Bringing People Together, One Meal at a Time: Lessons in Resilience from Ace Por
Ace Por joined the SCET community as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Summer Venture Lab, a program designed for students to accelerate their early-stage technology startups. For the past two years, Ace has been building Palate, an AI-powered app designed to bring family and friends together through shared dining experiences and immortalize these memories. The team is currently in private beta with Berkeley students and preparing to launch their public beta soon, a testament to their perseverance and dedication to this mission.
We followed up with Ace to learn more about his journey, the role of resilience, and where he’s headed next.
Transforming Isolation into Action
Growing up in Malaysia and attending university internationally meant little family time beyond celebrating special occasions.
“We only interacted during the Lunar New Year or Mooncake Festival. Otherwise, my parents were buried in their business, and I was left alone with a void.”
As a high school student, that isolation and loneliness was perceptible. Ace decided to do something about it. Every Friday night—no matter what—Ace established a solution to this problem that many were feeling and dealing with alone.
A Friday Night Ritual
Each week of the month followed a rotating culinary theme. The first week of the month was dedicated to East Asian cuisines—Chinese hot pot, Korean BBQ, Japanese Ramen. The second week shifted to Western foods, including Italian pasta and American hamburgers. The third week turned to South and Southeast Asian flavors, from Indian curry to Indonesian nasi goreng. The final week of the month was reserved for “Anything Can Happen Friday.”
When isolation and loneliness feels uncertain and daunting for a young high school student, Ace’s commitment was a comforting constant in his life. Whether during happy or difficult times, the unwavering ritual of coming together at the end of the week created a sense of belonging—one he was missing at home.
“It didn’t matter if we were in the middle of exams, celebrating something, or going through a hard time—in our highest highs or lowest lows, we made time to come together. That commitment saved me. It became my way of building the connection I didn’t have at home.”
Redefining Impact: Launching his Entrepreneurial Journey
Before transferring to UC Berkeley, Ace spent his first two years at Columbia University. Fascinated by space and time, Ace initially studied physics and philosophy. However, he came to a realization that would redefine his aspirations/he had a calling to build something of his own: he wanted to create a meaningful impact in his lifetime, capable of transforming lives.
“Even if I made breakthroughs in theoretical physics, it would take centuries before anyone could actually experience the impact. I looked at companies like Google, Uber, and Airbnb—they transformed how millions of people live in just years, not generations. That’s when I knew I needed to build, not just theorize in my lifetime.”
From Student Organization to Startup
Driven by a newfound desire to build, Ace decided to transfer to UC Berkeley to study computer science instead to immerse himself in the Bay Area startup ecosystem. But once again, he found himself feeling isolated in want of a community to lean on, and observed hundreds of brilliant students experiencing a similar feeling of disconnection, and brought his Friday night tradition to campus.
In his two years at UC Berkeley, Ace founded Palate, a student organization dedicated to bringing students together to dine at restaurants in the Bay Area every couple weeks. The organization quickly grew to over two hundred members.
When students started personally thanking Ace after events, catalyzed Ace’s desire to turn his organization into more.
“That’s when ‘good food and better company’, our slogan, became real. We weren’t just organizing dinners. We were creating experiences that wouldn’t exist otherwise, bringing people together who might have stayed isolated.”
The Loneliness Epidemic
The problem that has plagued Ace’s life for so long is one faced by millions of others. In May 2023, The US surgeon general warned of“The Loneliness Epidemic,” affecting half of Americans, especially in a recovering post-pandemic world.
Recognizing that he wasn’t alone in his struggles, Ace grew determined to tackle this challenge affecting millions—people who are eating alone, scrolling instead of talking, and forgetting what real connection feels like.
“I want to kill the thing that was killing me. Growing up disconnected in Malaysia, I learned what isolation does to a person. It’s quiet. It’s daily. It makes you smaller.”
Where Mission Meets Opportunity
Fueled by the traction of his student organization, a national awareness of the loneliness epidemic, and powerful emerging technologies, Ace felt empowered to scale and build Palate.
“Today, we have the perfect convergence: these technical capabilities have matured, people trust AI assistants with personal experiences, and we’ve spent two years understanding exactly what needs to be built. This is our moment to define how technology serves human connection.”
