SUMMARY
Brand-driven, patent-holding senior executive with a 23 year record of successfully leading private startups and public turnarounds. An unusually effective combination of technology, sales, marketing, and general management expertise has enabled a one person “swat” team that has consistently excelled at: analyzing organizations and markets from multiple perspectives at once; devising & implementing strategies that maximize return; and attracting, motivating and managing collaborative teams that deliver results:
* Cofounded a company based on custom built medical software. By “productizing” the offering, and leveraging the initial reference account, successfully sold solutions in the government market and struck “company making” business development deal with market leading, strategic partner. When partner subsequently faltered, shifted into a Web 2.0, new media opportunity that, with the limited funds of a bootstrapped startup, was able to create significant press attention, draw 70,000 unique monthly site visitors and very cost effectively acquire leads and customers.
*A 3-person, under-funded technology startup without a viable business model was transformed in only 18 months to a rapidly growing, market leading, public company offering a novel DRM service. Built the company's value proposition around a neglected technical feature (which was enhanced via acquisition) & shifted the company away from selling technology & towards a high value, sales solution for its customers. Raised $20M from angels, VCs, investment bankers & public money managers.
* A 14-person enterprise software developer had been struggling for six years. Turned it around by: recognizing the potential of the Web even in its early, pre-Netscape days; targeting a different kind of user; revising the technology; and repositioning the company away from its initial low-growth segment and towards rapidly emerging online market. Personally responsible for 20% of company’s sales including the successful Intel sales effort that culminated in their strategic investment. Shareholder value in this private company increased from zero to $12M.
* A 150-person Fortune 500 business unit was unprofitable & rapidly losing both market share and its parent's patience. Helped turn the division around by revitalizing their technology & repositioning the Company as it entered new markets: within six months, attained 20% share in “shrink-wrapped" and OEM software.
EDUCATION
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York Univ., May 19XX:
Masters Degree in Computer Science with emphasis in Artificial Intelligence.
Vassar College, May 19XX:
Bachelors Degree in Biology with emphasis in the neural sciences.
EXPERIENCE
2002 - present XXXX Corporation Upton & Concord, Ma
Founder, Chief Executive Officer and President April 2002 – present
Having previously run organizations that required significant venture capital, I sought the challenge of growing a business from inception solely with its own funds. Consequently, I partnered with an experienced CTO who had created a custom medical software package that became the kernel upon which I built the business. After “productizing” the software, we successfully entered the government market selling solutions to Suffolk County Ma & Lycoming County Pa.
The next step was to cost effectively enter a larger market with shorter sales cycles. To do so, I focused on business partners who did not have any in-house software expertise and had significant share in the commercial market: diagnostic laboratories and immunoassay test manufacturers. By becoming their software “arm” we dramatically and rapidly increased our marketing, distribution and credibility while minimizing our sales and marketing costs.
A non-equity, strategic agreement with 40% market share leader, Varian Inc (NASDAQ: VARI) began in Nov 2003 and made XXXX the exclusive software provider for their DAT immunoassay group through 2010. XXXX's medical software (510k approval pending): manages the clinical process of Drugs of Abuse Testing ($1B market), reduces time and cost 64%, and includes enterprise, desktop and Web versions. From 2003 through 2007 $1M in sales were generated from hundreds of customers including: Zachry Construction, ADP, Avery Denison, the N.Y.C. Dept of Corrections and the Mass. Dept of Probation.
Unfortunately, the leverage gained from partners works both ways: as Varian’s market position weakened over time, revenue from our strategic alliance declined. Anticipating this even before Varian did, in the Spring of 2006 I shifted the company’s resources towards a very different and far larger opportunity that capitalized on some related IP we had developed (and for which we have since drafted two patent applications) involving ‘Peer-to-Peer’, Web-based media and ‘Really Simple Syndication’ technologies.
