I make product teams go fast.

I work with product teams and innovation leaders. I've written a book and contributed to several others.

This is my garage where I keep my portfolio of random projects.

I keep a personal blog is in my living room.

I run and work in my office.

                    BUILD

                    Volunteer Mentor

                    October 2009- May 2011

                    I volunteered with BUILD to teach entrepreneurship to high school students at Oakland Tech and help them get into college. My team designed and sold lanyards with the Oakland Tech colors.

                    National Sun Yat-Sen University

                    International Management and Marketing

                    September 2006- February 2007

                    • Exchange student program
                    • Co-founder and marketing manager of The Immortal Dodos, international students’ basketball team.

                    Lean Deck Clinic

                    Creator and Co-organizer

                    July 2010- November 2010

                    Gregarious Narain and I put together this event to help entrepreneurs learn how to pitch investors in a workshop setting with venture capitalists, angel investors, and other experts giving honest feedback.

                    SVstartup.com

                    Creator

                    December 2010- January 2013

                    At the suggestions of Jonathan Nelson from Hackers and Founders, I created a wiki to help people moving to Silicon Valley to start a startup. Then link spammers took it over.

                    Dalton

                    High School

                    September 1989- June 1993

                    • Model United Nations

                    Carnegie Mellon University

                    Philosophy

                    August 1993- June 1995

                    • Scholastic honors - Dean’s List with High Honors, Fall 1994
                    • DAT (Doherty A Tower)
                    • Member of the Philosophy Brute Squad

                    New York University

                    BA, Philosophy

                    September 1995- August 1998

                    International University in Germany

                    MBA, International Management and Marketing

                    May 2005- February 2007

                    • Founder and President of the Salsa Club
                    • Lead writer of the Student Body Constitution
                    • MBA Student Body Representative
                    • President of the Chess Club

                    SECUDE International LLC (Vietnam)

                    Chairman & General Manager

                    February 2008- February 2009

                    Originally in Vietnam for a two month period to restructure the marketing department, I was responsible for managing a team of 32.5 staff during the departure of the local GM and global CTO. Local operations included the R&D department for our Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Single Sign-On (SSO) products as well as the marketing department responsible for worldwide marketing support.

                    KissMobs

                    Team Member

                    July 2010- July 2010

                    KissMobs was a Startup Weekend project. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only Startup Weekend Project that ended the weekend cash flow positive.

                    Unfortunately we didn't continue, but there are some posts about it here and here.

                    Startup Karaoke

                    Meetup Organizer

                    September 2010- October 2010

                    I like startups. I like karaoke. Great things go great together.

                    'nuff said.

                    Startup Weekend

                    Organizer

                    April 2011- January 2012

                    I ran two events with Startup Weekend. Chris McCann from StartupDigest said of the last one, "That was the highest quality Startup Weekend I've ever been to!"

                    I also currently hold the speed record for organizing a StartupWeekend in 14 days. We had 9 days to sell tickets and managed to sell out.

                    Lean Startup Circle

                    Boots on the Ground

                    April 2012- July 2016

                    Building lean leaders at Lean Startup Circle.

                    I help setup new groups, create a world wide network of lean startup organizers, help existing groups find their sustainable business model (even if non-profit), and hack a little bit on leanstartupcircle.com

                    Music Industry, various locations

                    Artist, Producer, Arranger, and Bandleader

                    August 1996- March 2005

                    I worked in various positions in the music industry. I recorded, produced, and edited three full length CDs and an EP (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003) as well as managed all aspects of CD manufacturing, graphic design, and layout. I established digital and retail distribution outlets, developed marketing campaigns (including print advertisements, CD release parties, and reviews), and booked national concert tours.

                    SECUDE International LLC

                    VP of Marketing

                    June 2005- February 2007

                    I worked with the sales team to develop and implement marketing campaigns for the North American market focusing on Single Sign-On for the SAP market. This included creating sales collateral including white papers, presentations, and product flyers. This work was done concurrent with advanced studies.

                    SECUDE International AG

                    Business Unit Manager

                    February 2007- October 2007

                    I was responsible for the profit and loss of our Full Disk Encryption product. This included making all business decisions including alliances and acquisitions. I also worked with the marketing and sales teams to create the marketing plan and draft the marketing/sales collateral, white papers, presentations, and website material.

