Founder Dialogues XII- Paul English, CEO and Co-Founder of Blade, October 30th, 2014

We’re excited to announce that Paul English, CEO and co- founder of Blade and former CTO and Founder of Kayak, will be sharing his success story at Founder Dialogues XII on October 30th, 2014 at the Microsoft New England R&D Center from 6pm – 8pm.

Registration: Open to the public.

Paul English is CEO and Founder of Blade and KAYAK, a company which will co-found 2-3 consumer technologies startups each year in Boston.

Previously, Paul was CTO and Co-founder of KAYAK, and previous to that Paul was President of Boston Light Software, an ecommerce company sold to Intuit, where Paul then served as VP Technology.

Paul is a Director of Partners In Health and Village Health Works, both organizations providing quality health care to populations of extreme poverty.

Paul was briefly an entrepreneur in-residence at Greylock, a co-founder and Director of Intermute, the founder of GetHuman, the founder of the World Xiangqi League, cofounder and Chairman of Mancala, Inc., Senior Vice President of Engineering and Product Management at Interleaf. He also did contract programming for the US Air Force, operations research programming for Data General, programming for a medical device company, and even some video game software and sound-effect development.

Paul received a BS and MS in computer science from University of Massachusetts. Paul regularly lectures on entrepreneurship topics at Boston-area universities, and was named Chief Technology Officer of the year by Mass Technology Leadership Council in 2009. Paul has been an advisor to LinkedIn, ELERTS, FanSnap, Roost, and Pixable.

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Limited Capacity: Please Register Early

Thanks to NEVCA and Microsoft for their support of Founder Dialogues

Founder Dialogues XI – Jeff Seibert & Wayne Chang, Co- Founders of Crashlytics, March 11th, 2014

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We’re excited to announce that Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang, co- founders and of Crashlytics, will be kicking off the 2014 series and sharing their success story at Founder Dialogues XI on March 11th, 2014 at the Microsoft New England R&D Center from 6pm – 8pm.

Registration: Open to the public.

Serial-entrepreneurs Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang have successfully collaborated to fuel the future of mobile development in Boston’s back yard. These two young entrepreneurs co- founded the mobile crash reporting startup Crashlytics, which was acquired by social networking giant Twitter in January 2013 for nine figures. Both have spent the last two decades immersed in building and creating innovative technologies.

Jeff discovered his passion for entrepreneurship and programing at a young age, founding Arios Software while in high school in Baltimore, MD. He later went on to gain experience at Apple in both marketing and engineering capacities. In 2007, Jeff co-founded Increo and served as its COO and lead architect until its acquisition by Box in August of 2009. He subsequently oversaw the integration of Increo’s document preview and annotation technologies into the company’s cloud-based content platform.

Wayne is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, hacker, and angel investor. wayne has been passionate about technology from a very young age, writing his first software program on Apple lle at age 7. In college, he founded peer-to-peer file sharing platform i2Hub and was instrumental in the early stages of many top technology companies including Napster and Dropbox. He also serves as a mentor for TechStars, Extreme Startups and MassChallenge. Wayne is passionate about the user experience and building relationships with developers to help influence the future of mobile development. 

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FD X: Steve Papa of Endeca, February 26th, 2013

A special thank you to Endeca‘s founder and former CEO, Steve Papa, for sharing his fascinating founder journey with the Boston community.  

Steve provided the Founder Dialogues X crowd with a unique glimpse into his firsthand experience being immersed in a rapidly advancing technological ecosystem.  He founded the enterprise software company Endeca in 1999 and was its CEO until it was Oracle’s 6th largest acquisition ever on announcement in 2011. Endeca pioneered Guided Navigation, one of the leading search innovations of the decade, and made it an industry standard online. 

Endeca’s name stems from the definition “serendipitous discovery” which symbolizes Steve’s breakthrough realization that organizing data, much like merchandise organization in physical stores, could increase a company’s revenue by 30% or more.  In 2003, Walmart.com became powered by Endeca and the legitimacy of the company’s success became tangible.

