Active VIP Contests
Interview With Ben Silbermann, Founder of Pinterest
Ben Silbermann has graciously offered to answer our burning questions today at the Startup Grind event. And by our questions we mean yours!
MG Siegler, Writer at TechCrunch
MG is looking to learn about smart and interesting teams building great products.
Jon Mitchell, Writer at ReadWriteWeb
Jon is looking for smart and interesting technology products to try out and killer undiscovered teams to blog about. Jon provides honest and insightful feedback on your product and functionality as both a user and journalist.
Ben Galbraith, VP Mobile Engineering at Walmart.com
Ben is looking for talented developers to join his team, or ideas on ways to improve Walmart's overall mobile experience. As a lead technologist at companies like Mozilla, Palm, Ben nows leads the mobile group at Walmart.com. He can assist founders and entrepreneurs in solving difficult engineering problems.
Chris Yeh, Startup Investor and Advisor
Chris is looking to meet with talented teams in the consumer web/mobile space. Chris is a product designer, angel investor, TechCrunch contributor, and former CEO of Ustream. He can provide product, market, and funding pitch feedback.
Manu Kumar, Founder of K9 Ventures
Manu is looking to meet world class teams and talented developers to join his portfolio companies (Zimride, BackType, Twilio). Manu has literally done it all. Founder and investor in dozens of successful ventures including Twillo, iMeet, CardMunch, and Zimride. His practical experience and venture track record make him an incredible asset for any entrepreneur.
Brandt Andersen, Owner of the NBA D-League Utah Flash
Brandt dropped out of college in 2001 and grew into the founder and CEO of uSight, Inc's #2 fastest growing company in America (2004 - at age 26!). He currently owns the NBAD League Utah Flash team and has numerous other entertainment related projects. He's a marketing and distribution expert in the fields of sports, entertainment, and software.
Nick Efstratis, Managing Director of Epic Ventures
Nick Efstratis is a Managing Director at EPIC Ventures and has been a venture capitalist investing in seed and early-stage technology companies since 1999. He was an early Excite.com employee and has portfolio companies that include Mozy and Instructure. Nick can assist with VC pitching, product market fit, and advising early stage teams.
Daniel Brusilovsky, Founder & CEO at Teens in Tech Labs
As the founder and CEO of Teens in Tech Conference and Incubator, Daniel has been advising startups since he was in diapers (or so it seems). An original team member of Qik (aquired by Skype) and a former writer at TechCrunch, he has amassed a major Silicon Valley network and a powerful group of companies he advises.
Jesse Stay, SocialToo CEO & Social Strategy at LDS Church
Jesse was recently named by Mashable and Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 10 entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter, and also by Mashable as one of 20 developers to follow on Twitter. He specializes in Facebook, Twitter, Open Social, and other technologies that enable you as a business to better reach your customers in a viral manner. He also blogs at http://staynalive.com.
Tony Conrad, Co-founder of About.me
Tony Conrad is the co-founder of About.me and True Ventures. Tony is a Board Director at Automattic (Wordpress), and an investor in startups like Plancast, Gdgt, Typekit, WeGame, and KISSmetrics. He's one of the most respected and entrepreneur-friendly VCs in the Valley. Is this awesome or what?
Jolie O'Dell, Venture Beat blogger (ex-Mashable and RWW)
While currently a writer at VentureBeat, she has also written and blogged extensively for Mashable and ReadWriteWeb among others. She's a widely respected journalist, blogger, and internet tech personality.
Ryan Spoon, Principal at Polaris Ventures & Dogpatch Labs
Ryan is a Principal at Polaris Venture Partners and focuses on investments in internet, technology and digital media. Ryan also leads Dogpatch Labs in San Francisco which houses some of the hottest young startups. Maybe if you're lucky he'll give you a tour among other things.
Kevin O'Leary, Battlefield 3 North America Marketing Lead
Kevin has helped market some of the biggest EA games over the past several years. These include BF Bad Company, Medal Of Honor, Burnout, and now Battlefield 3 - arguably the biggest console game launch of 2011. Kevin can provide valuable marketing, gaming, and consumer entertainment advice and feedback.
Jay Marcyes, Co-Founder at Plancast
Jay is a co-founder of Plancast, the best way to discover events and share plans with friends. Plancast has investors like True Ventures and SoftTech VC, and has been a media darling since it's inception in 2009. Jay holds a vast technical, funding, and patent process expertise. He's also a mentor at startup incubator BoomStartup.