                    SECUDE International AG (again)

                    VP & General Manager, Data Protection Division

                    November 2007- February 2009

                    I was responsible for the profit and loss of our Full Disk Encryption, email security, and file/folder encryption products. This included making all business decisions including alliances and acquisitions. I also worked with the marketing and sales teams to create the marketing plan and draft the marketing/sales collateral, white papers, presentations, and website material.

                    startupSQUARE

                    Co-founder

                    May 2009- December 2010

                    Opportunities won't wait. Every entrepreneur knows the frustration of seeing a potential business pass by because they couldn't find the right business partner, funding, or other needed resource. We enable entrepreneurship by creating a space where co-founders can meet one another and brainstorm the next big idea. Then we turn those ideas into businesses by matching them with funding, tools, and services in a virtual marketplace. But we want to go beyond that. We'd like to become a long term business partner who helps companies find the tools, services, and funding they need to thrive. We pledge to continue to push our business model further down the lifecycle of startups and tie our key metrics to the metrics of our customers. We will judge our success on the basis of whether or not we're able to increase the percentage of entrepreneurs on our site who are able to form businesses and the percentage of those businesses that succeed. In short, we want you to get your startup started!

                    Kromatic

                    Innovation Coach, Advisor, Speaker, Author, Mentor, Miscreant

                    December 2010- September 2023

                    I coach startups and intrapreneurs on adopting innovation principles into practice.

                    I've worked with companies as early stage as $0 revenue to larger enterprises with >$50B in revenue. While the situation changes and tactics must be adapted, the principles remain the same.

                    I coach using hands on techniques including workshops and ongoing coaching, not theories and 2x2 business school presentations. I don't send lengthy reports as deliverables from a consulting engagement. So if you're looking for that, keep looking elsewhere.

                    To supplement this work I spend some time working with various organizations giving talks and advising their startups. I also author the blog GrasshopperHerder.com

                    Some of the organizations I've worked with include:

                    • European Investment Bank,
                    • Unilever,
                    • Salesforce,
                    • Innovation Norway,
                    • TechBA "Build or Die" Bootcamp,
                    • LinkedIn,
                    • Founder Institute,
                    • ...and many more.

                    P2P Educational System

                    Vision

                    November 2023

                    Teachers don't scale. Peers do.

                    Reform Electoral System

                    Passion

                    Future

                    This thing is a litte buggy. But we can fix it!

                    Ph.D Thesis - Lao Tzu vs. Heraclitus

                    Aspiration

                    Future

                    Just in case it hasn't been done yet.

                    Astronaut & Mars Colonist

                    Dream

                    Future

                    I'm hitching a ride off this rock!

                    TechBA Technology Business Accelerator

                    "Build or Die" Bootcamp Designer and Organizer

                    February 2011- January 2012

                    I designed and organized a curriculum for a one month entrepreneurship bootcamp based on lean startup methodology. The program brought entrepreneurs from Mexico to the San Francisco Bay Area for education, networking, and exploring business opportunities in the United States. The work included recruiting speakers, managing knowledge transfer during mentor handovers, and on-site supervision of the program.

                    The ultimate goal of the program was to help bolster an entrepreneurial eco-system for technology startups in Mexico, and I'm happy to say it was successful. If you visit Monterry, Hermosillo, or Mexico City today and find the local StartupWeekend or Hackers and Founders meetup groups, you will likely find some TechBA graduates.

                    Speakers included:

                    • Robert Scoble
                    • Ariel Poler
                    • Janice Fraser
                    • Patrick Vlaskovits
                    • Hiten Shah
                    • Dan Martell
                    • Brant Cooper
                    • Tim McCoy
                    • Victor Reyes
                    • Wee Yen
                    • Sean Murphy
                    • Theresa Shafer
                    • Darius Dunlap

                    LUXr, Inc.

                    Lean Startup Coach

                    September 2012- June 2013

                    I ran LUXr's accelerator training program. This involved working with accelerators and enterprises in a train the trainer program and helping them design their curriculum. Accelerators learned how to implement and train startups in lean startup methodology using LUXr's core curriculum as a basis.

