Twiistup

David Cohen

Founder and CEO of TechStars

Previously, David was a founder of several software and web technology companies. He was the founder and CTO of Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL) in 1999. You can read about it in No Vision, All Drive [Amazon]. David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, a music service which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006. He also had what he likes to think of as a “graceful failure” in between.

David is a active startup advocate, advisor, board member, and technology advisor who comments on these topics on his blog at DavidGCohen.com.  He is also very active at the University of Colorado, serving as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Computer Science Department, the Entrepreneurial Advisory Board at Silicon Flatirons, and the Board of Advisors of the Deming Center Venture Fund. David is also a member of the selection committee for Venture Capital in the Rockies, and runs the Colorado chapter of the Open Angel Forum.

Rand Fishkin

CEO and Co-Founder of SEOmoz

Rand co-authored the Art of SEO from O’Reilly Media and was named on the 40 Under 40 List and 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30. Rand has been written about in The Seattle Times, Newsweek and the NY Times among others and keynoted conferences on search around the world. He’s particularly passionate about the SEOmoz blog, read by tens of thousands of search professionals each day. In his miniscule spare time, Rand enjoys the company of his amazing wife, Geraldine.

Matt Thompson

General Manager, Developer & Platform Evangelism at Microsoft

Matt Thompson and his team look after the “care and feeding” for the communities of developers, startups and IT pros across the western US. Matt’s passion centers around helping companies (of all sizes) be successful applying technologies that can help solve for scale, robustness, and ease of development.

Jason Nazar

Co-Founder & CEO of Docstoc

Jason is the Co-Founder and CEO of Docstoc.com, the premier online community to find and share professional documents. Before starting Docstoc, he was a partner in a venture consulting firm in Los Angeles where he worked with dozens of startups. He holds have a BA from UCSB and his JD/MBA from Pepperdine University, where he was the Student Body President of both Universities

Brian Norgard

Founder of Namesake, Ad.ly & Newroo

Brian is an entrepreneur, innovator, angel investor and founder of Namesake, Ad.ly & Newroo.

Fouad ElNaggar

Principal with Redpoint Venture

Owen Stone

The #1 Advisor on the Internet

Owen has his own show at OhDoctah.com. And has made guest appearances on shows like This Week in Tech, Cranky Geeks, Scam School, NSFW & Beer Diplomacy. He considers himself to be a repeat offender in the crime of entrepreneurship with Inquiring Mindz Media & two UPS Stores.

Julie Schoenfeld

CEO, Perfect Market

Julie Schoenfeld, Chief Executive Officer of Perfect Market, is a proven entrepreneur with a passion for identifying talent and assembling effective teams.

Julie previously was a founding member and CEO of two other successful venture-backed startups. From its creation in 2000 to February 2007, Julie was president-CEO of OEwaves Inc. She remains active on OEwaves’
board of directors.

Before that, Julie was president-CEO of Net Effect Systems Inc. In her 18-month tenure at Net Effect, she raised two rounds of financing from Greylock Management, Trinity Ventures and TL Ventures, built a
world-class management team, launched the company and product and sold the company to Ask Jeeves Inc. for more than $288 million.

Before Net Effect, she was VP of worldwide sales for Stream International, where she grew sales from $30 million to more than $200 million in three years.

A recognized industry spokesperson, she serves on the board of the Young Presidents Organization of Los Angeles (YPOLA). Julie holds a B.S. in engineering from Tufts University and an MBA from Harvard
Business School

Naval Ravikant

Angel List and Venture Hacks

Naval is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList. Previously he was a co-founder at Genoa Corp (acquired by Finisar), Epinions.com (IPO via Shopping.com), and Vast.com (largest white-label classifieds marketplace). He has also advised Bix.com, iPivot, and XFire, among others, and invested in many companies, including Twitter, FourSquare, DocVerse (sold to Google), Mixer Labs (sold to Twitter), Jambool (Social Gold), SnapLogic, PlanCast, Stack Overflow, Heyzap, and Disqus.

Loïc Le Meur


Founder of Seesmic and LeWeb

Loic is the founder and CEO of Seesmic, a software company that makes one of the most popular Twitter and Facebook social software application. Seesmic helps you share and receive all your feedback from up to 50 social networks. Seesmic is available everywhere you are on the web, desktop and mobile platforms such as Android and Blackberry.

