Joël Heil Escobar

Joël Heil Escobar

I'm a founder, product engineer and community builder.

Currently building Attacal : AI agents that attack your app every day and open a pull request for every hole they find, so you never have to think about security again.

a little background

I started a YouTube channel at 10 with Minecraft mod tutorials and tech reviews. At 14 I founded a web dev and video agency that made €20k+ while I was still in high school. Later I studied computer science at CODE University and did ML at Stanford .

Next to uni, I automated the finances of a marketing agency and tried out lots of my own startup ideas. With we built AI agents and a data pipeline that analyzed 1.2M+ TikTok and Instagram videos for Nike and Mastercard. Other ideas became voice agents for car dealerships, a learning app that combines mind maps and flashcards and an AI that plans group vacations.

Most recently, I built and shipped an at SF Consumer Lab in two weeks and made $4k in revenue within four weeks of starting.

YFN

At 16 I ran a podcast asking founders where they failed and met other 16 year olds on LinkedIn. Together we started the Young Founders Network .

In three years I scaled the team from 5 to 100+ volunteers. Today it's Germany's largest community for founders under 25. We have 2,200+ members and have raised €350k+ for entrepreneurial education.

work, startups & projects

2026

2025

2024

2023

earlier

now

Since 2026, founder

AI agents that attack your app every day and open a pull request for every hole they find. AI writes more of our code every month, but pentests still happen once a year. I want every app to have its own attacker.

past

July to September 2026, full-stack engineer

I was the only engineer on a bot-free AI meeting notetaker for Mac and Windows. We went from idea to launch in two weeks. Four weeks in we had 200 paying customers and $4k in revenue, and 800 users after six. Next to the code I ran infra, releases and customer support.

PlayTheHype

February to July 2026, entrepreneur in residence

I co-founded here: AI market research where Gemini watched 1.2M+ TikTok and Instagram videos and agents turned them into insights for Nike and Mastercard. I also built after watching the team copy comment links into Excel every week. Now a Telegram bot does it.

Stanford

Summer 2025, visiting student

Took machine learning (CS229) and technology entrepreneurship. With three friends I built , a directory of summer students by skills and courses. 60 students joined and teams for one course formed through it. I wrote about the summer.

CODE University

2023 to 2026, software engineering

Next to classes I kept starting things. put flashcards inside a mind map, and we stopped it because we never talked to enough users. I built , a map of Berlin's running clubs, on my own. put voice agents on the phones of car dealerships, and the team fell apart when I left for Stanford. started as my capstone and now runs all of Young Founders Network. With a teacher I mentored I built , a TikTok fact checker for kids that Germany's First Lady awarded. My thesis asked whether AI agents can replace marketers.

July 2024 to June 2025, founders associate

A marketing agency in Berlin where financial planning ran on memory and copy paste. I automated it and cut errors by about 95%. On the side I managed campaigns for freenet, Gerolsteiner and RheinEnergie that got 3.7M+ views.

2021 to 2025, co-founder and chair

At 16 I hosted , a podcast asking founders about their biggest failures. Through it I met other 16 year olds on LinkedIn and we started YFN together. It went from a meetup in an old supermarket hall to Germany's largest community for founders under 25, with 2,200+ members, 100+ volunteers and €350k+ raised. I wrote about leading it.

2021 to 2024, working student

A startup that replaces internal emails nobody reads with podcasts. I cut audio and video and built the marketing funnel, two and a half years next to school.

Teen projects

2014 to 2021

I started a at ten after my dad offered a deal: less watching, more making. 150 subscribers, zero fame. At 14 I started building websites for small businesses, which became and made €20k+ before I finished school. In between came an that paid out for five years, a that burned most of my savings and getting my whole school onto . An internship at taught me a new plane takes ten years, and I wanted software.