                    I've had the opportunity to do this with accelerators such as:

                    • Startup Wise Guys in Estonia
                    • Happy Farm in Ukraine
                    • NEST'up in Belgium
                    • N-motion in Lincoln, NE
                    • TechBA Seattle, WA
                    • Lean Startup Circle organizers
                    • and a $5.2B USD revenue enterprise organization

                    ...but since LUXr was a small company and a startup itself, I also wound up coaching startups, building LUXr's eCommerce site, evangelizing lean startup methodology, creating new learning frameworks, measuring progress through metrics, and always learning, learning, learning.

                    StumbleUpon

                    Lean Startup Coach

                    October 2013- September 2015

                    Working with the product and growth teams to drive experimentation.

                    Temple University

                    Musser Professor

                    January 2017- January 2018

                    The Warren (Pete) Musser Professorship in Innovation and Entrepreneurship was endowed to bring leaders in the field to the Fox Business School. I worked with faculty and students to bring modern innovation practices from the field (lean startup, agile, and design thinking) into the entrepreneurship curriculum.

                    Unilever Ice Cream

                    Global Ice Cream Innovation Board Member (External)

                    May 2018- November 2019

                    I served as the external member to the global Ice Cream Innovation Board overseeing investment on innovation projects. We met monthly (and ad hoc) to review experiment data generated by projects, discuss global strategy, and allocate investment to those projects. I also supported the board's portfolio management to ensure that actual investment aligned to the innovation strategy and supported the teams directly. That included tracking and analyzing the data on innovations and their results.

                    Unilever Foods

                    Global Foods Innovation Board Member (External)

                    February 2020- February 2021

                    I served as the external member to the global Foods Innovation Board overseeing investment on innovation projects. We met monthly (and ad hoc) to review experiment data generated by projects, discuss global strategy, and allocate investment to those projects. Particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, I am focused on supporting needed changes to strategy to adapt to the current situation and plan for various recovery and emergency contingencies.

                    MonkeyPolitic.com

                    Future Project

                    Future

                    This is an experiment in the media. Can the crowd tell which news articles are politically biased?

                    (Yes, I reuse the same logo a lot.)

                    faqden labs

                    Advisory Director

                    January 2011- August 2011

                    Advisor to a mobile app company in product development, user experience (UX) design, and marketing. Their first product was PowerVocab, an iOS app to help students prepare for the GRE. The product line was acquired.

                    Credit Sesame

                    Lean Startup and Product Management Coach

                    April 2014- December 2017

                    Ongoing consulting and coaching for product teams on lean startup, metrics, organization, and product management.

                    Tes

                    Lean Startup Coach

                    May 2018- August 2018

                    I worked with the Head of Product to embed lean ways of working into the product organization.

                    Pernod Ricard

                    Innovation Strategy and Lean Startup Coach

                    February 2020- December 2020

                    I worked with the Innovation Center of Excellence to

                    1. Coach a disruptive innovation team on market discovery and sizing.
                    2. Consult on improving the innovation process.
                    3. Improve their internal innovation systems.

                    Wordpress Plugins

                    TweetHerder and AdHerder

                    June 2011- June 2018

                    TweetHerder is a plugin for Wordpress that allows you highlight phrases in your post and turn them into one-click tweet buttons for your readers to tweet. I developed it for my blog.

                    AdHerder is a Wordpress plugin for A/B testing ads. I use it on my blog.

                    NinjaEquation.com

                    Creator and Evangelist

                    December 2010- January 2013

                    After much pontification, I have created an equation to fully explain the effect of hiring rock stars and ninjas for your startup.

                    Swisscom

                    Lean Startup Coach

                    October 2013- September 2015

                    Bringing lean startup innovation methods into Swisscom by coaching innovation teams for Business Voice, Swisscom Cloud, and others.

                    Walmart

                    Lean Startup Coach

                    November 2015- February 2017

                    I coached several Sam's Club innovation teams within Walmart Labs.

                    MonkeyMake.it

                    Co-founder

                    June 2011- August 2011

                    This was an experiment for the LUXr.co program with Janice Fraser.

                    Fujitsu

                    Lean Startup Coach

                    October 2014- June 2016

                    Coaching an innovation team within Fujitsu in order to improve entrepreneurial skill sets on lean startup, agile, and design thinking. The team members went on to train others in modern entrepreneurship methodologies.