Capital+Factory


 * [[image:capitalfactory_TX.png align="right"]]Capital Factory.** Austin, TX
 * Name:** Capital Factory, __ [] __
 * Date Founded:** 2009
 * City:** Austin
 * Address:**
 * Twitter:** __ [] __


 * Investment & Equity:** $20,000 in exchange of 5% equity and [|more than $20,000 in free stuff].


 * First Class:** 2009
 * Notable Graduates:**
 * Founded by:** Joshua Baer, Sam Decker, Bryan Menell
 * Office space:** ??

2009 - more than 300 applications / 35 finalists / 15 spots = % accepted 2010 - about 200 applications / 35 finalists / 15 spots = 7,5% accepted 2011 - ??
 * Acceptance ratio:**

1. About the program 2. Resources 3. News 4. Mentors 5. Advisors 6. Startups graduated 7. Pictures 8. Comments
 * Content **


 * ** 1. About the program **

The **Capital Factory** program runs for approximately 10 weeks during the summer, from the end of May to the beginning of August. It culminates with a [|Demo Day] in September where we help to get the word out to potential investors and customers.

Each week there will be multiple mentoring opportunities, both as a group and one-on-one. One evening we’ll host all of the companies together for a speaker or panel and plenty of Q&A, followed up by dinner with the mentors for more one-on-one time. In addition to the group sessions, each company will be paired up with individual mentors for one-on-one sessions to help with specific challenges they are facing. Along the way each company will constantly be practicing and improving their pitch. || media type="custom" key="10234049" ||

media type="custom" key="10283001"


