Miami, FL · University of Miami
Carlo
Doroff
Founder building Craze, an AI-powered consumer insights platform for brands. Student. Builder. Obsessed with execution.
Founder building Craze, an AI-powered consumer insights platform for brands. Student. Builder. Obsessed with execution.
I'm a University of Miami student studying Finance & Entrepreneurship and the co-founder of Craze. I'm also an Investment Banking Intern Analyst at Curvature Securities, supporting capital raises for small-cap public companies.
I build fast: launch, test, break, rebuild, repeat. Product decisions come from real conversations and real feedback, spending hours talking with students on campus to get it right. I've knocked doors generating six figures in sales. If users don't want something, I change it.
Outside of the business side, I'm deep into coding and AI automation. I built the original version of Craze myself in React and TypeScript. I've built tools to automate investment banking due diligence, saving analysts 10-20 hours a week, and a daily content engine that scrapes trending TikTok videos, analyzes them, and sends me fresh content ideas every morning. I think the biggest edge right now is combining product intuition with the ability to actually build and ship things yourself.
I care about execution. Long term I want to build companies that reshape industries and use that success to create meaningful impact. If you're building something ambitious, let's connect.
Built the original version solo in React and TypeScript over 6 months, growing to 5K users and $30K in brand commitments before pivoting. Craze is an AI-powered research platform where brands run conversational interviews with verified college students and receive structured insights in hours, not weeks, understanding Gen Z purchasing behavior faster than any traditional research method.
Built while working at an investment bank instead of doing the tedious work myself. Enter any public company ticker and it outputs key leadership with personal and work contact information, plus an automated analysis of SEC filings (10-Q, 8-K, S-1, S-3) to assess fundability before ever taking a meeting. Analyst bankers spend 10-20 hours a week on this research manually. This eliminates that entirely.
A fully automated content pipeline I built for myself. Every morning it scrapes trending TikTok videos, analyzes why they're trending, and delivers 3 personal TikTok ideas, 3 Craze content ideas, 3 X posts, and a LinkedIn post directly to me, all tailored to current trending themes. Built because consistency at scale requires systems, not willpower.
Documenting the real side of building a startup in college: working late, making product decisions, raising money, and sharing what I'm learning along the way. Raw, unfiltered founder content for the next generation of builders.
A platform built for University of Miami students to find compatible roommates. Matches students based on lifestyle preferences, schedules, and living habits, removing the friction of the traditional roommate search process.
Startup culture is romanticized to death. No one talks about the Friday nights you sit out, the relationships that quietly fade. Here's what I've actually learned.
Most founders obsess over the product while the launch falls flat because nobody sees it. Your product isn't the problem. Your distribution is.
The new advantage isn't experience, it's leverage. The gap between AI users and non-users is about to get brutal. Adapt early or adapt late.
Ambitious idea or want to understand Gen Z better? I'd love to talk.
carlodoroff@gmail.comI just walked out of the library at 2:30AM. I've been there since 1PM Thursday. 12 hours straight working on my startup, Craze. I was the last one there. They shut the lights off on me.
Meanwhile my best friends were out on a Thursday night, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to be there with them.
But here's what I've learned about building something from scratch in college: it's nothing like how it's sold to you.
No one talks about the Friday nights you sit out. The relationships that quietly fade. The studying you sacrifice. The version of yourself that just wants one normal weekend.
Startup culture is romanticized to death, and I think that does a disservice to anyone who actually wants to build something real.
If you're going to commit to building something, really commit, be prepared to give up everything for just the chance to make it real. Not the guarantee. The chance.
My brain is completely fried. I have an exam in a few hours. And tomorrow I'm going harder. Not because I'm obsessed with the grind. But because I know what I'm building, I know what it's worth, and I know what I'm capable of. Nothing is stopping me.
200K+ views in less than 30 days post-launch. We didn't run ads. We didn't go viral by accident. We built distribution first, then turned it on.
Most founders are obsessed with the product. Meanwhile, their launch falls flat because nobody sees it.
Here's the hot take nobody wants to hear: your product isn't the problem. Your distribution is.
When we launched Craze across platforms, we already had the engine running: a content system, a posting cadence, an audience primed to move.
200K+ views wasn't luck. It was the output of a distribution network we built before we needed it.
The founders winning right now aren't just building. They're building AND distributing simultaneously. If you're shipping without a distribution strategy, you're playing on hard mode for no reason.
Everyone's scared AI is coming for their job. Reality: AI is coming for inefficiency. And inefficient people get replaced.
The new advantage isn't experience. It's leverage.
AI lets one person do research in minutes, automate repetitive tasks, turn ideas into outputs instantly, and operate at startup speed inside big companies.
The gap between AI users and non-users is about to get brutal. Adapt early = career acceleration. Adapt late = career survival.
The question isn't whether AI will change your industry. It already is. The question is whether you'll be the one using it, or the one being replaced by someone who does.