Tech Cocktail was thrilled to have such a stellar group of entrepreneurs sharing their knowledge, tips and experience around starting and running a business. Speakers for the next Startup Mixology are TBA.
Steve Case is one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and a pioneer in making the Internet part of everyday life. He co-founded America Online (AOL) in 1985, when the Internet was in its infancy. Under Steve’s leadership as Chairman and CEO, AOL became the world’s largest and most valuable Internet company.
Travis Kalanick is a successful entrepreneur in the areas of consumer Internet, p2p, and enterprise content delivery. His most recent company, Red Swoosh, was sold to Akamai Technologies in 2007. Prior companies include Scour, the world’s first p2p search engine where Kalanick also attained the dubious distinction of having been sued for $250 billion. Today,
Hooman Radfar, is the chief executive officer and co-founder of ClearSpring. Hooman actively drives platform marketing and strategy initiatives at Clearspring. Last year, Hooman was called to visit the White House, where he, along with a handful of other successful, young technology entrepreneurs, discussed the economy with Obama administration officials. He was also recently named
Alexis Ohanian is a startup guy in Brooklyn who gave a TED talk about a whale. TechCrunch calls him “one of the more passionate and audacious young entrepreneurs in tech.” Hide your kids. After graduating from UVA, he started reddit.com with Steve Huffman. He also founded Breadpig, which creates geeky things, sells them, and gives
Having served billions of page views per month to building social commerce platforms, Aaron leads the long-term technical direction and day to day development of LivingSocial’s core products. Prior to co-founding LivingSocial, Aaron was architect of RevolutionHealth and led the development of Blockbuster’s Online Subscription effort. He holds degrees in Bachelor degrees Computer Science and
Trae is one of Palantir’s Intelligence/Defense forward deployed engineering leads, working directly with several major government agencies on big data analysis challenges. Prior to joining Palantir, he worked as a computational Arabic linguist building enterprise solutions to Arabic/Persian name matching and data enrichment within the Intelligence community. He is from Cincinnati, OH; received a degree
Christopher M. Schroeder is a leading entrepreneur and investor in interactive technologies and social communications. He is Chief Executive Officer and Board Member of HealthCentral, the highest quality collection of condition and wellness-specific interactive experiences focused on people finding and sharing real-life experiences related to their health needs. Backed by Polaris Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The
Eric Koester is the Founder and COO of Zaarly, a location-based, real-time commerce platform. Eric previously served as VP Operations & General Counsel at Appature Inc., a cloud-based relationship marketing software company. Prior to joining Appature, Eric was a corporate and securities attorney for Cooley LLP where he represented public and private technology, energy and
I run Mixergy, a project were proven entrepreneurs teach how they built their businesses. Participants include the founders of LivingSocial, 37signals, Sun Microsystems, Y Combinator and LinkedIn. Previously, I parlayed a stack of credit card debt to build Bradford & Reed, a $30+ million a year online greeting card company. When I’m not running Mixergy,
David J. Steinberg has over 30 years of high technology leadership experience in sales, operations, technology and executive management. He is a leader in cloud and app marketing and sales; most recently, he was CEO of one of the most successful cloud companies through its founding and sale to Symantec for $124M in 2008. Steinberg
Alexis is Co-Founder; VP, Strategic Development of the Curbed Network. The Curbed Network delivers intelligence on real estate & interior design (Curbed.com), restaurants & dining (Eater.com), fashion & shopping (Racked.com) and urban travel (Gridskipper.com). Through the years, Alexis has been involved in every stage of company development from incorporation, to ad sales to capital raising;
Peter is president of GeniusRocket Inc., the first curated creative crowdsourcing company. GeniusRocket’s vetted community of filmmakers, animations, and motion graphic artists have created rich media content for agencies, start-ups, and Fortune 100 brands around the globe. Prior to joining GeniusRocket, Peter was with the Marketing Leadership Council, IBM, Apple, Intrepid Aviation, and for two
Sarah is the founder and CEO of Zenzi, a PR and marketing firm whose mission is to help companies “Be Known” and “Be Found.” The name Zenzi means crescendo, and since 2002, Sarah has successfully created a similar effect for clients including Nestle, Chiquita Brands, Dreyer’s/ Edy’s Ice Cream, Hilton Hotels, SpeedDate.com, TECH Cocktail and more.
