The Founder Institute carefully recruits approximately 25 Mentors per Semester, who are normally the CEO or founder of a successful startup. The Mentors are selected based on their ability to convey lessons learned on a topic in the curriculum and help participating Founders by sharing their relevant experiences. Mentors are accessible to Founders in the program during the sessions and through email. The shared equity upside of each Semester encourages supportive and collaborative relationships with the Mentors.
The Institute recruits some of the Mentors after a Semester has launched to match the needs of Founders with the skills of Mentors.
CEO, TheFunded.com
Description:
Adeo Ressi is Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of 12,000 CEOs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. Adeo also runs the Founder Institute, a mentoring program that helps entrepreneurs launch hundreds of world-class companies each year. The Institute is the eight start-up that Adeo has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating.
Founder & CEO,
Description:
Adi Sideman is the Founder & CEO of Oddcast, a leading developer of interactive and viral marketing campaigns that has won multiple Webby awards. Prior to founding Oddcast in 1999, Adi produced more than thirty online games, including HBO's Sex and the City and The Sopranos, and Warner Brothers' The Matrix game. In 1996, Adi also produced the first animated ads on AOL. He holds an MPS degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and an undergraduate degree from NYU in Film and Television.
CEO, MeetMoi
Description:
Andrew is CEO of a new location based mobile dating company called MeetMoi. He's also the founder and Chairman, of the location-based services company Xtify. Previously Andrew founded sixdegrees, the original social networking site of 3.5 million members, which was sold in December 2000. He also founded Joltage, the first company to provide operational support system to wireless networks, as well as I Stand For, a full service technology ASP to political campaigns and non-profits, which was sold in March 2006.
Co-Founder,
Description:
Andy Morris, co-founder and partner/principal of The Morris + King Company (MKC), specializes in developing groundbreaking public relations campaigns and innovative branding programs for clients. Prior to launching MKC in 2001, Mr. Morris was senior vice president at LaForce & Stevens, a New York-based marketing and public relations firm. Before that, he served as vice president at Dan Klores Communications, where he headed the Internet and healthcare practices. Mr. Morris is the recipient of several honors and accolades for outstanding public relations programs, including the Creativity in Public Relations Award (CIPRA), the Public Relations Society of America's "Big Apple" award and Bulldog Reporter's "Silver Bulldog" award. In addition, Mr. Morris serves on the Board of Trustees of the New Canaan Nature Center. Mr. Morris received a B.A. from Duke University.
CEO, SecondMarket
Description:
Barry E. Silbert is the Founder and CEO of SecondMarket, the largest secondary market dedicated to creating liquidity for illiquid assets. Prior to founding SecondMarket in 2004, Barry was an investment banker at Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, where he focused on financial restructurings. In 2009, Mr. Silbert was a category winner of Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a winner of Crain’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was included on Treasury & Risk’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance. He was recently recognized by Fortune as “One to Watch” in the publication’s annual 40 Under 40 issue. In addition, SecondMarket was named the top start-up in the entire Northeast by AlwaysOn Media and was named one of the Top Fifty Tech Startups You Should Know by BusinessWeek.
CEO, Locker Blogger
Description:
Bryan Thatcher is CEO of Empressr, a leading Web application that allows users to create, manage and share rich-media presentations. As CEO and Founder of Fusebox, Bryan applies his mind for innovation to some of the most revered brands in finance, media, and pharmaceuticals—Discover Financial Services, JPMorgan Chase, MTV, CNN, ESPN and Pfizer—helping them increase profits and stay relevant in an ever-changing world of marketing opportunities.
Description:
Craig is a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience at the nexus of business, technology and design. Recognized as a pioneer in the creation of the thriving internet services industry.