While XXXX remained our brand in our original market, we launched YYYY.com in the media (photos, videos, audio) sharing market one year later. Because this Web 2.0 market is very large, lucrative and competitive, my differentiation strategy focused on a relatively ignored segment that was both reachable by us and attractive to advertisers: parents privately & securely sharing media of their children with their friends and family. This strategy, combined with the highly cost effective viral, search and affinity marketing programs I implemented, worked very well. For example, in the last two months of 2007:
* Our Web site had 70,000 unique visitors each month.
* EnjoyMyMedia grew 38% to more than 5,400 users.
* Parents were safely sharing more than 2.1 TB of their media of their children: 65,000 audio files, 43,000 images, 8,400 videos and more.
Furthermore, my strategy of pitching our unique offering to non-technical, “Mom oriented” press combined with my ability to make technology understandable to lay people has garnered as much or more attention than many venture funded companies:
* Prevention Magazine * The Wall St Journal (twice)
* Family Web Watch * Boston Business Journal
* “The Mom” @ Yahoo Tech * Xconomy.com (twice)
* PC Music & Video magazine * ZDnet.nl
* Connected Home News * and many more
While I was successful in attracting a half dozen venture firms seriously interested in funding YYYY's expansion, I ultimately ran into the Web 2.0 Defining Event Problem. Unlike my previous businesses where funders could look to the signing of a critical customer or partner as proof of the business’ viability (e.g., Simon & Schuster at ZZZZ, Intel at WWWW, Delrina at VVVV), Web 2.0 companies have no such defining event: their proof is simply adding more users over time. So while YYYY has grown substantially, we have found that there is no universally agreed upon number of users that “proves” the business and triggers a venture investment. Consequently, we have rescaled the business to a self-sustaining level that requires no ongoing involvement on my part.
2000 – 2002 BBBB Concord, Ma
Managing Partner Nov 2000 – Apr 2002
An interim management and consulting practice. Representative engagements:
* Interim CEO for a developer of medical software. This engagement led to the creation of Sageful Corporation.
* Brought in by the CEO for a five-month interim marketing management engagement after their telecommunications market evaporated shortly after a $40M investment.
1998 - 2000 ZZZZ.com Maynard, Ma
Chief Executive Officer & President Sep. 1998 – Nov. 2000
I joined ZZZZ when it was a six year old, three-employee company with a handful of unprofitable customers who used its technology to protect their shareware software. The company was in a small market, lacked a strategy for developing a viable business and had just started trading on the pink-sheets after merging with a public shell corporation.
I built the company’s value proposition around a neglected technical feature; enhanced over time by licensing technology and acquiring a professional services company. This shifted the company upstream, away from simply selling technology and towards a higher value, innovative online solution for publishers: an outsourced, pay-for-performance sales channel that earned lucrative sales commissions when we sold their content. This strategy allowed SoftLock to grow, raise capital and become the undisputed market leader.
* Raised nearly $20M for this venture-backed yet public company. Overcame significant challenges as the risk/reward profile appealed to venture capitalists, while its public structure did not. Successfully structured, negotiated and raised capital from angels, venture capitalists, investment bankers and public money managers (SI Ventures, Ascent Venture Partners, Apex Investments, RSA Security Capital, Tudor Investments and Thane Ritchie Capital). During my tenure, the average share price was $6.65 with a low of $0.89 (my first day) to a high of $21.875 (King euphoria). Liquidity was increased ten fold.
* Market leadership evidenced by Simon & Schuster’s selection of ZZZZ as the exclusive electronic marketer and distributor for the 100+ million user Adobe Acrobat® Reader market for Stephen King’s first ebook Riding The Bullet:
* Grew company from 4 to 57 employees taking it from the “garage” stage to a thriving organization that marketed, distributed and sold 10,000 units of digital content (priced from $2.50 to $1,500) in 1Q00. Prior to my arrival, the quarterly sales rate averaged 1,600 units.
* Acquired online advertising company Liquid Fire to enhance our outsourced solution.
* Secured customers and partners such as: Simon and Schuster, Standard & Poor’s, Dun & Bradstreet, Morningstar, Intel, Adobe, iVillage.com, InfoSpace.com, About.com, Xoom.com and 250+ others.
