Fall Quarter E145
Opportunity Analysis Project
Team Mentors
Andre Vanier
Founder & CEO, DDAVKM
Andre Vanier is the CEO of DDAVKM, a leading provider of consumer telecom services. The company has won strongly enthusiastic reviews from consumers and has partnered with a number of America’s best known advertisers. Andre holds a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. While in graduate school his work experience included positions at PayPal and Gunderson Dettmer. Prior to graduate school he worked at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco. His client work centered on software, e-commerce and logistics. In 1994 he co-founded United Students for Veterans' Health, the nation's largest non-profit student organization focused on hospitalized veterans. Andre has also served under two California governors as a commission member on the Governor's Office on Service and Volunteerism.
Armen Berjikly
Founder & CEO, Experience Project
Armen Berjikly graduated from Stanford with a BS in Computer Science, and a MS in Management Science, with a focus on Entrepreneurship. Armen was also a Mayfield fellow, and worked at his Mayfield company, Echelon Corporation, after graduation as a product manager responsible for launching an enterprise hardware and software product line in the green energy space from paper requirements to final delivery. After a close friend's diagnosis with a serious illness, Armen started work on Experience Project, Inc, an online venue for people to connect with others who share their life experiences and can provide each other with personalized support and information.
Aydin Senkut
Founder & President, Felicis Ventures
Aydin Senkut is the Founder and President of Felicis Ventures. He's an active angel investor in early-stage, consumer internet start-ups. Besides Mogad, his current portfolio encompasses over 25 companies including Brightroll, Freewebs, Meraki Networks, Mint, Powerset, Saynow, and Voicestar (acquired by Marchex).
Prior to starting Felicis Ventures, he was a Senior Manager at Google, responsible for strategic partner development and account management in Japan and Asia Pacific. Aydin joined Google in 1999 as a Product Manager to launch Google's first 10 international sites and then became the first International Sales Manager at Google, closing numerous strategic syndication partners on 4 continents. Before joining Google, Aydin was the Product Manager for Data Visualization and Data Mining software MineSet, and led the business development efforts for the financial services industry at SGI.
Aydin received a BS in Business Administration with Honors from Boston University. He also earned an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the School of Arts at the University of Pennsylvania with a scholarship from Long Term Credit Bank of Japan. He serves on the board of Lead 21 and is a member of The Director's Circle of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Charles Hudson
Director of Business Development, Gaia Online
Charles is the Director for Business Development at Gaia Online, the fastest growing online hangout for teens. In his role, Charles focuses on distribution and content licensing opportunities for Gaia.
Prior to Gaia, Charles was a Manager for New Business Development at Google, focused on developing new partnership opportunities for the company's early-stage products in the advertising, mobile, and e-commerce markets. Prior to joining Google, Charles was a Product Manager for IronPort Systems, a leading provider of anti-spam hardware appliances. Earlier in his career, Charles was a Sr. Associate with In-Q-Tel, the strategic venture capital group for the Central Intelligence Agency. In his role as a Senior Associate, Charles covered the information security sector, with a focus on identifying investment opportunities with the potential to deliver significant value to the CIA and the commercial market in the short and long term.
Charles holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Stanford University. In addition to his work at Google, Charles is on the Advisory Board for BizWorld, a non-profit focused on educating students about business, and the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, a non-profit focused on connecting entrepreneurs, ideas, and capital.
C.J. Fitzgerald
General Partner, Summit Partners
Mr. Fitzgerald is a General Partner at Summit Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm, focusing on investments in technology, financial services and consumer products. Prior to Summit, Mr. Fitzgerald was the chief executive officer of North Systems, Inc., a software vendor. Mr. Fitzgerald serves as a member of the board of directors for Airborne, Inc., a developer and marketer of OTC health products; GCA Holdings, Inc., a provider of cash access services for the gaming industry; GoldenGate Software, Inc., a provider of infrastructure software; Help/Systems, Inc., a provider of automation and productivity software for the IBM iSeries; Mo Industries Holdings, Inc., a designer, manufacturer and wholesaler of premium branded apparel; and Visual Sciences, Inc. (formerly WebSideStory, Inc.) a pioneer in digital marketing applications. Mr. Fitzgerald holds a B.S. degree in computer science, with honors, from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.