Loic also founded and hosts the #1 tech event in Europe, LeWeb.net, with his wife Geraldine. LeWeb gathers together 2500 entrepreneurs and investors from 50 countries in December every year.

Prior to Seesmic and LeWeb, Loic started several other businesses such as Six Apart Europe, RapidSite, a web hosting service (acquired by France Telecom in 1999) as well as B2L, an interactive agency in 1999 (acquired by BBDO).  Recently, Business Week Magazine named Loic one of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web. Loic was also named “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. He advises the World Economic Forum as well as covers the Annual Summit every year in Davos. Originally from the South of France, Loic lives in San Francisco, California and has three boys.

Amy Jo Kim

Founder, Shuffle Brain

Amy Jo Kim is an internationally recognized expert in online social architecture. She has designed social architecture for Electronic Arts/Maxis/Origin, Digital Chocolate, MTV/Harmonix, eBay, There.com, Yahoo!, and others. Her influential book Community Building on the Web (published 2000), translated into 7 languages, is required reading in universities and game companies around the world. She has a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from University of Washington, and a BA in Experimental Psychology from UCSD.

Eliza Dushku

Actress

Eliza Dushku continues to maintain her leading lady status in Hollywood with roles in a number of prominent film and television projects. She completed the second season of Fox’s “Dollhouse,” a series created by Joss Whedon on which Dushku also serves as a Producer. In the series, she stars as ‘Echo,’ an agent or “doll” who has had her memory wiped completely clean so that she, along with the other dolls in the Dollhouse, can fulfill the wishes of well-paying clients by being imprinted with a personality of the client’s choosing.

Dushku’s talents extend far beyond acting. In addition to serving as a producer on “Dollhouse,” she is currently producing a biopic through her production company Boston Diva Productions. The film called The Perfect Moment, is based on the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989. She has brought on two-time Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, Ondi Timoner to direct and produce alongside her.

Dushku also co-starred with Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman in Bottle Shock, a drama about the birth of the Napa Valley wine country. Additional past film credits include The Alphabet Killer, in which she also served as an Associate Producer, Nobel Son, Wrong Turn, City by the Sea opposite Robert De Niro and Frances McDormand, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and the hit cheerleading film Bring it On opposite Kirsten Dunst, among others.

Dushku has also had a very successful television career, starring in a number of hit series with cult-like followings. She first starred as ‘Faith Lehane’ on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” a slayer much more troubled than the main character ‘Buffy.’ Though initially planned as a five-episode role, the character became so popular that Dushku stayed on for the entire third season and returned for a two-part appearance the following season. The remainder of her original story arc was played out in the first season of the spin-off “Angel.” Repentant and rededicated, ‘Faith’ returned in a number of later episodes of “Angel” and “Buffy.” Following these roles Dushku starred in the series, “Tru Calling” in which she played ‘Tru Davies’ in yet another powerful female role. Additional television credits include guest starring roles on “That 70’s Show” and “Ugly Betty.”

The daughter of an Albanian-American administrator father and Danish-American professor mother, Dushku was raised with ambition in her blood. At the early age of 10, Dushku was discovered by casting agents for the lead role of ‘Alice’ in the film That Night. In 1993, Dushku landed the role of Pearl alongside Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in This Boy’s Life, a role that caught the attention of many in the industry. The following year, she starred with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies, opposite Paul Reiser in Bye Bye, Love and alongside Halle Berry in Race the Sun.

In addition to acting and producing, Dushku is involved with a number of charities, including Camp Hale in Boston and 10,000 Girls School in Kaolack, Senegal. Earlier this year, she traveled to Uganda helping bring awareness to the country. Dushku lives a very active lifestyle and recently completed her first triathlon finishing with a Bronze medal. Dushku resides in Los Angeles.

Suneel Gupta

VP of Product Development, Groupon

Suneel loves to build stuff from scratch. Prior to his current role as VP of Product Development at Groupon, Suneel created products for Mozilla, blogged for MTV, developed television concepts for Sony Pictures, led trade efforts in Ghana, wrote speeches in President Clinton’s West Wing, and produced an interactive film project with his brother, Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN), which debuted at last year’s South by Southwest

Farhad Mohit

Founder and CEO of Gripe

Prior to Gripe, Farhad started Shopzilla and helped manage it through the bubble of 2000, to profitability by 2003, and a successful acquisition for $569M by EW Scripps (SSP) in 2005. In the process Shopzilla became and remains one of the largest, fastest growing and most successful shopping search engines in the world.

