Zibo Gao Full Bio

Zibo Gao is a consumer app founder and product designer based in New York City. He is currently tinkering with something new through Sincerely Studios, building fun consumer software for fun.

Under Sincerely Studios, Zibo previously co-founded Soundmap, Sincerely, Friendship Bracelets, and more than 20 consumer apps across music, social, games, identity, creator tools, and internet culture. Sincerely Studios has been backed by a16z Speedrun, Gold House Ventures, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, and other investors.

Soundmap is a music game and social app for collecting songs, trading with friends, and discovering artists through play. Sincerely: Off My Chest gave people a quiet place to write anonymous letters and receive replies from strangers, and was sold in 2024. Friendship Bracelets let fans make and collect bracelet designs inspired by pop culture, fandom, and internet inside jokes.

Before Sincerely Studios, Zibo worked on other consumer apps and invested in early-stage consumer teams through Intonation Studios, a product-centric studio and investing arm focused on internet-native products and communities.

Zibo grew up in Beijing and now lives in New York City. He studied Psychology and Economics at Columbia, though much of his time there was spent playing music. That mix of consumer psychology, culture, music, and product taste continues to shape the apps he builds: playful, social, emotionally legible software that people want to talk about.