......
Meeting Location:
Emerging Enterprise Center at
Foley Hoag the Bay Colony Corporate Center
1000 Winter Street, Suite 4000 (North Entrance)
Waltham, MAMeeting Time: 6:30 - 9:30 pm
Meeting Cost:
$25 public, $10 students
and active military; Promotional Registrations
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
6:30 - 9:30 PM
Location: Emerging Center at Foley Hoag the Bay Colony Corporate Center, Waltham, MA
Simple Internet-based business models that work: How online retail, services and social media are prospering today, and how they plan to evolve with the web
As the Internet continues to evolve and to extend its reach deeper into the heart of business processes, start-ups and mature companies alike have had to adapt their business processes to survive and succeed. Whether defending their existing turf or more aggressively tackling new business opportunities afforded by the Internet, the combined results have been noisy, dramatic, and ubiquitous. New market entrants have a huge variety of competing Internet-enabled business models to choose from. As the pace of change continues to accelerate globally, being able to separate good opportunities from great opportunities is critical.
The October 19th EntreTech Forum will attempt to cut through the noise and drama of the current Internet-enabled business environment. The forum will bring together leading market participants to help the EntreTech Forum audience get to the core of what’s driving Internet-driven success across a variety of business models and types today. As ever the discussion will be interactive, with a focus on delivering maximum knowledge transfer to/from panelists/participants alike.
Moderator:
Andrew Fairbairn – Fairbairn Ventures – Managing PrincipalPanelists:
Graham Brooks – Principal – .406 Ventures
Jules Pieri – Founder, CEO – Daily Grommet
Neal Creighton – Founder, CEO – RatePoint
Jim Geisman – Software Pricing Partners
Moderator:
Andrew Fairbairn – Fairbairn Ventures – Managing Principal
(http://fairbairnventures.com)
Andrew is a Cambridge-based investor, entrepreneur and advisor who partners with driven entrepreneurs to rapidly prove out value propositions and to build solid businesses. He has worked with many executive teams over the course of his career to launch, build, expand, transition and/or retool their businesses.Prior to establishing Fairbairn Ventures, Andrew was a founding partner of JVKellyGroup, Inc. (JVKG), a New York-based management consulting, performance management and software development firm recently sold to D&B. He has also served as Vice President of Deutsche Bank, focused on corporate venturing in financial technology companies and strategic planning roles in New York and London. Andrew began his career with UBS Securities in New York, where he worked on global networking and telecommunications industry financings, across a range of geographies and investment banking product disciplines.
Andrew earned his B.A. in Economics and M.A. in International Development Policy from Stanford University.
Panel Bios:
Graham Brooks – Principal - .406 Ventures
http://www.406ventures.com/Graham Brooks joined .406 in 2007 and is involved in all aspects of the investing and portfolio management process and also leads the university outreach initiatives. He brings nine years of technology-oriented operating, investing and start-up experience.
Most recently, Graham was Business Development Manager at Bose Corporation (“Bose”) where he led the team that identified, evaluated, and structured strategic investment and acquisition opportunities within the digital media and consumer products markets.
Prior to Bose, Graham co-founded Accentus, a technology company that developed innovative solutions for the financial trading industry. Graham began his career as a software developer and consultant for ALK Associates, a transportation consulting and software solutions provider.
Graham is a Kauffman Fellow (Class of 2010). He received his MBA from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business in 2002, where he was a Tuck Scholar; and his BSE in Computer Science from Princeton University.
Jules Pieri – Founder & CEO – Daily Grommet
http://www.dailygrommet.com/Jules is founder and CEO of Daily Grommet – a curated marketplace that launches one inventive product a day. The product ideas come from people’s submissions, which are vetted by the Daily Grommet team, and distributed across the web, via video stories about the products and their creators.
The company is based on the premise that people are increasingly thoughtful about the products and experiences they buy–and that they especially like to support “little guy” companies. Jules believes that knowing the back story of a product–its invention, or craft, or social benefits, or environmental impact, or technology, makes its experience much richer and even deeply meaningful.
Jules was previously President and C.O.O. of Ziggs.com, Vice President of Strategic Planning at Stride Rite Corporation and Director of Strategic Marketing and Licensing at Keds Corporation. She also worked with Playskool as a long term product strategy consultant, and was a Vice President at Design Continuum. She lived in Dublin from 2001-2005, where she consulted to Irish consumer brands.
Jules studied Industrial Design, Graphic Design, and French at the University of Michigan, and people tell her she was the first designer to get a Harvard MBA.
Neal Creighton - co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
Neal has more than a decade of experience in information security, identity verification, Internet business markets. Formerly, as Co-founder, President and CEO of GeoTrust, Neal was responsible for providing the leadership, strategic direction and management for the company. Neal led the efforts to raise $24 million in venture financing and sold GeoTrust to VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for $125 million in September 2006.
Neal also led the spin-off of ChosenSecurity from GeoTrust as part of the VeriSign merger agreement. In 2010, ChosenSecurity was acquired by PGP corporation and Neal is currently a member of the PGP Technical Advisory Board. Neal considers graduating from U.S. Army Ranger School in 1990 his most meaningful professional experience. Neal received his B.S. from the United States Military Academy West Point, and holds an MBA and Juris Doctor from Northwestern University.
Jim Geisman – Founder and Principal – Software Pricing Partners, Inc.
Jim Geisman is founder and principal of Software Pricing Partners, Inc. where he provides senior management counsel and marketing and sales consulting services. He has led consulting engagements for a broad range of clients addressing fundamental issues affecting business success.
Before founding Software Pricing Partners, Jim held marketing management positions at Tektronix and served as the first director of marketing at Apollo Computer. He was also a member of the ARPANET team at Bolt Beranek and Newman where he performed throughput testing of the forerunner of the Internet.Jim received his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University where he was elected to Eta Kappa Nu, the EE honor society. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. A former consulting editor of Software Success Newsletter, he is widely published and considered an expert in software pricing strategy and sales negotiations. He is a sought after speaker for computer trade and industry association meetings.