Gokul Rajaram
Director of Product Management, Google
As product management director for Google AdSense, Gokul Rajaramdevelops and implements the product strategy for Google AdSense, an advertising program that enables publishers to monetize their websites while making their site more useful for visitors. In this role, Gokul defines the product roadmap and strategy for the AdSense program and works with the engineering team on executing upon this roadmap. Gokul earned his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, his M.S. in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin, and his B.Tech in Computer Science from the Indian institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he was awarded the president of India's Gold Medal for being class valedictorian.
Interests: New Media, Internet-related businesses, Software as a Service.
Greg Badros
Sr. Director Engineering, Google.
Greg Badros earned bachelors degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Duke University. After co-founding a successful startup,
he continued to graduate school and earned his masters and doctoral degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of
Washington in Seattle. Starting at age 14, Greg has accumulated over a dozen research and trade publications and has spoken at numerous
conferences internationally. His research interests include software engineering, declarative representations and constraint satisfaction,
distributed systems, and programming language design and implementation. Greg joined Google in early 2003 as a member of the
systems lab, and is now Sr. Director of Engineering. He led the AdSense team to be a multi-billion-dollar product, and currently
leads the Gmail, Calendar and Reader teams. In his free time, he enjoys tennis, skiing, and rollerblading.
Jim Tybur
Principal, Trinity Ventures
Jim joined Trinity in 2004 with seven years of experience in internet services and software. Jim most recently worked in the corporate strategy and business development group at Symantec, the world leader in security and data protection solutions, and at PolyServe, a venture backed systems software company.
Previously, Jim co-founded a software as a service infrastructure platform. Jim has also managed new products for About.com and helped launch several early internet companies while working for the Boston Consulting Group in Atlanta and Singapore.
Katherine Barr
Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
&
Erin Turner
Sr. Director Web Svcs & Publishing, Trion Games
Katherine Barr is a member of the investment team at MDV focused on Internet-enabled companies. Prior to joining MDV, she was a Senior Consultant at Vantage Partners (spin-off of the Harvard Negotiation Project) helping high tech clients such as IBM, Cisco and HP to better negotiate and manage their critical business relationships (including customer, supplier, outsourcing service provider or buyer, and alliance partners).
Before Vantage, she worked as a Product Development Manager at HSA, an education technology startup in Boston, leading a team that developed multi-media products and online learning systems.
Katherine teaches a yearly Professional Education Negotiation program for the School of Engineering at Stanford. During her graduate studies at Stanford, she was a research and teaching assistant for the US-Asia Technology Management Center in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering. She was also involved in running the E-Challenge business plan competition for BASES (Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students).
Katherine received her B.A. from McGill University, and completed an M.A. and the M.S. core curriculum in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.
Erin Turner is Senior Director of Publishing & Web Services for Trion World Network, the publisher and developer of games and original entertainment for a connected world. At Trion, Turner leads the online publishing division to deliver connected-client applications & services for the global market. This includes product strategy and development for web, mobile, e-commerce, and syndication.
Turner brings to Trion 10 years of product development and product marketing experience in consumer web applications & client software. Most recently, she was Director of Global E-Commerce for Electronic Arts (EA), where she launched the digital distribution of games and in-game content for the PC games market in North America, Europe, and Asia. Prior to her position as E-Commerce Director, Turner directed product development for EA's online SDK which included online game capabilities and community applications. Her game credits include Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, The Sims 2 University, James Bond 007: Everything of Nothing, and James Bond 007: Nightfire.
Turner launched her career in the web arena as founding CEO of Gigabeat, a music search & recommendation engine acquired by Napster in 2001. She holds a M.S. from Stanford's School of Engineering and a B.A. in Economics, also from Stanford.
Rajat Paharia
Founder & CEO, Bunchball
&
Laura Pfeifer
Director of Everything Else, Bunchball
Rajat Paharia is the founder and CEO of Bunchball, the leading provider of web catalytics solutions. An entrepreneur at heart, Rajat's skill set combines a unique understanding of technology and design that stems from a four year career at design firm IDEO where he was co-director of the Software Experiences Practice. While there he worked with clients including AT&T Wireless, Avaya, Microsoft, McDonald's, HP and Philips. Before IDEO, Rajat worked at Philips Consumer Electronics, IBM Research and ViewStar. He has a Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, with a focus on Human Computer Interaction, and an undergraduate degree from the University of California Berkeley.