Thanks to returning and new participants, your contributions helped raise funds for BUILD Boston.  BUILD’s mission is to use entrepreneurship to excite and propel disengaged, low-income students through high school to college success.  The Founder Dialogues event series is dedicated to celebrating entrepreneurial success within the Boston startup community.  Please stay tuned for the announcement of our next speaker soon.  Our vision is to showcase local successes and inspire the Boston community to build the next generation of great startup success stories.

We hope you enjoy Steve’s story in the video capturing FD X along with the photos below.  Feel free to tweet any thoughts or comments using #fdialogues.

Special Uber offer ($20 off) to Founder Dialogues X : Tomorrow 2/26

In celebration of the 10th Founder Dialogues event in the series, Founder Dialogues X is excited to offer $20 off a town car ride to our event for anyone who hasn’t tried Uber yet! Haven’t heard of Uber? No problem! Uber is an iPhone/Android app that lets you tag your location and summon a professional driver to your side within minutes. Once in the car, the driver will take you wherever you need to go. The fare is billed to your card, with no need to tip, so you don’t have to worry about handling cash. For Uber’s reliable service area, as well as a detailed breakdown of rates, check out http://www.uber.com/boston.

New users, to activate your $20 ride discount use the code “BosFounderDialogues”. Head into the app and enter the code when registering or or go to http://www.uber.com/go/bosfounderdialogues to sign up online!

If you have not registered for tomorrow’s Founder Dialogues X featuring Steve Papa, founder and former CEO of Endeca, please click here.

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Founder Dialogues X – Steve Papa, Founder of Endeca, February 26th, 2013

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We’re excited to announce that Steve Papa, founder and former CEO of Endeca, will be kicking off the 2013 series and sharing his success story at Founder Dialogues X on February 26th, 2013 at the Microsoft New England R&D Center from 6pm – 8pm.

Registration: Open to the public.  Founder Dialogues X will give back to the community as a fundraiser.  We will be charging $10/ticket, donating proceeds to BUILD Boston, an organization that uses entrepreneurship to excite and propel disengaged, low-income students through high school to college success.  Along with Founder Collective,  Microsoft NERD has generously sponsored the event by donating the space and providing a free drink with each donation ticket.  Students may have the option to come for free if they present a valid student I.D. at the door. 

Steve Papa is an active investor, board member and mentor sponsoring the creation of a wide variety of tech companies.

He founded the enterprise software company Endeca in 1999 and was its CEO until it was Oracle’s 6th largest acquisition ever on announcement in 2011. Endeca pioneered Guided Navigation, one of the leading search innovations of the decade, and made it an industry standard online. Endeca’s solutions today play a key role in the online commerce, enterprise business intelligence and national security markets. Prior to its acquisition, Endeca had achieved $750M in cumulative worldwide revenue and 700 customers, and had built an exceptionally talented team of over 500 headquartered in Cambridge, MA. Under his leadership, Endeca was named the fastest growing private company in Massachusetts by the Boston Business Journal and recognized as one of the winners of the E&Y EOY awards program.

Prior to Endeca, Steve was part of the original MIT $50K team creating Akamai, a member of the early team at Inktomi in charge of creating the company’s infrastructure caching business, and spent time at Teradata and also at Venrock, the Rockefeller Family’s venture capital arm. Steve holds an MBA from Harvard and a BS in Operations Research and Economics from Princeton University. He is also active as an advisory board member for the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard.

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About BUILD

BUILD’s mission is to use entrepreneurship to excite and propel disengaged, low-income students through high school to college success. BUILD students develop their own business ideas, write business plans, pitch to funders, and launch real businesses. This real-world business experience makes school relevant and motivates disengaged youth to succeed. To help them become college-eligible, students also receive tutoring, test preparation, and college advising.  Entrepreneurship is the hook—but college is the goal. Over the past thirteen years, 95% of BUILD seniors have been accepted to college, with over 80% accepted to 4 year colleges and universities. (www.build.org/boston)

 

FD IX: Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot, October 22nd, 2012

A special thank you to HubSpot‘s co-founder and CTO, Dharmesh Shah, for sharing his incredible founder journey with the Boston community.  

