Zhonghao Max Yu
I’m Max Yu, a student founder building at the intersection of finance, technology, media, and design.
Currently building SuMarket and studying finance at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.
Bloomington, Indiana · Originally from San Diego
Welcome to my office.
Everything I build lives in one room — with the Pacific out the window. Scroll to look around: the shelf, the desk, the closet, the rig, the car.
Discipline came first.
Ten years of competitive swimming — All-American, CIF State finalist, a school record in the 200 Medley Relay. The shelf came home before any of the rest existed.
I started swimming at eight, in San Diego. By the end I had ten years of 5 AM practices, an All-American honor, a CIF State final — 5th in the 200 Medley Relay — and a school record that still stands.
The medals matter less than the operating system it installed: show up before anyone is watching, trust volume over talent, and treat feedback as a gift even when it stings.
Every venture since — the apparel brand, the photography work, SuMarket — runs on habits that were built lap by lap in that pool.
SuMarket is built right here.
A financial-market intelligence platform — daily briefings across 10+ sectors, three reading depths, web + iOS. Founded, designed, and shipped from this desk.
The product
Daily briefings across 10+ sectors — tech, healthcare, energy, real estate, crypto, international — each readable at three depths: Snapshot (the gist in plain English), Analyst Brief (fundamentals and macro context), or Deep Dive (Bloomberg density). AI analysis tools are built into the reading flow. Web + iOS, with free, Pro, and student tiers.
The founder story
I designed, coded, and shipped SuMarket myself — brand, product, and platform — then grew it into a company: an internship program, partnerships, and a small team I'm learning to lead. The question driving it now: how personalized should financial information become, and how do you earn trust while doing it?
Pick your depth: Snapshot, Brief, or Deep Dive.
Every briefing reads three ways — the gist in plain English, the analyst view, or Bloomberg density. Free and student tiers.
Lens & Pistons hangs here.
The automotive apparel brand that taught me e-commerce, brand, and operations — $1K+ monthly revenue and a 10× demand spike survived. Three collab tees hang here — click one to meet the collaborator.
The brand
Lens & Pistons joined the two halves of car culture — the lens and the machines. I ran it end-to-end from home: product and pricing, the Shopify storefront, the photography, the marketing. At its stronger points it did $1,000+ a month, and when demand spiked 10× overnight (3 to 30 orders a day), limited drops and outsourced production cut unit costs 70% and fulfillment time by five days.
The collaborators
Five creator collaborations shipped, negotiated as revenue-share partnerships — including Katya BRZ, Nikolai Aksenov, and PearlWhte WRX, whose tees hang in this closet. Creators are partners, not ad slots; structure matters more than reach.
What it taught me
Revenue is a lagging indicator of a hundred small operational decisions. Brand is what makes two identical shirts worth different amounts. And fulfillment is invisible until it's the only thing a customer remembers. Almost everything in SuMarket traces back here.
Golden hour goes through this.
The kit, laid out mid-session: the A7R IV, the 20-70mm G Master, the 60-600 telephoto, the shotgun mic, batteries, and the bag. Brand photography for Rent Exotics; a 200+ image library that lifted booking conversion 20%.
The work
Brand photography for Rent Exotics — a 200+ image working library that lifted booking conversion 20% and drives about ten on-the-spot vehicle upgrades a month. Drop photography for Lens & Pistons. Event coverage for AKPsi and Acacia. All shot on the A7R IV, usually at golden hour.
The eye
Photography taught me that people decide how much to trust something from a hundred small signals — framing, light, what you choose to leave out. That instinct now shapes everything I build: product screens, brand, decks, this room.
Beyond the build, my involvements.
Two brotherhoods anchor my life on campus — one professional, one social. Together they keep the work grounded in people.
Alpha Kappa Psi
The nation's oldest professional business fraternity. Coming out of Kelley, it's where the professional side gets sharpened — case work, recruiting, and a network of people pointed at finance, consulting, and building things.
Acacia
The social and service side of campus — brotherhood, philanthropy, and a circle of friends well outside the business-school bubble.
And the favorite, parked inside.
A Nardo gray Porsche 911 Carrera 4S — the car that started the whole obsession. Car culture is the thread: the photography, the brand, the ops work at Rent Exotics.
Why cars
Car culture was my first obsession — the design, the engineering, the way a machine can carry an identity. The favorite has always been the 911 Carrera 4S in Nardo gray: understated color, absurd capability. That's the brief for everything I make.
Where it shows up
Cars turned into a camera, the camera into a brand, the brand into operations work at Rent Exotics — where the loyalty program and long-term rental options I helped implement lifted repeat rentals 30%+. Obsessions compound if you let them.
Let's start a conversation.
Building something interesting, working in finance, or have thoughts on SuMarket? I'd be glad to connect.