Laura Pfeifer is the Director of Everything Else at Bunchball, the leading provider of web catalytics solutions. Laura's role encompasses everything from product management and QA to market analysis and financial modeling. Her flexibility and broad knowledge base come from previous technical and management experience at various startups including Integrated Media Measurement Inc, where she managed the mission-critical support team during the rollout of their cutting-edge media measurement product; Witness Systems, where she led company-wide initiatives to identify and address skill gaps; and Blue Pumpkin Software, where she designed and implemented software solutions for some of their largest customers. She has a master's degree in Engineering Management from Stanford, and a bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from Rutgers University.
Mike Maples
Managing Partner, Maples Investments
Mike Maples, Jr. is the managing partner of Maples Investments, a micro-cap venture firm based in Silicon Valley. Before becoming a full-time investor, he worked in a variety of executive and management roles in high-growth companies. His background spans a variety of markets including consumer technology, small business, and the enterprise, and he has served in various executive roles in product development, marketing, and corporate strategy.
Most recently, Mike co-founded Motive, Inc., the world's leading broadband software company in 1997 and played key roles in its growth from raw start-up through sales of $100 million. Motive was one of the only successful technology IPOs in 2004, and the most successful infrastructure software IPO for the prior three years. At Motive, Mike was General Manager of Motive's Corporate Business Unit, as well as Chief Marketing and Strategy officer.
Prior to Motive, Mike was responsible for worldwide product marketing at Tivoli Systems, where he managed the company's product portfolio from its early-stage development through its 1995 IPO and growth to a $750M line of business within the IBM Software Group. Mike began his professional career at Silicon Graphics, where he served in business development and product marketing roles.
In his spare time Mike is an amateur artist, movie-maker, and calligrapher. He holds an Engineering degree from Stanford University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a guest-lecturer on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas.
Mike Brown
Principal, Foundation Capital
Mike joined the Foundation team in 2007. He is focused on working with passionate, energetic teams in the Internet, digital media, mobile application and consumer device arenas. Prior to joining Foundation, Mike spent six years with Partech International, where he led or championed Partech's investments in companies including RockYou!, Wazap, mSnap Interactive, Replay Solutions, Ingrian Networks, and PentaSafe Security Technologies (BMC).
Prior to entering the technology investment field, Mike was an entrepreneur, helping grow Bluefire Systems, an enterprise software company dedicated to inventory management and demand planning for large retail and consumer goods clients. Mike managed the Company's employee hiring and client training functions, and he implemented Bluefire's software for clients such as Disney, The Body Shop and Ashford.com. As an entrepreneur, Mike also learned the challenges of being a member of a small, bootstrapped company including: taking out the garbage, hunting for office space, making Costco runs and helping the team bug-test the application prior to a new release.
Mike started his career at McKinsey and Company where he was a consultant for two years in McKinsey's San Francisco office. Mike served clients across a variety of industries from high-tech to explosives (thus satisfying his James Bond fantasy).
Outside of work, Mike loves to watch independent films, enjoy great food and wine, study foreign languages and brainstorm with friends about the future of the Internet.
Mike holds an MBA from Stanford where was an Arjay Miller scholar, and a BA from Yale College with honors.
Yael Shacham
Product Manager, Google
&
Othman Laraki
Product Manager, Google
For the past two years, Yael has led Mobile Search at Google, from Google SMS, to the Mobile Web search experience. In addition, Yael has expanded SMS connectivity for Google internationally and integrated mobile messaging into Google products. Prior to joining the mobile team, Yael worked on the AdWords product team, developing products to enable advertisers and customer service to better manage customer accounts.
Yael holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University. At Stanford, Yael was the President of BASES for two years and, prior to that, ran the Entrepreneur's Challenge.
Othman (awaiting bio)
Ravi Belani
Associate, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Ravi Belani is an Associate and Kauffman Fellow at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where he focuses on technology-enabled services and personalized medicine investments. Ravi brings experiences with new ventures and established firms to his role. Prior to Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Ravi worked in product management at software startup Zaplet (acquired by MetricStream). Ravi has also worked in product management at enterprise software company Extensity (IPO’d then acquired by GEAC) as a Mayfield Fellow. As a management consultant at McKinsey and Company’s San Francisco office, Ravi worked with Fortune 500 hi tech and biotech companies on a range of strategic issues, including market attractiveness assessments, pricing, channel strategy, and new product development processes. He has also worked at Medtronic on wireless communication technologies for remote patient monitoring and in equity research at Bridgewater Associates.
