When a solo inventor with no engineering experience had an idea for a modern eco-friendly bike, he got in touch with the design and engineering firm AJPro Tech. “It started from something small, something simple, and it turned into almost a car on a bike budget,” says AJPro Tech founder Alex Gudilko. The result was the Terraglide: a three-wheeled recumbent bike with the engineering complexity of an electric vehicle.
Los Angeles-based AJPro Tech’s customers are “smaller innovators with big ambitions,” Gudilko says, the next great makers of consumer electronics, wearables, health trackers—and electric tricycles.
A lot of founders, or aspiring founders, have an idea for a product but lack the ability to execute on it. Fortunately, a number of companies on this year’s Power Partners list are there to help. These firms act like creative partners—and, in some cases, like co-founders, helping founders with limited resources turn their ideas into functional, attractive products that are ready for prime time.
Gudilko, 36, says he often meets founders who’ve attempted to prompt their way to a product using AI. He returns their attention to the greater mission. “Instead of trying to tell me what exact component ChatGPT told you to put inside your product, tell me what you’re trying to solve,” he says. Gudilko works with his team of 45 on everything from design to engineering, prototyping, and small-scale production. Today, the company clocks seven figures in annual revenue.
Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta
Turning an audience into a business
When Rare Days founder and CEO Tonner Jackson, 35, met Becky Kennedy in the early days of the Covid pandemic, she was Dr. Becky, a content creator and clinical psychologist coaching her followers on navigating parenthood in strange times. Jackson believed there was an opportunity to build a business and helped Kennedy launch Good Inside’s platform in 2022. Today, the startup helps answer parents’ questions through an app, a podcast, a newsletter, and gated educational content. “It’s a media company of the newest vintage,” says Jackson.
Off the back of this success, New York City-based Rare Days has grown to a team of 62 employees and eight-figure annual revenue that’s projected to double in 2026. The firm, which Jackson bootstrapped, has worked with relationship psychotherapist Esther Perel and podcaster Jay Shetty, helping content creators think like business leaders.
Whether that means working with mega-star creators or startups like Notion and Beehiiv, Rare Days specializes in developing products that create community, like internal messaging boards and social networks. The firm operates like a management consultancy, helping clients understand who their competitors are, what they’re offering, and, most important, how to be different. In a concentrated, two-week sprint, it can help clients map their place in the market, “visualizing all the pros and cons of different opportunities,” says Jackson.