Founded a digital services firm (as Twin River Media) alongside an art publishing company and gallery, representing artists and building relationships across the international art community.
Marcel Wah
Marcel Wah
I have always been interested in creating something where nothing existed before.
For many years, that meant painting. I earned my BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and later my MFA in Painting from California College of the Arts. Art taught me to observe differently, question assumptions, experiment, take risks, and begin with nothing more than an idea.
Eventually I discovered that those instincts weren't limited to a canvas. I wanted to create businesses. Platforms. Communities. Events. Experiences. So I did — and somewhere along the way I realized that entrepreneurship had become another creative medium.
My entrepreneurial journey began around 2000, alongside my work as an artist. I founded an art publishing company and gallery, represented artists, and started what eventually became TimlX — a digital services company designing and developing websites for businesses, professionals and nonprofit organizations.
Technology fascinated me for many of the same reasons art did: it allowed an idea in your head to become something other people could actually experience.
That curiosity led me into increasingly ambitious projects. In 2006 I created an online travel platform dedicated to Moldova. In 2007 I founded the International Caribbean Art Fair, bringing galleries, artists, collectors and curators together around an art market I believed deserved a larger international stage. Around the same time I launched Caribbean Art World Magazine.
Different projects. Same instinct. See something that could exist, then figure out how to build it.
My interests eventually expanded beyond businesses and products to something more fundamental: people. In 2010 I founded 11th Department, an online community connecting Haitians and members of the Haitian diaspora around the world, which grew to an audience of more than 13,000 subscribers.
But what interested me wasn't the numbers. It was what happened when people who shared an identity, history or interest were given a place to find one another. That led to initiatives such as Fly A Haitian Kite Day, and years later to helping organize the Haitian Diaspora Leadership Summit in Manaus, Brazil.
A platform isn't just technology. An event isn't just programming. A business isn't just transactions. At their best, they create connections between people.
Today the things I'm building may appear remarkably different from one another. LuxeAer operates premium electric transportation in California. EkoAyiti is developing sustainable energy in Haiti. World Art Finder connects people with the international art world. WAYNOIR is being developed around premium professional transportation. Kite Wars is transforming a Haitian cultural tradition into an international competitive sport. And Timl is the technology platform I'm developing to power communities and specialized digital experiences.
Twenty years ago I might have viewed those as unrelated businesses. Today I don't.
Technology enables communities. Communities create experiences. Transportation connects people to them. Culture gives them meaning. And entrepreneurship provides a way to bring all of those things into the world.
Increasingly, my ventures intersect. LuxeAer teaches me about mobility and informs WAYNOIR. Years of building digital communities inform Timl. My experience in the art world informs World Art Finder. My Haitian heritage, community work and experience producing events converge in Kite Wars.
I don't necessarily know where all of those intersections will eventually lead. That's part of what makes building them interesting.
Founded a digital services firm (as Twin River Media) alongside an art publishing company and gallery, representing artists and building relationships across the international art community.
An early online travel platform introducing international travelers to a country most of them had never considered.
Conceived and produced a first-of-its-kind international fair dedicated to Caribbean art, alongside an online publication covering the same ecosystem.
A global digital community connecting the Haitian diaspora, and the cultural initiatives that grew out of it — including Fly A Haitian Kite Day. Relaunched in 2025.
An international art-discovery platform connecting audiences with galleries, museums, art centers, artists, exhibitions and fairs.
A California premium electric chauffeur company — and a first-hand education in regulated transportation, EV fleet economics and service delivery.
Founded a clean-energy startup addressing deforestation and energy access in Haiti, and served on the planning committee for an international summit in Manaus, Brazil.
Founded the technology platform intended to power communities and specialized experiences, began development of a premium black-car platform, and started production in Hinche, Haiti.
The first international championship built around the Haitian tradition of competitive kite fighting.
I've been doing this for more than 25 years, and the beginning is still my favorite part. The blank page. The unanswered question. The idea someone hasn't quite figured out yet. The moment when somebody says: "What if we could…?"
I enjoy taking something from zero to one — defining what it should be, determining how it could work, bringing together the technology, people, partnerships and operations it requires, and eventually watching something that once existed only as an idea become real.
Some ventures succeed. Some don't. Some evolve into something completely different from what I first imagined. All of them teach me something that finds its way into whatever I build next.
And yes, I'm still an artist. I don't paint as often as I once did, but I've come to realize that I never really left the creative process. The materials simply changed.
Sometimes the medium is technology. Sometimes it's a company. Sometimes it's a community. Sometimes it's an international event. And sometimes, thankfully, it's still paint.
An artist by training. An entrepreneur by instinct. A builder by nature.
See the work →I'm continuing to develop my own ventures, but I'm also increasingly interested in bringing what I've learned into other organizations.
I selectively work with founders, companies and organizations tackling interesting zero-to-one problems — new ventures, products, platforms, communities and special initiatives where the destination may be clear but the path to getting there isn't.
If you're working on something ambitious and think my experience might be useful, I'd enjoy hearing about it.