In 1996 he founded BizRate, based on his grad school thesis, which has since become the largest customer feedback network in the world. The sites has garnered millions of customer ratings each month and helped tens of thousands of online stores establish trust with new customers, by display of the BizRate Certified medals.

In addition to his entrepreneurial activities Farhad leads an active social and philanthropic life. He is a TED Patron, sits on the board of the Soliya.net, is a board member at the Iranian Scholarship Foundation, and is a founding trustee of The Farhang Foundation.

Farhad holds an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from the Wharton School, and a double Bachelor of Science in Mathematics/Applied Science and Economics with a specialization in Computing from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Demian Sellfors

CEO & Founder of Media Temple

Demian Sellfors is the CEO and founder of (mt) Media Temple. Since 1998, Sellfors has guided the (mt) business from its first hosted website to currently serving over 700,000 sites internationally.  Sellfors is also the founder of (mt) Ventures, an advisory and investment subsidiary that focuses on other technology related companies. Portfolio includes; Virb.com, Reinvigorate.net, MobileRoadie.com and Krop.com

Paige Craig

Cofounder & CEO, BetterWorks

Cofounder of BetterWorks, former Marine, Intelligence Consultant, founder of defense companies, now focused on angel investing and advising the right companies.

Matt Blumberg

Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman of Return Path

Matt Blumberg founded Return Path in 1999 because he believed the world needed email to work better. Matt is passionate about enhancing the online relationship between email subscribers and marketers so that both sides of the equation benefit. It is with great pride that he has watched this initial creation grow to a company of 150 employees with the market leading brand, innovative products, and the email industry’s most renowned experts.

Before Return Path, Matt ran marketing, product management, and the internet group for MovieFone, Inc. (later acquired by AOL). Prior to that he served as an associate with private equity firm General Atlantic Partners and was a consultant with Mercer Management Consulting. He holds a B.A. from Princeton University

Ranjith Kumaran

Founder and CTO of YouSendIt

As founder and CTO, he manages the Customer Service, IT, and Ops teams to guarantee optimum customer service, and efficiency in the IT and Ops departments.

Prior to YouSendIt, Kumaran held marketing positions at Verisity Design, a key provider of verification process automation (VPA) solutions, where he managed product marketing for the software tools of Access Systems. Previously, he was the director of sales engineering at Celoxica, a leading provider of C-based design and behavioral synthesis tools, where he built the company’s sales applications and established its engineering team.

Kumaran also was a software systems engineer at Red Hat, one of the largest and most recognized companies dedicated to open-source software and the largest distributor of the GNU/Linux operating system.

Kumaran received a bachelor of engineering degree in computer engineering from McGill University and is an active member of TiE Silicon Valley.

Sean Ellis

CEO and Founder of FREEjit

Sean is the CEO and founder of FREEjit, a pre-release startup founded in mid 2010 and backed by True Ventures, Polaris Ventures, Index Ventures and First Round Capital. He ran marketing at LogMeIn and Uproar from launch to NASDAQ IPO filings. He has also advised and helped bring Dropbox, Lookout, Xobni and Grockit to market and helped accelerate growth at Eventbrite, Webs, World Golf Tour and Songkick.  He blogs at Startup Marketing.

Scott Sangster

President at Tech Coast Angels (Los Angeles)

As director of strategic planning and corporate development for the Walt Disney Internet Group, Scott Sangster identifies new media growth opportunities, works with company management to develop related strategy, and manages the evaluation and execution of acquisitions that help Disney meet its strategic objectives.

Prior to joining Disney, Sangster founded and managed a venture-backed Internet business, served five years as a management consultant to media and technology companies, and oversaw the launch of one of the first online banking services.

Sangster graduated from The American University in Washington D.C. and holds a MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Jim Andelman

Co-founder and Managing Partner of Rincon Venture Partners

Jim is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Rincon Venture Partners.  Rincon invests in early stage web-based businesses that are founded by experienced and cohesive teams, employ proven business models and have a clear path to profitability with modest capital requirements.  Jim has more than fifteen years of experience in venture capital investing, technology investment banking and advisory services and strategic business consulting.

