptom
We don't patch — we diagnose. Root cause analysis before solutions. Every fix considers the whole picture, and every process has a next version. We're living through a once-in-a-century technological shift. You can't sit back and expect the world to wait. Continuous improvement isn't optional, it's survival.
Aligned from the inside out
We're transparent with our team, our clients, and ourselves. The work should elevate the person doing it — that's true for us and for the founders we serve. We lead with integrity and don't shy away from hard truths.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about working with Waya
What are WayaFrames?
WayaFrames are AI-enabled frameworks that live inside your Claude Teams or Claude Cowork environment. Think of them as giving your leadership team access to a seasoned operator on demand. Each WayaFrame was designed by an industry and operations expert, encoding decades of hard-won knowledge into a structured, guided flow that integrates with your company’s documents, data, and business applications.
Do your WayaFrames work together?
WayaFrames work together as an operating system – each one connects to the others, to your business context and to your business applications. The more you use them, the better they get in helping your business run as a single, coherent system.
How do WayaFrames differ from Claude's template Skills or just prompting an LLM?
Prompting an LLM gives you a knowledgeable generalist – useful, but generic. Claude’s built-in Skills are structured starting points, but they’re designed for broad audiences and broad use cases.
WayaFrames are different in three ways.
They encode expert operator knowledge. Each WayaFrame was built by a founder or operations expert who has lived the problem – not just studied it. The methodology, sequencing, and decision logic reflect decades of hard-won experience in real companies, not textbook frameworks synthesized into generic AI answers. Moreover, you can connect with these experts directly for 1-1 consultation.
They are context-aware. WayaFrames connect to your company’s actual documents, data, and business applications. Instead of giving you a generic answer, they give you your answer – grounded in your numbers, your team, your situation.
They work as a system. A standalone prompt solves one question in isolation. WayaFrames are designed to connect to each other, so outputs from one flow into the next. Over time, they function as a unified operating system for your business – not a collection of one-off answers.
The result is like sitting down with a seasoned operator who knows your business and knows exactly what to do next.
What is unique about the process?
We’re not management consultants who hand over a strategy deck and disappear. We’re founders and operators who design, plan, and execute your transformation alongside you.
It starts with an intensive workshop – a high-intensity, high-alignment experience that creates strategic focus and execution clarity faster than you ever thought possible.
Then we embed with your team for 3-6 months, acting as fractional executives to bring the strategy to life through daily operating rhythms, SOPs, and culture work. During this time we connect you with experts from our Expert Network, who can help address specific business or industry needs.
Finally, we install our AI-enabled operating system – custom-built WayaFrames – to supercharge execution and decision-making at every level.
Why is the integration period important?
The integration period is where strategy becomes daily operations. We ensure that teams don’t revert to old habits and plans turn to real actions that drive the strategic change you are looking for.
What is an Operations Audit?
It is a one-hour deep dive session in which we discover the key constraint(s) holding back your business. At the end of the session, we send you an analysis and key action items to work on. We also provide 3 WayaFrames to help you start unblocking these constraints today.
What is a Fundraising Readiness Audit?
It is a one-hour session in which we assess your fundraising readiness according to your current fundraising stage. We run a gap analysis across storytelling, financial documentation, data room structure, legal foundation, and cap table. At the end of the session, we send you a summary report and key action items to work on. We also provide 3 WayaFrames to help you close those gaps immediately and fundraise like a pro.
What stage should I be at to book the Fundraising Readiness Audit?
If you’re planning to raise in the next 1–6 months — or if you just closed a round and want to maintain your data room so the next raise isn’t another scramble — this audit is for you. We calibrate the checklist to your stage, from Seed through Series B+.
What if I don't have a data room yet?
That’s exactly when you should get the Fundraising Readiness Audit. Starting to prepare your data room 3 months before a raise is dramatically better than scrambling from scratch when an investor sends a DD request list while you’re still pitching.
How is this different from the Operations Audit?
The Operations Audit diagnoses the key constraint holding back your business operations. The Fundraising Readiness Audit targets what investors need to see – and what’s missing, stale, or broken in your fundraising materials and corporate documentation. Most founders benefit from both.
What stage companies can you help?
We work with companies from the early stage through growth.
Our Scale Up and Radical Change programs are better fit for companies who have product-market-fit and are at an important inflection point such as scaling or pivoting.
Our Operations and Fundraising Readiness Audits can be tailored to companies of all stages.
Do we have to be a US based company to work with you?
No, our system works for companies in any region.
Does my company have to be a tech startup?
Waya works with technology companies as well as physical-world companies. You can be the founder of a tech startup, a non-profit organization or a physical-world business. We are particularly effective for organizations that have high level of complexity, like supply chain, healthcare and logistics.
When should I schedule a call?
When you’ve hit the ceiling of what you can solve alone. When you’re the bottleneck and you know it. When you need a founder who’s been in the trenches to help you navigate a critical transition – a scaleup, a pivot, the chaos in between. And when your VCs are pushing you to hire an expensive COO, but you’re not there yet.
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