“The foundational AI breakthroughs of the past two years—LLMs that can understand context, vision models that can analyze images, reinforcement learning that gets smarter with every interaction—finally give us a more mature building block to create something that’s never existed before.”
Ace realized his path became clear—to build something that transforms how millions of people connect and make memories together.
“That’s not just my interest. That’s my duty. That’s why Palate exists.”
Scaling Palate
As Ace worked to scale Palate, he noticed a common pattern: excitement dissolving into group chat chaos. Digging deeper, he realized that the problem wasn’t a matter of logistics, but human psychology. Social anxiety and the fear of rejection lead us to paralysis of choice when making plans with others. Rather than attempt to solve group coordination issues, Ace pivoted. He realized that one can’t coordinate effectively without first understanding each individual—only then can true connection begin.
“In a world where loneliness is literally an epidemic, technology that truly understands human connection isn’t just useful—it’s essential.”
Palate evolved into a solution for individual intelligence, equipped with Eve, an AI dining companion.
“We built something different. When you capture a memory—a photo from that birthday dinner or spontaneous Tuesday lunch—Palate doesn’t just save it. Eve (our AI companion) learns and understands it. The warmth of the gathering, whether you tried something new, who made you laugh. Over time, Eve notices things: you’re adventurous with certain friends, you seek comfort in familiar places after long weeks. It becomes like having a friend who actually remembers—not just where you went, but why it mattered.”
Palate would then leverage the individual insights to suggest dining experiences that complement each person’s preferences.
Palate: A story of Resilience
From its inception to today, Palate’s trajectory is one characterized by resilience in the face of adversity.
After months of building tens of thousands of lines of code and conducting countless user interviews, the team was ready to launch their alpha dining coordination app to a group of invited users.
“The first hour was electric. Over 50 signups, people actively using it, inviting their
friends. We thought we’d nailed it.”
By the end of the first day, Ace checked their analytics on TestFlight, Firebase, and Google Cloud to discover 90% churn rates. This news hit the team hard, and sent a wave of disappointment across the team. That night, Ace made a decision to keep going. He remembered what it felt like to be an isolated kid back home, and realized that giving up wasn’t an option.
“This isn’t about me anymore. Quitting means abandoning all of them.”
“Resilience isn’t optional in entrepreneurship—it’s the price of admission. When you truly care
about something, you fight for it. Period.”
Turning Setback into Strategy
The very next morning, Ace got to work. He emailed every user requesting feedback, scheduled calls with respondents, and sent-follow up messages. He returned to the drawing board—to the Figma files, early blueprints, and user research that shaped Palate’s foundations.
He realized that members of their test group had invited friends and family across different schools and cities. “We’d built a multiplayer game with a cold start problem,” Ace explained. “You need people to get value, but you need value to get people.”
From that moment, everything changed. Palate’s rollout consists of three phases: Phase 1 focuses on creating “single-player magic,” Phase 2 introduces coordination, and Phase 3 delivers the full social experience.
“Resilience isn’t just about pushing through pain. It’s staying truthful about what users actually need, even when it means rebuilding everything. The pain forced clarity. And that clarity is why we’re still here, building something that actually works.”
Embrace Pain, Don’t Become it
Ace states that every founder must hone “the ability to embrace pain without becoming it.” Through persevering through setbacks—experiencing 90% churn rates or demoralized teammates—Ace learned to find clarity and direction.
“Two years in, Palate exists because we processed our pain fast enough to stay alive. The loneliness epidemic is still growing. We’re still building. The pain was tuition for learning how to solve this problem.”
Ace believes humility is the trait that distinguishes successful founders from the rest. The founders that survive are the ones who have optimized for “processing speed”—the pace at which founders can extract lessons from failures and adjust.
“Every hour you spend defending what didn’t work is an hour you’re not building what will.”
Ultimately, it’s Ace’s steadfast belief in his mission—bringing human experience to life through food—and adapting intelligently that underlies Palate’s growth. Ace leveraged shifts in technology and market expectations to enhance Palate’s sophisticated features.
“I’m proud that when the market zagged, we didn’t panic. We evolved. We’re building something now that we couldn’t have built two years ago, precisely because we stayed in the arena long enough to learn what actually matters.”
“When I’m debugging code at 2AM, the image in my head isn’t a feature or a metric—it’s a dinner table. Friends gathered, food shared, memories captured.”
