Matt Zinman, former president of Z Communication and personal success trainer, began his career with marketing firms after graduating from Temple University in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in communications and journalism and a minor in film.
After 15 years in the field, Zinman founded The Internship Institute, a workforce development nonprofit based in Pennsylvania. When the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic slowed this venture down, however, Zinman shut down TII and pivoted to another venture he’d started in early 2020: ZU Publishing (through which he published a book titled “Z-Isms”).
“I [used] the life skills only experience can teach with my direction for the book, and that led to everything I’m doing now,” Zinman said.
When Zinman moved to Charlotte in early 2025, he intended to continue building ZU Publishing. But he also worked as a lead speaker for corporate training workshops. Through this experience, and a chance encounter with an AI developer, he began exploring ways to make training more practical. This ultimately led him to develop MindRev.
Self-Improvement as a platform
MindRev is a SaaS platform aimed at human transformation. Zinman describes it specifically as a self-improvement company that provides workshops, keynote presentations, and personalized programs for individuals and business teams.
Zinman designed MindRev with frameworks relevant to the mindset and resilience of individuals. On top of these frameworks, the platform will provide an “adaptive habit engine” and interactive coach to personalize guidance for both individual clients and medium-size businesses.
Aside from the digital resources, MindRev already has active performance and live core offerings. The performance offerings amount to immersive corporate training programs designed for “people-centric” companies and leaders. But it is, Zinman noted, not a mental health product or life coach.
“The heart of the app,” Zinman said, is “AI teaching people critical life skills at scale.”
What makes the startup unique is its use of proprietary IP frameworks based on the experiential methodology Zinman has continuously refined. He described it as being different from first-generation apps that treat human behavior in two-dimensional ways (and lose 96% of their users after 15 days).
Zinman based MindRev’s methodology on chapters from “Z-Isms,” episodes from his podcast “Insights to Live By,” and over 30 of his newsletters.
“When you take all of that, even from a market evaluation standpoint,” Zinman shared, “[our] agentic AI ingesting all this content makes it worth something. Content is king.”
MindRev is still in the process of developing its MVP. Zinman has spent much of his time on this venture so far digging into the agentic AI sphere in order to get proposals from developers, who helped him understand how much is needed for the company’s growth and traction.
Free over freemium
For revenue, Zinman plans to avoid advertising or freemium models. He will instead use free trials to give users the chance to determine that MindRev is beneficial for them (and thus worth paying for directly). The startup is currently piloting with businesses, and Zinman will consider using seat licenses along with learning management as a resource for employees.
MindRev has benefitted from investor-related resources thanks to Innovate Charlotte and the Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC). Zinman himself is an active member of the Charlotte Tech Leaders Forum.
Building MindRev
Raising capital has been a new process for him, but the Charlotte network has been helpful. Zinman noted his appreciation for guidance from Dr. Paulette Evans, a project management expert, business owner, and mentor from SCORE. She even joined his advisory team.
“Overall, the ecosystem has been beneficial,” Zinman said. “I’d be completely lost if there weren’t for the resources available today.”
As he and his developers refine MindRev’s MVP, Zinman plans to appeal to larger companies and make it more high-fidelity. The founder also wants MindRev to feature expansion packs to build in more of his content library, providing a pipeline for continual development.
In efforts to provide “human-centered” design, Zinman started hosting analog workshops around Charlotte to generate feedback. Even as he seeks to survey potential users, though, he noted that over 10,000 people have been trained.
QUICK BITS
Startup: MindRev
Founder: Matt Zinman
Founded: 2025
Location: Charlotte, NC
Website: MindRev
Funding: Bootstrapped
Zinman mentioned that while he wouldn’t “go it alone” in terms of go-to-market efforts, his background in communications and PR marketing has definitely helped guide his marketing strategy. He even designed the MindRev logo himself.
“This is the culmination of my life’s work, and there’s no shortage of motivation or grit. I think I’ve demonstrated this over the years with all the assets I created.”
“I fully believe that investors are looking for me and MindRev, and it’s my job to connect the dots with the right people to lock arms and bring this to the world,” he said.
MindRev will be available online for users in Q1 2026. More information can be found on Zinman’s website.