Previously, Jim led software investing at Broadview Capital Partners, a $250 million Bay Area expansion-stage venture capital firm.  Jim led the assessment of over 300 investment opportunities, participated in the deployment of $78 million across five portfolio companies, four of which exited via acquisition despite a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Before BCP, Jim was a member of the Technology Investment Banking Group at Alex. Brown & Sons (subsequently BT Alex. Brown and Deutsche Bank Securities).   There, he concentrated on equity private placements, mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings for software and IT services businesses.  Jim began his career with Symmetrix, a boutique management consulting firm founded by a Bain & Co. co-founder, which helped to create strategic advantage through the application of technology.  At Symmetrix, Jim specialized in strategy formulation and economic modeling.

Jim received his MBA with highest distinction (first in his class) from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, and his BS in Economics (magna cum laude) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jim serves on the Boards of Directors of Burstly, Campus Explorer, Brickfish, Digital Performance, Cocodot and DataPop. He previously served on the Boards of Cadforce (acquired by Neilsoft) and Packet Island (acquired by BroadSoft). In addition, he serves on the Boards of Directors of Friends of Yosemite Search and Rescue and the Los Angeles Venture Association, and on the Advisory Boards of the Douglas Family Preserve, UCSB’s Technology Management Program and Santa Barbara City College’s Schoenfeld Center for Entrepreneurship.

Sean Rad

Founder and President of Ad.ly

Sean Rad is Founder and President of Ad.ly, which runs celebrity endorsements in social media. Ad.ly has worked with over 5,000 top celebrities in social media, and have executed 20,000+ endorsement campaigns for leading brands like Toyota, Best Buy, Microsoft, NBC, Sony and more. Ad.ly has raised $6 million in venture financing from GRP and Greycroft. The company is based in Beverly Hills with 22 employees.

Chris Ovitz

Director, Business Development Ad.ly

Chris Ovitz leads Business Development at Ad.ly, a platform for Celebrity Endorsements in Social Media. Prior to Ad.ly, Chris served as Director of Business Development at Doppelganger, where he brokered deals with major media and fashion companies to help populate a music and entertainment based virtual world for teens. Chris has also worked under John Lesher, during his time as the President of Paramount Film Group. Chris holds a B.A from UCLA and an M.B.A from the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University.

Richard Raddon

Rich Raddon, Co-founder Movieclips.com

Richard Raddon is a Co-Founder of Movieclips.com, a premium online video destination offering audiences the largest and most diverse collection of movie scenes available on the web today. Prior to founding Movieclips.com with Zach James, Richard served as the Director of the Los Angeles Film Festival from 2000 to 2009. During his tenure, the LA Film Festival grew to a nationally recognized 10-day event with an audience of over 100,000 visitors. Before joining the Festival, Mr. Raddon worked as an independent producer. Richard’s producing credits include: A Slipping Down Life, starring Guy Pearce, Lily Taylor, and Bruno Kirby, which premiered in competition at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Lions Gate Entertainment; Shooting Lily, which garnered the Grand Prize at the 1997 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin Texas; …And God Spoke, which was released theatrically by Live Entertainment in 1994. Other producing credits include the 1995 foreign film, The Woman in the Moon, starring Maria De Madieros, Brooke Smith, and Portia De Rossi; music videos for the Sony work Group; as well as numerous short films. Mr. Raddon began his career as an assistant to the late writer/director/producer John Hughes in Chicago.

John Volturo

CMO, BeachMint

John Volturo is Chief Marketing Officer of BeachMint, a startup that has taken the online retail space by storm with its unique model of celebrity-endorsed e-commerce. BeachMint’s inaugural product line is JewelMint.com, a creative collaboration between actress Kate Bosworth and stylist Cher Coulter that offers curated designer jewelry to its members each month. John is leading both marketing strategy and brand development for BeachMint’s planned expansion into other verticals.

Prior to Beachmint, John was SVP at Guthy-Renker, the world’s premier direct response company, where he incubated, developed and brought to market via TV and online several successful celebrity-endorsed brands, winning industry awards for his work on Sheer Cover, Winsor Pilates, Tony Robbins, among others.

A native New Yorker, John started his career at Viacom and spent 8 years selling CDs online and through the mail at BMG Music Service.