CEO, OMGPOP
Description:
CEO of social games company OMGPOP. Founded and led sale of TicketWeb to Ticketmaster in 2000. Former SVP Corporate Development for Richard Bransons The Virgin Group
CEO, Attendees.com
Description:
David Teten is Acting CEO of Attendees.com, an event management software startup. He was previously Managing Director of Evalueserve, a global 2,500-person research and analytics company; Founder and CEO of Circle of Experts, an investment research firm sold to Evalueserve; Founder and CEO of Teten Executive Recruiting, sold to Accolo; and Founder and CEO, GoldNames, an investment bank serving the internet domain name asset class. He worked with Bear Stearns’ Investment Banking division as a member of their technology/defense mergers and acquisitions team, and was a strategy consultant with Mars & Co. David holds a Harvard MBA and a Yale BA, both with honors; is the lead author of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online; and is the lead author of the first-ever research study on how private equity & venture capital funds originate new investments, published in Harvard Business Review and the Journal of Private Equity.
CEO,
Description:
David Isaacs is CEO of Zilo Networks, the venture-backed company he co-founded in 1999. Previously, he served as COO of Semaphore Entertainment Group, where one of his most unusual credits was helping to launch and run the highly controversial Ultimate Fighting Championship and also held various management positions in the US and Europe with BMG and its parent company Bertelsmann. He is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Law School.
Author, Speaker, Advisor, Game Thinking
Description:
Gabe Zichermann (b. 1974) is an entrepreneur, author and public speaker that coined the term “Funware” to describe the use of game mechanics in non-game contexts. As co-author of the book “Game-Based Marketing” (Wiley, 2010), Zichermann makes a compelling case for the use of games and game mechanics in everyday life, the web and business. Gabe is the CEO of professional mobile social networking startup beamME where he’s working hard to bring fun to every aspect of interpersonal business. A native of Canada and resident of NYC, Gabe frequently muses about games and the world at http://funwareblog.com
Founder & CSO, Mobile Commons
Description:
Jed Alpert is Founder & CSO of Mobile Commons, a leading mobile technology company that was recently named a “Fast Company Magazine Fast Fifty Company.” Prior to Mobile Commons, he served as the President of Sunshine Amalgamedia and created communications programs for clients such as Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Samsung, and Pepsi. In addition, Jed has been an entertainment and media lawyer, a movie producer, a film festival board member, and more.
Founder & CEO, Urgent Career
Description:
Jeff Stewart is Founder & CEO of Urgent Career, a company that is revolutionizing the way companies screen and assess sales talent. Jeff is also the Founder and Chairman of Mimeo.com, the largest service to print, bind and deliver documents directly from your computer. Jeff is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, having founded over a half dozen companies in his career, which combined to employ over 600 people.
Jeffrey Dachis
CEO, Dachis Group
Description:
As founder and CEO of Dachis Group, the worlds leading Social Business transformational services and software company, Jeff’s leadership and vision helped establish the digital services industry more than a decade ago when he co-founded Razorfish, Inc. out of a one-bedroom New York City apartment.
As co-founder, CEO, President and Chairman of Razorfish, Dachis profitably grew the company revenues to over $250 Million, expanded its talent base from 2 to 2,200 employees with offices in nine countries, completed over 25 M&A transactions, lead its IPO which raised $55 Million, and catapulted Razorfish’s public valuation to over $5 Billion.
Over the last decade, as the recognized leader in the digital services industry, Razorfish has won numerous performance, design, and professional service awards.. Razorfish ultimately was bundled as part of Microsoft’s $6 billion purchase of aQuantive, and more recently was spun off and sold to Publicis for $530 million.
Dachis is also a Senior Partner at Manhattan-based Bond Art + Science, which specializes in information architecture and user experience design for digital media and information services. He serves as an advisor to companies including Bazaarvoice and Waterfall Mobile.
Jeff has also served as Co-Chairman of the Producer’s Guild of America New Media Council East, and a frequently appeared as a lecturer and speaker, and in publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Wired Magazine and in television appearances including CNBC, CNN, 20/20 and 60 Minutes.
His honors include Ernst &Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000, among others.