Daniel R. Odio is CEO and co-founder of Socialize, Inc (previously PointAbout, Inc.). Socialize is a cloud-based, turn-key social service distributed through APIs and SDKs with a focus on mobile integration. There are massive communities of users hiding inside each mobile app. Socialize is the first platform to leverage each app’s interest-graph, “turning on the
John May is the Managing Partner of the New Vantage Group, which has organized five angel investing organizations in the Washington, D.C. area since 1999, placing funds into more than 50 companies. May is the co-author of two books on angel investing, Every Business Needs an Angel[2] and State of the Art: An Executive Briefing
Peter Corbett is the founder and CEO of iStrategyLabs – an interactive agency that develops creative solutions to clients’ challenges and brings them to life in the digital and physical world. He’s widely known for his creative marketing approaches coupled with a deep technical background, and a focus on civic innovation through community building. Peter
Jill Stelfox is a successful serial entrepreneur, having bought and sold dozens of companies, raised over fifty million dollars in venture capital and returned over 1000X to investors. She currently is CFO and head of Corporate Development at Binary Group, runs the local sessions of the Founder Institute, and sits on several boards. Jill holds
Michelle Hoffman is Founder and CEO of Hoffman CFO Consulting, an outsourced accounting solutions firm offering scalable and customized accounting support for emerging technology companies. Support roles range from CFO consulting, accounting system implementation and operational accounting and financial reporting. Much of Michelle’s work involves helping clients evaluate and improve existing accounting systems or processes,
Sue Wang is a co-founder and partner of Clarity. She has a wide variety of corporate law experience, having done $6-7 billion in transactions over five years at her previous firm. She has mentored entrepreneurs at Startup Weekend and TheFunded Founder Institute. Sue has substantial experience in reviewing and negotiating contracts of all kinds. In
Bobby Ocampo joined Grotech Ventures in 2009 and is an Associate at the firm. He focuses primarily on investment opportunities in software, internet and digital media, communications, and IT services. Bobby is a Board Observer at HelloWallet, Invincea, Personal, SnappCloud, and Zenoss. Prior to joining Grotech, Bobby was an Analyst with Piper Jaffray’s Technology Investment
Glen Hellman helps entrepreneurs figure out what to do and gets them to do it. He’s an angel investor, serial entrepreneur, and has worked for venture capitalists as a turn-around specialist. He’s a principal at Driven Forward, board member at The University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, a Vistage Chair, mentor at the Founder
Leslie is best known for cultivating a culture of execution and exuberance at creative agency JESS3. Named one of the top five female executives in the technology industry by Fast Company, Leslie has been described as the “operational energy” behind JESS3’s explosive growth and international success. Beyond that, The Wall Street Journal has recognized Leslie
Zvi Band is a developer/founder who is passionate about building both products and communities. After serving as CTO of Workstreamer, a B2B collaboration platform, he is currently the founder of Structo, a cloud developer platform, and HeyAstro!, a customizable daily email service. Zvi is also considered a leader in the local tech community, having founded
Michael is an entrepreneur and developer of metrics driven web-based applications. He is the co-founder of Spinnakr, an innovative social marketing analytics and optimization platform serving national political and commercial customers. He is also co-founder of Proudly Made in DC, a project committed to connecting and catalyzing the DC area startup community
Steve is a corporate attorney dedicated to providing practical, business focused legal counsel to entrepreneurial companies as they build, grow and run successful business. Steve has experience representing technology and other high growth companies in numerous seed, angel, early, and expansion round financings; counseling companies in capital formation strategies, corporate governance, employment and compensation matters,
Geoff Willard represents emerging growth companies, their investors, and managers in a wide-range of corporate and commercial transactional matters. Geoff’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financings (including venture capital, strategic, seed, and angel financings), joint ventures and strategic alliances, and other corporate matters. He also advises clients on the formation and
Zac is currently the Sales Manager for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. where he specializes in group sales, venue rentals, and business development focusing on corporate partnerships with companies in the Washington D.C. metro area. In his spare time he continues developing new plays, writes fiction, and plays the saxophone. Zac lives in Kingstowne,
Jen Consalvo is COO and co-editor of Tech Cocktail as well as the co-founder of Shiny Heart Ventures, a technology startup focused on building community driven products that remind people of the joys of life. She has worked in product development for almost 14 years, leading large and small teams in a range of product
Frank Gruber is the founder of Tech Cocktail. He is an entrepreneur and new media journalist focused on sharing his Web product expertise and analysis on Web 2.0, social media and emerging technologies in articles and videos online. His works have been featured in TechCrunch, iMediaConnection, ReadWriteWeb Network and more. Frank was formerly a product