1995 - 1998 WWWW Natick, Ma
VP Marketing & Business Development Aug. 1996 – Sep. 1998
VP Marketing & Development Mar. 1995 – Aug. 1996
I helped turn this struggling, 14-person expert system software developer away from its initial low-growth market and towards a lucrative, new, enterprise software market I also helped to create: Online Customer Self-Service. A previous down round had reduced the Company's value to zero. My turn around efforts along with signing Intel as a customer, and ultimately an investor (along with Internet Capital Group and Sigma Partners), yielded a $12M valuation before I left (WWWW has since been acquired by PPPP). I was responsible, in this Number Two role, initially for marketing and technology and later for marketing and business development.
* Crafted new business model attractive to customers and financiers that leveraged the company’s technology and provided competitive advantage.
* Created a reseller channel that signed a dozen strategic partners in the first year including Computer Associates, Vantive and Remedy.
* Personal sales activity accounted for $600K out of company’s $3M in 1997. Led successful Intel sales effort that culminated in their strategic investment.
* Web products won the 1998 Editor’s Choice, Telemarketing and Call Center Solutions award in January 1998. Product development cycle reduced from 2 years to 4 months. Richer, more modular feature set increased product revenue per sale and created professional service revenue opportunities.
1991 - 1995 VVVV Peabody, Ma
VP Technology, VVVV Doc. Services Division Jan 94 – Mar 95
VP Technology, VVVV Dec 92 – Jan 94
Director, Tech. & App. Dev., VVV Nov91 – Dec92
I was a major contributor to the successful turn around of this 150 person VVVV Corp. business unit that was rapidly losing both market share and its Fortune 500 1parent’s patience. Initially responsible for the advanced development group, I subsequently added on product marketing, quality, and strategic sales and general management roles.
* Launched and managed a new business unit that commercialized natural language technology from VVVV's research group (world famous for their technology and their inability to bring it to market). First year sales of $500,000 for this twenty person global organization (Palo Alto Ca., Peabody Ma., Grenoble, France), comprised of advanced technology, engineering, quality assurance, sales & marketing.
* Helped reposition this optical character recognition company to enter and rapidly garner share in the "shrink-wrapped" OCR market (0 to 20% in the first six months). “Best New Technology” finalist in the fall 1994 Best of Comdex competition; won “Editors Choice” and “Product of the Year” awards from Imaging Magazine (Dec. 1993 and Feb. 1994).
* Led successful OEM sales effort to win the biggest OCR customer, Delrina Corp and its WinFax software, away from VVVV's largest competitor.
* Successfully employed neural network technology to counteract the impression within the subsidiary, as well as the parent, that we were technology laggards. This was critical in that it bought the time needed to move our technology from the UNIX to Windows market.
1986 - 1991 NYNEX White Plains, NY
VP Technology, Nynex Image Recognition Sys. Corp. Jul90–Jan91
Supervisor MTS, Nynex Science & Tech Div. May87 – Jan91
Member of Technical Staff, Nynex Sci. & Tech Div. Sep86–May87
I was the champion for, and technical manager of, Nynex Image Recognition Systems Corp., an “intrepreneurial spin out” targeting the Imaging market. This occurred after we conducted a successful pilot at a large, commercial bank in Germany in partnership with AEG Electrocom GmbH., the imaging market’s leading vendor. The partnership arose because of the world-class neural network, handprint recognition and vision technology that the PhD-level group I assembled and managed within Nynex’ R&D department had developed.
1985 – 1986 NYU Computational Neuroscience Labs NYC, NY
Research Scientist May 1985 – Sep. 1986
I was responsible for the design and implementation of algorithms to efficiently model primate visual processing from the retina through the visual cortex.
PATENTS
U.S. Patent 5,642,xxx: granted June 24, 19xx. “Structured document processing with lexical classes as context”
U.S. Patent 5,239,xxx: granted August 24, 19xx. “Optical Pattern Recognition Using Detector & Locator Neural Networks”
U.S. Patent 4,876,x: granted October 24, 19xx. “Neural Network Model in Pattern Recognition Using Probabilistic Contextual Information” |