Ravi is a Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi graduate of Stanford University, holding a BS with Distinction and MS in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. Ravi also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. As a Board Fellow at Harvard, Ravi served the Global Board of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). Email: ravi@dfj.com
Sergio Monsalve
Principal, Norwest Ventures
Sergio is a venture capital investor at Norwest Venture Capital (www.nvp.com) where he is focused on investments in the consumer internet and software sectors. Sergio’s focus is to help entrepreneurs conceptualize and develop great startups in the consumer space. Prior to NVP, Sergio was the first business executive and Vice President of Marketing at Photobucket (www.photobucket.com) which was sold to News Corp for $300 Million. At Photobucket, Sergio drove viral marketing, public awareness, and user experience, which helped accelerate Photobucket’s growth to more than 25 million unique visitors per month in just a few years from inception. Photobucket is now one of the top 50 most visited sites on the internet and the leading photo & video hosting and sharing service on the internet. Prior to that, Sergio was General Manager of the consumer electronics marketplace at eBay (www.ebay.com), which he grew from $150 million to over $500 million in gross merchandise sales in 3 years. Prior to eBay, Sergio was the co-founder and led sales and marketing at Cymerc from inception to more than $15 million in sales. Sergio serves on the board directors of Adzilla and Fatdoor; he is also an advisor to several early-stage entrepreneurs. Sergio holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.
Seth Sternberg
Founder & CEO, meebo
After graduating from Yale in 2001 in Political Science, Seth looked to understand the black box of big-business decision making and spent three years in Corporate Development at IBM leading various M&A transactions. Seth then left for Stanford Business School. After a summer internship at Private Equity group Warburg Pincus, he co-founded a startup with two friends. meebo, a web site for instant messaging, grew rapidly and Seth chose to put Stanford on hold to pursue the venture. Seth, meebo’s CEO, led the initial capital raise of $3.5 million from Sequoia Capital. meebo continues to grow and serves 6 million people monthly, having raised an additional $9 million in funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Seth enjoys tennis and rollerblading and is an avid private pilot.
Areas of expertise: Consumer Internet, User Experience, Starting a company from scratch with $0 investment, Raising VC, Hiring, Building a team, Monetizing in a way users actually enjoy :), M&A (ok, I'm a bit rusty on this one! )
Tom Fountain
Principal, Mayfield Fund
Tom Fountain is a Principal at Mayfield Fund focused on infrastructure software, networking, storage, and security. Tom’s investments include Akimbi (acquired by EMC/VMware) and Webroot. He also works with Cemaphore, Mendocino Software, Mimosa Systems, and WiChorus. He previously served on the board of directors for Scalix (acquired by Xandros) and worked with Deterimina (acquired by EMC/VMware). Prior to joining Mayfield in 2003, Tom was co-founder of Ingrian Networks, a leader in network and database security. Tom previously served on the faculty at Stanford University in both the electrical engineering and computer science departments. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Tom was founder and CEO of a software development and retail sales firm with operations in four states. He is the co-inventor of ten U.S. and four international patent-pending technologies in networking, security, and operating systems. Tom was a PhD student in electrical engineering at Stanford University, where he earned an MBA with distinction as an Arjay Miller Scholar, an MS in Electrical Engineering, an MS in Computer Science, and a BS in Computer Systems Engineering.
Trae Vassallo
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Trae Vassallo is a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Since joining the firm in 2002, Trae has put her technical and entrepreneurial background to work with companies in two main areas of focus: Greentech and Consumer Internet. Trae works closely with the management teams of Ausra, utility grade solar provider; Altarock Energy, geothermal development company; Terralliance, technology driven O&G exploration; GloriOil, enhanced oil extraction using biotechnology; Aggregate Knowledge, a platform for online discovery and helping incubate a new start-up focused on an immersive online experience with several recent Stanford grads.
Trae continues to work closely with companies in mobile and security including: PodShow, Digital Chocolate, LifeLock, 3VR Security and Fortify Software.
Prior to KPCB, Trae was a co-founder of Good Technology, a KPCB portfolio company (acquired by Motorola) that provides an end-to-end wireless corporate email solution. While at Good, Trae helped orchestrate the development of the G100 handheld device. Prior to Good Technology, Trae worked as a design engineer at Ideo Product Development where she developed a range of products including the PalmV, the Dell Latitude Docking station and many others. Trae holds 13 patents.
Trae earned a Bachelor's and Master's in Mechanical Engineering with honors from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Trae is passionate about new technology, good design and spending time with her husband and two children.