Co-Founder, OQO
Description:
Joe Betts-LaCroix founded OQO, creator of the world’s smallest PC, in 2000, and established the resulting market category of smaller-than-laptop PCs, now called UMPCs, netbooks, etc. He is now immersed in generating and monetizing intellectual property, as well as advising several startups. Prior to OQO, he has operated numerous other companies, as well as having done groundbreaking academic research at Caltech, Harvard, JPL, MIT and the IBM Almaden Research Center in various fields, including quantum biophysics, marine chemistry, human-computer interface and alternative energy. Joe has patents pending and granted for over 80 inventions in a diversity of fields, ranging from electronic methods to consumer finance to cleantech.
Founder & Editor-in-Chief , Cool Hunting/Captain Lucas
Description:
Josh Rubin believes that there are no new ideas, just great executions. As an interaction designer he's always looking for both creative inspiration and an understanding of the way people do things. In 2003 he decided to start a catalog of what he found and haphazardly named it Cool Hunting, a phrase synonymous with finding inspiration. Some people think this site is about trends, but it is more about curating observations.
In addition to editing Cool Hunting, Josh consults for select clients on strategy, content and design for digital products, services and publications. His clients have included Apple, Adobe, Vodafone, Nike, Microsoft and MTV among many others. Josh helped to found the digital consultancy Bond Art + Science, was a Lead User Interface Designer at Motorola, a Design Director at Razorfish, in charge of product development at Upoc Networks and an intern at IDEO. He has a BA in Communications and Cognitive Science from Hampshire College and a Master's in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU.
Josh gets excited about obsessive compulsive art, elegant uses of technology, creative design executions, delicious local food and general paradoxes. He lives in New York City with his husband and business partner, Evan Orensten, and their two Sealyham Terriers Otis and Logan.
CEO,
Description:
Margaret Wallace is an entrepreneur and video game professional. She is the CEO of Playmatics (www.playmatics.com), a company dedicated to bringing rich games and applications to audiences worldwide. Prior to forming Playmatics, Margaret was CEO of Rebel Monkey, a venture-backed company focused on creating a free-to-play game world and community platform utilizing virtual goods and microtransactions. Before Rebel Monkey, she was a founding member and CEO of Skunk Studios in San Francisco, CA, one of the first-ever casual game companies and portals. Margaret also spent time at Shockwave.com, PF.Magic, Mattel and Mindscape and has worked on numerous brands, licensed products, gaming portals and original IP.
Max Haot
CEO, LiveStream
Description:
Max Haot is the CEO of Livestream, the most powerful live broadcast platform on the internet. He previously founded ICF, a media asset management platform which was sold to Verizon Business in 2005. He held positions as VP of Digital Media at Verizon Business and Senior Vice President at IMG Media - the television and interactive arm of the sport marketing giant (www.imgworld.com). Max is a Belgian national and lived in London, UK between 1995 and 2005 before moving to New York.
CEO, Skip Hop
Description:
Michael Diamant is CEO of Skip Hop, founded in 2003 by him and his wife, Ellen. As new parents living in New York City, they were surprised by how few products resonated with the urban lifestyle they were used to. Michael, a veteran Internet entrepreneur, saw an opportunity to move into a new type of business, creating products and a brand that spoke to parents just like themselves.
CEO, MediaMorph
Description:
Michael is currently the founder and CEO of MediaMorph, an NYC-based start-up whose platform helps Film Studios and Television networks to manage, account for and optimize revenue from Digital Distribution. MediaMorph’s product is in daily use at major Hollywood Studios such as Warner Bros and Sony Pictures, giving them the insight that they want and the control that they need in order to foster the growth of digital channels. Prior to MediaMorph Michael had been VP Services at Connotate Technologies, a Goldman Sachs-funded semantic web start-up, Global Content Architect at Sony Music and Managing Director of the Media & Entertainment Practice at Context Integration, an web builder start-up.
CEO, Like.com
Description:
Munjal Shah is the CEO of Riya, developer of the Like.com Visual shopping service. Previously, Munjal was CEO and Co-Founder of the successful eBay seller auction management service, Andale. Munjal has an MS in Computer Science from Stanford, a BS from UCSD and was nominated one of the top 10 “Up and Comers” in Business week in 2001. He has previously worked for Baan, IBM and Blaxxun, and co-founded Round Zero, a Web 1.0 networking forum for early stage entrepreneurs.
