First Mate Technologies, a software and AI engineering studio founded by college friends Mark Yao and Hiro Yamada, is helping early-stage startups scale smarter and faster.
When Mark Yao and Hiro Yamada met as wide-eyed freshmen at Harvard University, building a startup together wasn’t exactly part of the plan. But in hindsight, it seems inevitable.
Both were international students—Mark from the Philippines, Hiro from Japan—drawn to Cambridge by a shared curiosity and drive. “I first met Hiro during international student orientation,” Mark recalls. “By a happy coincidence, we ended up in the same freshman dorm and took many of the same classes. That’s where I got to know him not just as a fellow international student, but as a smart, easygoing, and genuinely likable friend.”
Their paths continued to intertwine over the years: roommates in San Francisco, colleagues at productivity unicorn Asana, and eventually co-founders of First Mate Technologies, a rising engineering studio quietly powering some of the most exciting early-stage startups in the world.
Today, Mark is based in Manila while Hiro is in Tokyo, and together they’re leading a distributed team of world-class engineers—delivering Silicon Valley-quality work without the Silicon Valley cost.
READ ALSO: Charan Uttamchandani Is Using Fintech To Make The Invisible Visible
From Fluency To First Mate
Like many modern startup stories, First Mate’s origins are rooted in failure. Mark and Hiro’s first venture was Fluency, an AI-powered language learning plugin. Despite early excitement, it didn’t take off. But something else did. “Fluency didn’t reach the scale we hoped for,” they admit. “But in building it, we discovered we had assembled an engineering team capable of delivering at a world-class level. We realized the team—not just the product—was the asset.”
That realization led to the birth of First Mate: a software and AI engineering studio designed to partner with early-stage startups, helping them go from idea to product launch—and beyond.
What began as a pivot is now a high-growth business with a reputation for excellence. Over the past year, they’ve doubled revenue, expanded headcount, and worked with more than a dozen startups across industries like legal tech, govtech, and generative AI.
So what exactly does First Mate do? In their own words, they’re “a software and AI engineering studio for fast-growing startups.” Most of their clients are based in the United States, from pre-seed to Series B, often looking for their first real technical team. Founders come to them with a big idea—and leave with a polished, scalable, and secure product.
But First Mate isn’t just another dev shop. Because Mark and Hiro are founders themselves, they understand the high-pressure, often chaotic realities of early-stage startups. That lived experience shapes how they build—fast, high-quality, and always in sync with what founders actually need.
They’ve worked with over 35 venture-backed companies, including those funded by YC and Andreessen Horowitz. Many founders come in with MVPs they’ve “vibe-coded” themselves—scrappy demos that helped raise funding or land first customers. First Mate takes those early sparks and transforms them into production-grade systems.
One recent success story? A legal tech startup that launched with First Mate’s help, went on to raise $5 million, and hired a full-time CTO. Another? A govtech platform built for scale and now rolling out nationwide.
READ ALSO: From The Ground Up: The Women Behind Five Story Group
Silicon Valley Quality, Asia-Based Talent
First Mate stands out not just for how well they build—but for how early they leaned into AI and how intentionally they’ve structured their operations across borders. They’ve been AI-native from day one, and they bring a product founder’s mindset to every build. That means understanding the pressure to ship fast, iterate fast, and still hit high bars for design and security. It also means building a team that can actually deliver.
“We hire selectively,” they explain. “Often from top Filipino universities like UP Diliman, Ateneo, and La Salle. And we prioritize engineers with startup experience and strong communication skills.”
Each engineer is deeply embedded with one client at a time, avoiding the usual agency trap of shallow, split-focus work. The result? Less context switching, more impact, and stronger relationships.
To maintain Silicon Valley standards with a distributed, Asia-based team, Mark and Hiro rely on a few core principles: constant communication, shared tools like Asana, and over a decade of trust in each other. For 24 months straight, they’ve had a one-hour check-in every single weekday. “It’s about 12.5% of our working hours,” they say, “but it pays off in clarity, alignment, and shared momentum.”
With Mark based in Manila and Hiro in Tokyo, First Mate operates across borders by design—and they’ve come to see that distance as a strength, not a limitation.
“It forces us to be global by default,” Hiro says. “We see the contrast in markets, talent pools, and customer expectations every day—and we build with both speed and cross-cultural nuance in mind.”
That global lens is also reshaping how the world sees engineering talent. “Five years ago, the assumption was that cutting-edge engineering had to be in the U.S. Now, with AI leveling the playing field, the capability gap has narrowed—but the cost advantage remains significant.” They believe Asia-based teams are finally getting the recognition they deserve—and they’re proud to be part of that shift.
Building With Intention
At First Mate, growth isn’t a race—it’s a reflection of the trust they’ve steadily built with every founder they’ve worked with. “Client trust compounds,” they note. “One happy founder often brings three more.”
That mindset has kept them focused, even as new opportunities emerge. While some studios try to chase product-market fit with internal tools, First Mate has stayed committed to being a service business first. “Our clients trust us with critical projects,” they explain. “We need to be all-in on that. Along the way, we may build tools organically—but we’re not forcing it.”
So, what’s next for First Mate?
They’re doubling down on AI-enabled development, expanding their engineering roster, and deepening their presence in the top U.S. startup hubs.
The trend they’re watching most closely? The shift from model-building to application-building. As the AI gold rush evolves, First Mate sees a massive opportunity in helping founders move past hype and into real-world, functional use cases.
In five years, they hope to be known as “the go-to technical partner for ambitious founders—the team you call when you want Silicon Valley quality without Silicon Valley cost, and when you value human trust as much as technical skill.”
And knowing their track record—from college dorms to cross-continental calls—there’s little doubt they’ll get there.
