250k+
teachers joined in the last 2 years
Charles Wiles
I build thoughtful products at the intersection of software, AI, and education.
I’m the founder and CEO of Zzish. My work brings together product vision, technical depth, and a builder’s instinct for turning ambitious ideas into software that is useful, elegant, and built to last.
- Founder and CEO of Zzish, building education products used by teachers around the world
- Google's first product manager hired outside the USA, where I helped build the first version of Android
- Oxford PhD in Robotics and AI, alongside an MBA with distinction from London Business School
- Builder, operator, and investor with experience across product, engineering, AI, and company building
200k
student quiz plays each month
250m+
questions answered since launch
180
countries reached
Approach
I like building products that feel simple on the surface and powerful underneath
Zzish was born from a very practical problem: how to help teachers give each student more personalised support. Since then, I’ve spent more than a decade building products that turn classroom assessment into live engagement, useful insight, and scalable infrastructure.
What matters to me is the combination of clear thinking and real execution: understanding the problem deeply, designing with taste, and building systems that work well at scale without becoming heavy or overcomplicated.
What I do
I move comfortably between vision, product, engineering, and execution
From first principles to scale
I like working from the underlying problem outward, then carrying the idea all the way through to product, infrastructure, analytics, and operational reality.
Product taste with commercial sense
I care deeply about craft, but I also pay close attention to adoption, pricing, distribution, and the practical choices that make a product durable.
Still close to the code
I remain hands-on with software and AI, especially where better tools, thoughtful systems design, and local-first approaches can improve both velocity and user experience.
The work I’m most drawn to sits at the edge of what is newly possible
I’m especially interested in product ideas that combine strong technical foundations, careful design, and the thoughtful use of AI to create software that feels both powerful and humane.