Melih Arat is an entrepreneurship educator, consultant, and startup mentor with experience bridging academia and venture building. He teaches startup-focused courses, including business planning and venture creation, at UC Berkeley. He holds a graduate degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. focused on entrepreneurial ecosystems and platform economies, and serves as an SBA SCORE mentor supporting early-stage founders. He is the author of Nation of Innovation, Innovation as a Lifestyle, and The Startup Playbook. His work focuses on helping entrepreneurs translate ideas into structured, testable, and scalable business models.
Can help with
- Turning early ideas into structured, testable business models
- Customer discovery and validation (problem–solution fit, real user insights)
- Clarifying value proposition, positioning, and go-to-market strategy
- Moving from concept to early traction with practical, execution-focused steps
- Creating Pitch Decks