Ace’s Pearls of Wisdom
Reflecting on his own journey, Ace shared numerous insights that helped him during the hardest times. As he puts it, “Dreams don’t come with a refund”, so aspiring entrepreneurs must take to heart the following:
There’s no Trial Period for Entrepreneurship
Ace notes that, to have any chance of succeeding as an entrepreneur, one must be willing to give it their all. Building a venture isn’t something to dabble in; it is a pursuit that demands one to embrace it with their wholehearted conviction.
“Once you commit, you’re all in—time, money, life. If you’re not willing to burn the boats, don’t leave the shore.”
Success comes with a Price
“Everyone wants the prize. Not everyone pays the price. You’ll see the headlines, the funding rounds. You won’t see the 90% churn rates, the teammates who quit, the nights rebuilding from scratch. The question isn’t whether you’ll face this—it’s whether you’ll pay when the bill comes. ”
Balance Mission and Morale
“Be ruthless with your mission, but be graceful with your delivery to your team…You can’t build alone, and burning out your team in pursuit of perfection defeats purpose.”
“You can’t keep stepping on the gas pedal expecting to go further. The gas runs out. You have to refuel your teams’ morale, or your car stops moving.”
Take Advice, but do your Homework
“People will tell you how they succeeded. But their context, timing, advantages, and disadvantages aren’t yours. Learn from everyone, but ultimately, you have to make your own decisions based on your own reality. What worked for them might destroy you. What they said was impossible might be your only path.”
The Legacy he hopes to Leave Behind
Through it all, weekly dining outings with friends that keep Ace going. Whether at a restaurant or casual home setting, it’s the company that makes a meal into a memory.
“That’s what I love. When you capture a selfie with your food and friends, and later that photo reminds you why you showed up that night. Building Palate means that I get to work on making those moments happen more often, for more people.”
For Ace, success is more than building a successful business. It’s about ensuring that a kid in Malaysia feels supported by Palate’s infrastructure for human connection in a digital age.
“When isolation becomes a solvable problem rather than an accepted reality—that’s the dent I want to leave in the universe.”
Palate is live! Be the first to try the app at the https://palate.tech.
Ace Por joined the SCET community as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Summer Venture Lab, a program designed for students to accelerate their early-stage technology startups. For the past two years, Ace has been building Palate, an AI-powered app designed to bring family and friends together through shared dining experiences and immortalize these memories. The team is currently in private beta with Berkeley students and preparing to launch their public beta soon, a testament to their perseverance and dedication to this mission.
We followed up with Ace to learn more about his journey, the role of resilience, and where he’s headed next.
Transforming Isolation into Action
Growing up in Malaysia and attending university internationally meant little family time beyond celebrating special occasions.
“We only interacted during the Lunar New Year or Mooncake Festival. Otherwise, my parents were buried in their business, and I was left alone with a void.”
As a high school student, that isolation and loneliness was perceptible. Ace decided to do something about it. Every Friday night—no matter what—Ace established a solution to this problem that many were feeling and dealing with alone.
A Friday Night Ritual
Each week of the month followed a rotating culinary theme. The first week of the month was dedicated to East Asian cuisines—Chinese hot pot, Korean BBQ, Japanese Ramen. The second week shifted to Western foods, including Italian pasta and American hamburgers. The third week turned to South and Southeast Asian flavors, from Indian curry to Indonesian nasi goreng. The final week of the month was reserved for “Anything Can Happen Friday.”
When isolation and loneliness feels uncertain and daunting for a young high school student, Ace’s commitment was a comforting constant in his life. Whether during happy or difficult times, the unwavering ritual of coming together at the end of the week created a sense of belonging—one he was missing at home.
“It didn’t matter if we were in the middle of exams, celebrating something, or going through a hard time—in our highest highs or lowest lows, we made time to come together. That commitment saved me. It became my way of building the connection I didn’t have at home.”
Redefining Impact: Launching his Entrepreneurial Journey
Before transferring to UC Berkeley, Ace spent his first two years at Columbia University. Fascinated by space and time, Ace initially studied physics and philosophy. However, he came to a realization that would redefine his aspirations/he had a calling to build something of his own: he wanted to create a meaningful impact in his lifetime, capable of transforming lives.
