Personal Website — Ashvin Praveen (Draft)
March 23, 2026
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Ashvin Praveen Co-founder & CEO, Cleve.ai
Building tools that help people think and communicate better.
Read my writing · About me · Get in touch
I'm a mechanical engineer who somehow ended up building AI startups.
Grew up in Sarawak — Kuching, Miri, Bintulu — studied at the University of Sheffield on an ASEAN Merit Scholarship, and came back ready to build things.
First thing I built: a content agency. 14 people, six-figure revenue, working with founders to help them put their ideas into words. It was good work. I loved it.
Then ChatGPT dropped. And I realised there was a deeper problem nobody had solved: AI tools are great, but they don't know you. Every session, you start from scratch.
So I went back to my engineering textbooks, taught myself to code in my late 20s, and started building Cleve — an AI workspace for writing that actually has context on who you are, how you think, and what you're trying to say.
Two years in. ~35,000 users. Still going.
The AI writing workspace. Think Google Docs, if it had a senior thought partner who remembered everything you've ever written. We're building toward what Canva did for design — but for writing and self-expression.
Also: Director of Malaysia's National AI Competition (NAIC) — helping young people actually understand AI, not just fear it.
I apply an engineer and athlete mindset to everything.
Clear inputs, feedback loops, daily reps. Not because it's a system I read about — because it's the only thing that's ever actually worked for me.
My mental model: approximate the human capability threshold. Anyone can do that. Everything is learnable.
I believe in first principles over formulas. If the underlying assumption changes, rebuild. Don't patch.
Thoughts on building, AI, content, and whatever I'm figuring out right now.
→ LinkedIn — where I share most of my thinking → Instagram — more casual, more behind-the-scenes
If something here resonated — or if you're building something and want to talk — reach out.
📧 ashvin@cleve.ai 💼 linkedin.com/in/ashvinpraveen 📅 cal.com/ashvinpraveen 🌐 cleve.ai