Founded Heptabase at age 23 (2021), reached 7-figure ARR (~$1.2M) by 2024, won Product Hunt Golden Kitty Award 2023 for Personal Productivity, raised $2.2M from Kleiner Perkins, HOF Capital, and other
From Taiwan, based in London. Dropped out of two universities to pursue startup. Passionate about knowledge management and learning.
Education: National Taiwan University (Physics & Math, 2016-2017, dropped out); Minerva University (Computational Science, 2019-2020, dropped out)
Current position (2026)
Founder at Heptabase
Where the conditions came from
Three sources, read side by side
Each is placed on a −1 to 3 scale from documented evidence, and the three are never added together. A combined total would rank Alan Chan against other people. Held apart, they explain why this path ran differently from another one—which is the only comparison this project supports.
The marble itself
What they brought
+3Tailwind
-10+1+2+3
What capability, drive, or early skill is documented in the person rather than their surroundings?
Taiwan Physics Olympiad national team member (ranked 10th in selection among 5,000 competitors). 1st place in Taiwan National Intelligent Ironman Creativity Contest and 3rd in Taiwan International Science Fair (Mathematics). Completed graduate-level courses including General Relativity as a freshman at NTU Physics. Presidential Award at NTU. Prodigy-level cognitive ability in math and physics.
Where it was dropped
What they were handed
+1Tailwind
-10+1+2+3
What money, family standing, network, or permission was already in place before the work began?
From Taiwan with access to competitive academic pipelines. No notable family wealth or industry connections mentioned, but stable enough to support intensive academic competition and university attendance. Dropped out of both NTU and Minerva University voluntarily.
The shape of the track
What surrounded them
+2Tailwind
-10+1+2+3
What place, timing, institution, or peer group made the next step available?
National Taiwan University (elite institution) provided the initial academic platform. The three-person Heptabase co-founder team (Alan, Yeefun, Ethan) formed a strong peer group. YC W22 acceptance and London-based operations provided frontier ecosystem access.
A −1 is a documented headwind, not a missing value; a 0 means the sources record nothing notable either way. Annotation confidence: High. These are analyst readings of what the sources record, not measurements of merit, talent, or effort. The twenty-two scored dimensions remain available inside the deeper research detail.
What moved through the conditions
Perseverance and luck stay visible—not scored.
Documented perseveranceNot documented in the reviewed biographical summaries.
Silence in a biography is not evidence that perseverance was absent.
Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.
Cohort percentile: 52
02 Built or converted leverage
10/25 multiplying-capacity score
Strongest observed levers: Complementary team, Capital safety, Domain proximity.
Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
Cohort percentile: 68
03 Compounding trajectory
3 documented steps
The timeline below shows the sequence of work and transitions around the selected early milestone. It is evidence of a path, not proof that every step was necessary.
Milestone at age 23
04 Observed career standing
T3 · Domain-recognized
Notable and widely recognized within the domain. The tier summarizes documented career recognition through the data cutoff—not Alan Chan's worth or future potential.
Each non-zero lever gets a best-supported origin, evidence signals, and confidence. Unresolved is the honest default when the biography cannot distinguish self-built, advantage-enabled, earned, external, or mixed.
Complementary team1/2
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Exceptional peer / cofounder (1/2)
Capital safety1/2
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Domain proximity1/2
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Direct domain exposure (1/2)Frontier geography (1/2)
Prior reps1/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Scarce skill depth1/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Native distribution1/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Elite ecosystem network1/3
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
A structural wave is external to the person, even when their position improved access to it.
Frontier geography (1/2)
Concentration intensity1/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
This is a bounded inference from the current annotations—not a claim about private effort, merit, or the percentage of Alan Chan's outcome attributable to any origin.
Luck is not a leftover score.
Structural luck, Encounter luck, Event luck, Outcome variance can change every arrow in the path. This successful-only dataset cannot observe the near-identical paths that did not break through, so luck stays visible and unscored.
Within Founders / operators, Alan Chan's starting-advantage total is at the 52th percentile. Separately, their built or converted leverage total is at the 68th percentile. Other T3 profiles average 5.3 / 24 starting advantage and 11.0 / 25 leverage. Similar scores appear in other tiers, so these figures describe positioning—not a cause.
Trajectory
1998 · age 0
Born
2016 · age 18
National Taiwan University (Physics & Math, 2016-2017, dropped out); Minerva University (Computational Science, 2019-2020, dropped out)
2021 · age 23
Founded Heptabase
YC Winter 2022
Primary leverage engine
Technical depth
Scarce technical / intellectual depth
Secondary engine
Timing/platform wave
Built/converted leverage
10 / 25
evidence: Low
Built or converted leverage
Multiplying capacity documented later in the path. Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
Started serious reps before 20
0/1
Prior reps
1/3
Scarce skill depth
1/3
Native distribution
1/3
Elite ecosystem network
1/3
Complementary team
1/2
Structural wave / timing
1/3
Concentration intensity
1/3
Capital safety
1/2
Domain proximity
1/2
Starting-advantage scores (0–2 each)
Access or conditions documented near the beginning of the path. Zero means "no clear evidence in reviewed sources," not "advantage was absent."