“Even if I made breakthroughs in theoretical physics, it would take centuries before anyone could actually experience the impact. I looked at companies like Google, Uber, and Airbnb—they transformed how millions of people live in just years, not generations. That’s when I knew I needed to build, not just theorize in my lifetime.”
From Student Organization to Startup
Driven by a newfound desire to build, Ace decided to transfer to UC Berkeley to study computer science instead to immerse himself in the Bay Area startup ecosystem. But once again, he found himself feeling isolated in want of a community to lean on, and observed hundreds of brilliant students experiencing a similar feeling of disconnection, and brought his Friday night tradition to campus.
In his two years at UC Berkeley, Ace founded Palate, a student organization dedicated to bringing students together to dine at restaurants in the Bay Area every couple weeks. The organization quickly grew to over two hundred members.
When students started personally thanking Ace after events, catalyzed Ace’s desire to turn his organization into more.
“That’s when ‘good food and better company’, our slogan, became real. We weren’t just organizing dinners. We were creating experiences that wouldn’t exist otherwise, bringing people together who might have stayed isolated.”
The Loneliness Epidemic
The problem that has plagued Ace’s life for so long is one faced by millions of others. In May 2023, The US surgeon general warned of“The Loneliness Epidemic,” affecting half of Americans, especially in a recovering post-pandemic world.
Recognizing that he wasn’t alone in his struggles, Ace grew determined to tackle this challenge affecting millions—people who are eating alone, scrolling instead of talking, and forgetting what real connection feels like.
“I want to kill the thing that was killing me. Growing up disconnected in Malaysia, I learned what isolation does to a person. It’s quiet. It’s daily. It makes you smaller.”
Where Mission Meets Opportunity
Fueled by the traction of his student organization, a national awareness of the loneliness epidemic, and powerful emerging technologies, Ace felt empowered to scale and build Palate.
“Today, we have the perfect convergence: these technical capabilities have matured, people trust AI assistants with personal experiences, and we’ve spent two years understanding exactly what needs to be built. This is our moment to define how technology serves human connection.”
“The foundational AI breakthroughs of the past two years—LLMs that can understand context, vision models that can analyze images, reinforcement learning that gets smarter with every interaction—finally give us a more mature building block to create something that’s never existed before.”
Ace realized his path became clear—to build something that transforms how millions of people connect and make memories together.
“That’s not just my interest. That’s my duty. That’s why Palate exists.”
Scaling Palate
As Ace worked to scale Palate, he noticed a common pattern: excitement dissolving into group chat chaos. Digging deeper, he realized that the problem wasn’t a matter of logistics, but human psychology. Social anxiety and the fear of rejection lead us to paralysis of choice when making plans with others. Rather than attempt to solve group coordination issues, Ace pivoted. He realized that one can’t coordinate effectively without first understanding each individual—only then can true connection begin.
“In a world where loneliness is literally an epidemic, technology that truly understands human connection isn’t just useful—it’s essential.”
Palate evolved into a solution for individual intelligence, equipped with Eve, an AI dining companion.
“We built something different. When you capture a memory—a photo from that birthday dinner or spontaneous Tuesday lunch—Palate doesn’t just save it. Eve (our AI companion) learns and understands it. The warmth of the gathering, whether you tried something new, who made you laugh. Over time, Eve notices things: you’re adventurous with certain friends, you seek comfort in familiar places after long weeks. It becomes like having a friend who actually remembers—not just where you went, but why it mattered.”
Palate would then leverage the individual insights to suggest dining experiences that complement each person’s preferences.
Palate: A story of Resilience
From its inception to today, Palate’s trajectory is one characterized by resilience in the face of adversity.
After months of building tens of thousands of lines of code and conducting countless user interviews, the team was ready to launch their alpha dining coordination app to a group of invited users.
“The first hour was electric. Over 50 signups, people actively using it, inviting their
friends. We thought we’d nailed it.”
By the end of the first day, Ace checked their analytics on TestFlight, Firebase, and Google Cloud to discover 90% churn rates. This news hit the team hard, and sent a wave of disappointment across the team. That night, Ace made a decision to keep going. He remembered what it felt like to be an isolated kid back home, and realized that giving up wasn’t an option.
“This isn’t about me anymore. Quitting means abandoning all of them.”