After finding his passion for computer programming, Dharmesh decided not to return to India and to pursue his calling in the US.  A self-proclaimed startup addict, Dharmesh tells his stories of serial entrepreneurship and angel investing. HubSpot is a company to watch and its success is not surprising given its founder’s work ethic, attention to detail and drive.

HubSpot provides inbound marketing software that helps businesses attract, convert and engage customers on the web.  The company has over 8,000 customers and is a two-time member of the Inc. 500.  Based in Cambridge, MA, HubSpot continues to grow and has been listed year after year as one of Boston’s Top Places to Work.

Thanks to returning and new participants.  The Founder Dialogues event series is dedicated to celebrating entrepreneurial success within the Boston startup community.  Please stay tuned for the announcement of our next speaker soon.  Our vision is to showcase local successes and inspire the Boston community to build the next generation of great startup success stories.

We hope you enjoy Dharmesh’s wit in the video capturing FD IX along with the photos below.  Feel free to tweet any thoughts or comments using #fdialogues.

FD IX from Founder Dialogues on Vimeo.

As always, a special thanks to Greg Joyce of Willoughby Films for his video talents.  We would also like to thank VisibleGains and VentureFizz for their continued support.  Ian Holmes kindly joined Nathalie Bishop in photographing and organization for the event.  Also, a big thank you to Microsoft for providing the space for Founder Dialogues.

Save the Date: Founder Dialogues IX – Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder and CTO of HubSpot, October 22nd, 2012

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We’re kicking off Fall with our announcement that Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot, has wonderfully accepted our invitation to share his story at Founder Dialogues IX on October 22nd, 2012 at the Microsoft New England R&D Center from 6pm – 8pm. 

Dharmesh is co-founder and CTO of HubSpot.  HubSpot provides inbound marketing software that helps businesses attract, convert and engage customers on the web.  The company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts has over 7,500 customers and was ranked the second fastest growing software company in the Inc. 500.  Hubspot has raised over $65 million in venture capital.

Dharmesh is the co-author of “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs” published by Wiley in October, 2009.  The book has been one of the top 50 marketing books on Amazon for more than two years.

He also authors OnStartups.com, a popular startup blog with over 220,000 members in its online community.  He is an active member of the boston area entrepreneurial community, an angel investor in over 30 startups, and a frequent speaker on the topic of startups and inbound marketing.

Dharmesh hold a BS in Computer Science from UAB and an MS in the Management of Technology from MIT.

 

 

 

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Save the Date: Founder Dialogues VIII – Scott Savitz Founder of Shoebuy, May 9th, 2012

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We’re excited to announce that Scott Savitz, founder and former CEO of shoebuy.com, has graciously accepted our invitation to share his intriguing story at Founder Dialogues VIII on May 9th, 2012 at the Microsoft New England R&D Center from 6pm – 8pm. 

 

Scott Savitz is the founder and former CEO of Shoebuy.  Scott is a strong advocate of entrepreneurship and innovation, especially where it aims to raise the bar on the consumer experience. Scott founded Shoebuy in 1999, and served as its CEO for twelve years through its sale to IAC. Under his guidance, Shoebuy became one of the largest online retailers in the country, with over 1 million products and $3.5 billion in inventory available for sale, serving over 8 million visitors a month. Scott owns and is Chairman of Smart Lunches. He also serves on the boards of Bluestem Brands, SimpleTuition, Two Ten, and MITX, and serves as an Advisor for Olejo Stores and On The Spot Systems, Inc. He also serves on several committees focused on fostering growth and a more robust New England economy including the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and 12 X 12. Scott received a B.A. in English from the University of Colorado and currently resides in Boston, MA. He is a frequent industry speaker and has received numerous awards and accolades including Ernst & Young’s New England Entrepreneur of the Year.