Chris McCann, Co-Founder at StartupDigest
Chris McCann is an entrepreneur, writer, and general activist in the entrepreneurial community. He co-founded StartupDigest which has gained hundreds of thousands of users that receive weekly emails about local events and promotions. He is a mentor for Stanford's SSE Labs and a great resource to any young founding tech team.
Berrie Pelser, Social Media Expert and Guru
One of the top persons on sites like Empire Avenue, Twitter and LinkedIn, Berrie has used social media to build a massive following. Not only is he #1 Most Interesting Professional in the World, he is an (WordPress) SEO expert and great at evaluating and giving feedback on social products.
Spencer Tall, Managing Director at Allegis Capital
Spencer serves on the boards of Allegiance, EMN8, IMVU, Solera Networks and Symplified. Prior investments include E.piphany (EPNY), Web TV (acquired by MSFT), and One Touch Systems (acquired by Hughes Satellite). Spencer is renowned for his ability to leverage marketing, distribution and sales opportunities.
David Bradford, Tech Executive, Advisor, and Connector
David has done it all. From being the Chairman of publicly traded Fusion-io, to having major advisory and team roles with companies like Omniture, Novell, SCP Worldwide, and others. He's also one of the most connected people we've ever met. He can provide great advice and feedback for startups and founders.
Yaniv Golan, Startup founder and advisor
Yaniv was the founder/CTO of Yedda, acquired by AOL on 2007 (now AOL Answers). He's a startup advisor in companies like Face.com, RankAbove, and Promodity. He's also a partner at lool Ventures based in Israel.
Ben Parr, Editor-at-Large at Mashable
Ben Parr is a technology journalist and entrepreneur. He is best-known as the Editor-at-Large of Mashable, the world’s largest independent news source dedicated to covering digital culture, social media and technology. He's one of the top social media journalists in technology.
Brandt Andersen, Owner of the NBA D-League Utah Flash
Brandt was the founder and CEO of uSight, Inc's #2 fastest growing company in America (2004 - at age 26!). He currently owns the NBAD League Utah Flash team and has numerous other entertainment related projects. He's a marketing and distribution expert in the fields of sports, entertainment, and software.
Chris Yeh, Startup Investor and Advisor
Chris is a product designer, angel investor, TechCrunch contributor, and former CEO of Ustream. He can provide product, market, and funding feedback and is looking to meet with talented teams in the consumer web/mobile space.
Tedd Johnson, founder at Income.com
Tedd is a serial entrepreneur and has founded several multi-million dollar businesses. He is a world-class expert on sales, marketing, and distribution. Tedd is also an angel investor and his latest project is the soon to be launched Income.com. He can also provide feedback on reaching and keeping customers.
Jeff Tannenbaum, Principal at Blue Run Ventures
Jeff has over 15 years leadership experience building consumer web companies in the entertainment, mobile and technology industries. As a former entrepreneur/founder, and now at BRV, Jeff can provide great insight into improving your product and how to get it to the next level.
Jeff Clavier, Managing Partner of SoftTech VC
Jeff Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. Since 2004, Jeff has invested in close to 100 consumer internet startups in areas like social media, monetization, search, gaming or B2B/B2C web services. With over 20 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience, Jeff is able to add value to companies as they grow from inception to maturity, and hopefully, success.
Live Twitter Chat With @FAKEGRIMLOCK
FAKE GRIMLOCK has graciously offered to answer our burning questions through an exclusive Startup Grind twitter live chat. And by our questions we mean yours! So get your questions ready for the dino who can tell you how to truly STRIP OFF FAIL PAINT, BE ON FIRE and SET COURSE FOR AWESOME.
Jason Calacanis founder @ Mahalo and Launch.is
Jason Calacanis is an entrepreneur, investor, and fire starter. Jason founded Weblogs and sold it to AOL in 2005. In 2008 he founded Mahalo.com. He's also the founder of LAUNCH as well as ThisWeekIn video series.
Kevin Rose founder @ Digg and Oink
Kevin Rose has founded many companies including Digg, Revision3, WeFollow, and now Oink. He has invested in companies like Path, Square, Foursquare, ngmoco, Twitter, Zynga, Formspring, Fab, and many more.