[Virtual] Founder Spotlight: Scaling Your Startup Using Social Marketing and AI with Chris Sun (Spring 26)

​ Startup growth is undergoing a fundamental shift. The traditional playbook—ads, funnels, and manual marketing teams—is being replaced by AI-powered social marketing driven by creators, content, and intelligent agents.

In this Founder Spotlight, StartX founder Chris Sun (P26) shares how AI + social marketing are becoming the new go-to-market engine for startups. Drawing from building BrandPal and operating social commerce systems at scale, Chris explores how distribution is moving into content, marketing is becoming autonomous, and small teams can now compete with global brands.

This talk breaks down what this transformation means for founders and newcomers—and how AI-powered social marketing unlocks faster learning cycles, lower CAC, and entirely new paths to growth.

Bio: Chris Sun is Founder & CEO of BrandPal, the first end-to-end AI operating system for social commerce and social marketing. A repeat founder with 15+ years of experience in the space, Chris previously built a social commerce company from scratch to $75M in annual revenue, which was later backed by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. Since founding BrandPal, his team has generated over 1.2B impressions, driven $350M in GMV, and helped clients achieve up to 10× annual revenue growth—earning the trust of public companies and premium global brands. Chris is also an official Learning Partner of TikTok Shop Academy, where he has educated more than 7.5 million sellers worldwide.

​About Founder Spotlight:
This session is part of our Founder Spotlight series. It's a space for founders to showcase something cool they’re working on. Whether it’s a product demo, a behind-the-scenes look at their journey, or lessons learned, these sessions are meant to be informal, insightful, and founder-led. Join us to learn, ask questions, and support your fellow founders.