 

About Shoebuy: 

Shoebuy is the largest retailer on the Internet focused on all categories of footwear and related apparel and accessories. Shoebuy has partnerships with over 1,200 manufacturers and represents over 1,000,000 products from top brands including Aerosoles, Allen-Edmonds, Bass, Bostonian, Brooks, Bruno Magli, Clarks, Crocs, Dr. Martens, Easy Spirit, ECCO, Florsheim, Franco Sarto, Hush Puppies, Johnston & Murphy, Keds, K-Swiss, Mephisto, Merrell, Naturalizer, New Balance, Patagonia, PUMA, Reebok, Rockport, Samsonite, Saucony, Sebago, Skechers, Sperry Top-Sider, Stride Rite, Stuart Weitzman, Timberland, and many more. Shoebuy is rated one of the top eTailers in the country for outstanding service by BizRate and in the top 10 in online retail satisfaction for apparel/accessories by Foresee Results.

In 2006, Shoebuy was acquired by IAC, which owns other leading properties including Ask.com, Match.com, and Citysearch. Shoebuy has enjoyed stellar growth, increasing revenues on average 50% a year since launching the Shoebuy site in January, 2000 and tripling revenues since being acquired by IAC. Shoebuy is ranked by Hitwise as one of the top 10 most visited apparel and accessory shopping and classified sites with over 8 million unique visitors a month.
 

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Save the Date: Founder Dialogues VII – Russ Wilcox Founder of E Ink, January 23, 2012

We’re thrilled to kick off the new year with our announcement of Russ Wilcox founder of E Ink as our guest for Founder Dialogues VII on January 23, 2012 at the Microsoft New England R&D Center from 6pm – 8pm.

Russ Wilcox co-founded E Ink Corporation in 1997 to launch an electronic paper display technology invented at the MIT Media Lab.  As CEO he led the company through six years of rapid growth from $1 million to $160 million in revenue.  Under his leadership E Ink scaled up its processes and shipped tens of millions of displays, notably for popular eBook devices such as the Amazon Kindle, SONY Reader, and B&N Nook.  After selling E Ink for $450 million, he traveled around the world with his family for twelve months, returning recently to rejoin the Boston startup community.  Russ graduated with honors from Harvard College and was a Baker Scholar at the Harvard Business School and is a co-inventor of twenty-five issued patents.  He is a 2009 Mass High-Tech All-Star and Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year. 

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FD VI: Niraj Shah & Steven Conine of Wayfair November 8, 2011

Niraj Shah & Steven Conine, co-founders of  Wayfair (FKA CSN Stores) gave the Boston startup community an inside look into how a $500+ million home goods online retailer was born.  Niraj hit the nail on the head when he said that “Boston has a lot more going on than you would think, there are not enough self-promoters.”  FD VI told the story of these modest founders by showcasing Wayfair, whose success is anything but modest. 

Below you can learn about Niraj and Steve’s college-old friendship, their thought process while looking for a start-up opportunity (they even considered acquiring an ecommerce site for birdhouses), as well as their current successes. These guys are far from done with innovating, as Steve candidly shared, “we treat our business like a marathon, not a sprint.”  

We feel incredibly fortunate to have all these incredible founders join us for the Founder Dialogues event series.  We extend our gratitude to Niraj and Steve for sharing their story with us.  As always, thanks to returning and new participants.  We will be announcing the next speaker for the new year soon so stay tuned. 

Please enjoy a video and photographs capturing the event.

A special thanks to Tyler Magnin, VisibleGains and VentureFizz for producing the video of this event.  Dale Davidson kindly volunteered his time to capture the moments and photograph.  Also, a big thank you to Microsoft for providing the space for Founder Dialogues.