“Resilience isn’t optional in entrepreneurship—it’s the price of admission. When you truly care
about something, you fight for it. Period.”
Turning Setback into Strategy
The very next morning, Ace got to work. He emailed every user requesting feedback, scheduled calls with respondents, and sent-follow up messages. He returned to the drawing board—to the Figma files, early blueprints, and user research that shaped Palate’s foundations.
He realized that members of their test group had invited friends and family across different schools and cities. “We’d built a multiplayer game with a cold start problem,” Ace explained. “You need people to get value, but you need value to get people.”
From that moment, everything changed. Palate’s rollout consists of three phases: Phase 1 focuses on creating “single-player magic,” Phase 2 introduces coordination, and Phase 3 delivers the full social experience.
“Resilience isn’t just about pushing through pain. It’s staying truthful about what users actually need, even when it means rebuilding everything. The pain forced clarity. And that clarity is why we’re still here, building something that actually works.”
Embrace Pain, Don’t Become it
Ace states that every founder must hone “the ability to embrace pain without becoming it.” Through persevering through setbacks—experiencing 90% churn rates or demoralized teammates—Ace learned to find clarity and direction.
“Two years in, Palate exists because we processed our pain fast enough to stay alive. The loneliness epidemic is still growing. We’re still building. The pain was tuition for learning how to solve this problem.”
Ace believes humility is the trait that distinguishes successful founders from the rest. The founders that survive are the ones who have optimized for “processing speed”—the pace at which founders can extract lessons from failures and adjust.
“Every hour you spend defending what didn’t work is an hour you’re not building what will.”
Ultimately, it’s Ace’s steadfast belief in his mission—bringing human experience to life through food—and adapting intelligently that underlies Palate’s growth. Ace leveraged shifts in technology and market expectations to enhance Palate’s sophisticated features.
“I’m proud that when the market zagged, we didn’t panic. We evolved. We’re building something now that we couldn’t have built two years ago, precisely because we stayed in the arena long enough to learn what actually matters.”
“When I’m debugging code at 2AM, the image in my head isn’t a feature or a metric—it’s a dinner table. Friends gathered, food shared, memories captured.”
Ace’s Pearls of Wisdom
Reflecting on his own journey, Ace shared numerous insights that helped him during the hardest times. As he puts it, “Dreams don’t come with a refund”, so aspiring entrepreneurs must take to heart the following:
There’s no Trial Period for Entrepreneurship
Ace notes that, to have any chance of succeeding as an entrepreneur, one must be willing to give it their all. Building a venture isn’t something to dabble in; it is a pursuit that demands one to embrace it with their wholehearted conviction.
“Once you commit, you’re all in—time, money, life. If you’re not willing to burn the boats, don’t leave the shore.”
Success comes with a Price
“Everyone wants the prize. Not everyone pays the price. You’ll see the headlines, the funding rounds. You won’t see the 90% churn rates, the teammates who quit, the nights rebuilding from scratch. The question isn’t whether you’ll face this—it’s whether you’ll pay when the bill comes. ”
Balance Mission and Morale
“Be ruthless with your mission, but be graceful with your delivery to your team…You can’t build alone, and burning out your team in pursuit of perfection defeats purpose.”
“You can’t keep stepping on the gas pedal expecting to go further. The gas runs out. You have to refuel your teams’ morale, or your car stops moving.”
Take Advice, but do your Homework
“People will tell you how they succeeded. But their context, timing, advantages, and disadvantages aren’t yours. Learn from everyone, but ultimately, you have to make your own decisions based on your own reality. What worked for them might destroy you. What they said was impossible might be your only path.”
The Legacy he hopes to Leave Behind
Through it all, weekly dining outings with friends that keep Ace going. Whether at a restaurant or casual home setting, it’s the company that makes a meal into a memory.
“That’s what I love. When you capture a selfie with your food and friends, and later that photo reminds you why you showed up that night. Building Palate means that I get to work on making those moments happen more often, for more people.”
For Ace, success is more than building a successful business. It’s about ensuring that a kid in Malaysia feels supported by Palate’s infrastructure for human connection in a digital age.
“When isolation becomes a solvable problem rather than an accepted reality—that’s the dent I want to leave in the universe.”
Palate is live! Be the first to try the app at the https://palate.tech.