Nicholas Butterworth
Founder & CEO, Diversion Media, HD Cloud
Description:
Nicholas Butterworth is currently the Founder & CEO at Diversion Media, an entertainment application developer, and HD Cloud, an on-demand video transcoding service. He is a pioneer in the digital industry. Formerly, he was the founder of Sonicnet, one of the first online communities for musicians and music fans, well before the spread of the internet. He has also served as CEO of MTVi Group, a joint venture of Viacom and Liberty Media. Nicholas is the winner of multiple creative and business awards including a Webby and Yahoo! Internet Life, Streaming Media Executive of the Year.
CEO, Associated Content
Description:
Patrick Keane is the CEO of Associated Content, an online publishing platform that enables anyone to participate in the new content economy. Prior to Associated Content, Keane was EVP and Chief Marketing Officer at CBS Interactive where he managed partnerships and strategy for the Interactive division. Prior to joining CBS, Keane spent more than four years at Google, Inc as Head of Advertising sales strategy, overseeing the group responsible for developing and managing the strategic plans and relationships critical to growing Google's advertising customer base. Prior to Google, Keane was Vice President and Senior Analyst at Jupiter Research. He is a former member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Board of Directors and was featured in Ad Age's "40 Under 40" section in 2007. Patrick graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
Founder & CEO, Behance
Description:
Scott Belsky is the Founder & CEO of Behance, a company that develops technology and online networks for the creative industries. He is also the author of the national bestselling book Making Ideas Happen. Prior to leading Behance, Scott was an Associate at Goldman Sachs working in the Pine Street Group. Scott was also the Co-Founder and President of Live Big Enterprises, a sportswear and corporate clothing company. He serves on the Advisory Council for Entrepreneurship@Cornell, Chairs the Board of Reboot, and is an active member of various non-profit organizations through his role as a Director of the Kaplan Family Foundation. Scott received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
CEO, Meetup
Description:
Scott Heiferman is Co-Founder & Chief Organizer of Meetup, dedicated to 21st century local community organizing. Heiferman also co-founded Fotolog and i-traffic. Prior to founding i-traffic, Heiferman was employed by Sony with the title “Interactive Marketing Frontiersman”. In 2005, Scott received the Jane Addams Award from the National Conference on Citizenship. In 2004 M.I.T. Technology Review awarded Scott “Innovator of the Year” for his work with Meetup.
Founder and President,
Description:
Steven Haines is the founder and President of Sequent Learning Networks, a company with an international clientele, focusing on organizational strategy, training and development for product managers, marketers, and the executives who lead these people.
Steven has 30 years of global product management and marketing leadership experience across a variety of industries, including work at Oracle, AT&T, and WR Grace. Steven’s career also includes twelve years as adjunct professor of Marketing and Management at Rutgers University.
Steven is the author of the category defining book: “The Product Manager’s Desk Reference.”
CEO, OrganizedWisdom Health
Description:
Steven H. Krein is co-founder, Chairman and CEO of OrganizedWisdom Health, a physician-guided search service that helps people find the most trusted online health resources. Steven, was the previously the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Promotions.com, Inc., a global online advertising, direct marketing and technology company which was founded as Webstakes, Inc. in 1996. Beginning with a $30,000 seed investment, Steven successfully raised more than $100 million in private and public funds for Promotions.com, which IPO'd on Nasdaq in 1999, reached a $550 million market cap and was acquired by iVillage, Inc in 2002. Steven received his J.D. degree from Widener University School of Law and his B.A. degree from the University of Maryland, College Park. Steven is a Member of YPO (the Young President's Organization) – Metro New York Chapter and lives in New York City with his wife and three daughters.
Founder, Weardrobe
Description:
Suzanne Xie is the founder of Weardrobe, the largest online fashion community for street style and fashion photos, which was recently acquired by Like.com. Weardrobe won the Accelerator competition at SXSW and a spot in the first fbFund Rev fund. Previous to Weardrobe, Suzanne worked in asset management at Goldman Sachs and investment banking at UBS after graduating from the University of Chicago with a degree in Economics.