 * 2. Resources **
 * 3. News **
 * 4. Mentors (updated 19-08-2011):**

Director || Joshua Baer is an email marketing pioneer and the Founder of OtherInbox – the cure for email overload. A serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Joshua brought together 20 others to form the Capital Factory early stage accelerator to mentor and invest in tech startups. Joshua founded SKYLIST in 1996 in his college dormitory as a one of the first email marketing companies and then in 2004 he created UnsubCentral to help email marketers comply with regulatory requirements. He holds Computer Science and Information Decision Systems degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Austin, TX with his wife and two children. You can follow him on Twitter @joshuabaer. || Prior to Smart Bear Jason was the founder of Sheer Genius Software, a venture-funded company during the dot-com bubble, and the first employee at [|ITWatchDogs], a bootstrapped company (later sold to [|Geist Manufacturing]) that makes inexpensive, internet-enabled server room climate and power monitors. Jason speaks at industry tradeshows and conferences such as Joel Spolsky’s Business of Software. Jason lives in Austin, TX with his wife Darla. He blogs regularly about [|startups and marketing]. || Brian practices corporate and securities law with a focus on representation of start-up and emerging growth companies, representation of issuers and underwriters involved in public offerings, and representation of companies involved in merger and acquisition transactions. Brian helped build one of the leading technology practices in Texas, assisting emerging growth companies raise billions of dollars in private and public offerings. He also has handled several billion dollars in mergers and acquisitions transactions and has represented leading venture capital firms in Texas and throughout the country. || in 2000 and grew it into the leading global source of ratings and reviews of apartments with over 2 million unique visitors per month, which he sold, along with ThatRentalSite.com and TenantMarket.com, to Internet Brands (Nasdaq: INET) in 2007.Jeremy also co-founded BuzzStream, the leading service the helps SEO and PR teams manage online outreach campaigns. Jeremy currently runs Websimple, an Austin-based SEO firm specializing in web applications and long-tail,local SEO.Jeremy was previously a product manager at Irongrid and a software engineer at Knight Ridder Digital and Financial Engines.He holds an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at UT-Austin where he was a Venture Fellow and Sord Scholar, and a BS in Decision Sciences with Honors from Santa Clara University. || Ross has always been involved in building startups. From Ross’ early start as a developer for DataGeneral and Tandem Computers (both internal corporate start-ups) to his long career in ground floor start-ups with both failed companies (not to be mentioned) and successful companies like Hal Computers (purchased by Futijsu), Vice President of Engineering at Excite.com (fastest-growing company in Silicon Valley in 2000) and most recently as the CTO of HomeAway. || Neelan is a graduate of MIT (and was part of the often-publicized MIT Blackjack team) and holds graduate degrees from Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. || Rony’s background includes technology consulting at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and fast moving consumer goods product marketing experience. He holds and MBA from INSEAD and a BSc in Economics from Texas A&M. || Zosh is a company Josh co-founded that lets you fill, sign and return documents as PDF’s via your mobile phone. He launched the product at DEMO Spring 2010 where he won a DEMOgod award for his presentation which included [|smashing a fax machine with a baseball bat]. Prior to Zosh he was CEO of Ideal Science a software company he founded in early 1998 which developed scalable Bulletin Board software used by Microsoft on their xBox gaming properties (most famously Bungie Studios which produced Halo, Halo2 and Halo3.) Other notable customers include Hachette Filipacchi Media, CNN, and the FBI. || Jack is a serial entrepreneur and a winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He serves as vice chairman of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and chairman of Texas Emerging Technology Fund for the central Texas region. He also serves on the boards of nonprofits KIPP Austin Public Schools and Peoples Community Clinic, and is chairman of PeopleFund, a community development loan fund for low-income entrepreneurs. || An an entrepreneur, has has founded Fusion Learning Systems (2001), Perficient (1997), and Exact Systems (1991). He enjoys networking and idea sharing with other entrepreneurs and business owners.He frequently participates in panel discussions on technology and startups (TechCrunch, Rice Alliance), and works with his wife on the popular Austin Tech Happy Hour. Bryan began his career in the San Francisco office of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), working with Apple Computer. He earned a bachelors degree in Business/MIS at California State University at Chico. He was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and recipient of an Austin Under 40 Award. || Prior to launching Source Spring Ms. Price was the Founder and CEO of Front Gate Tickets– the largest independently owned ticketing software provider in the US. Mellie’s experience also includes serving as a senior executive with Human Code (1997), a leading software and application developer that was sold to Sapient Corporation (NASDAQ: SAPE) in 2000. At Sapient, a leading business and technology consultancy, Mellie was a Vice President of the Media, Entertainment, and Communications division. Price started her career as a designer, programmer, and system administrator when she founded Monsterbit (1994), one of the first commercial web development and web hosting companies in the nation. She was an early stage investor in Austin’s own San Jose Hotel and is currently invested in several local companies including Black Sheep Lodge, OtherInbox, Symbiot Security and SurgiCoder. She serves on the Board of Directors for Front Gate Tickets and the Austin Music Foundation. Mellie is a frequent guest speaker at industry conferences and a passionate instructor of anything to do with technology or entrepreneurship. || Prior to hitting his stride as a Sales/Marketing/Product entrepreneur, Marc worked for JPMorgan in NYC, and for USBancorp in Minneapolis as an investment banker. He has dual degrees in Corporate Finance and Financial Accounting from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. || John received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his BA summa cum laude from Trinity University, where he graduated first in his class. He is former board member of Ballet Austin, the Austin Museum of Art, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas; a founding board member of the Entrepreneur’s Foundation; and a former trustee of Trinity University. In 2009, John founded The Texas Tribune, the nation’s first statewide, non-profit, non-partisan, online news organization. || Tocquigny serves a broad range of clients including Dell Computer Corporation, Regent University, Teradata, Mass. Health Connector and numerous small businesses. She has consulted with clients such as Caterpillar, DTCC and AMD on how to efficiently structure and manage a marketing organization to produce results that C-level executives desire. The firm provides a broad range of integrated services that help companies get new customers and keep the customers they have. These include research, strategic planning, lead generation, web site development, video production, event management, iPhone apps, social media, pay per click, search engine optimization and full creative services. Yvonne is a frequent speaker for groups of CEOs in the Vistage organization. She speaks frequently for international Six Sigma organizations and is a regular speaker for groups of CEOs in the financial industry. || Michael is widely recognized as an expert in Enterprise Content Management, has authored several articles on the subject, and is a regular speaker at industry conferences. Under Michael’s leadership, Blue Fish was selected in 2007 as one of Austin’s Best Places to Work and was recognized as Austin’s tenth fastest growing company in 2008. || As an active early-stage technology investor, Marc has been involved with many companies through the years including SailPoint, Waveset, Venafi, Network Equipment Technologies, VPNet, and Vitalink. Marc’s business career began in the early 1980s as a General Partner with Hillman Ventures and later with Austin Ventures. Marc was first bitten by computers and electronics in the sixth grade through teletype access to MIT’s MULTICS timesharing system. A decade later, after corporate experience as an engineer at AT&T Bell Labs, Marc headed for the world of startups. Marc once hailed from Tufts, UC Berkeley and MIT before becoming a proud Austinite and lover of film noir. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/josh-baer-portrait-150x150.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/josh-baer-portrait.jpg"]] || Joshua Baer
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/jason-cohen-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/jason-cohen-portrait.jpg"]] || Jason Cohen || Jason Cohen is the founder of [|Smart Bear], makers of [|Code Collaborator], the most popular software development peer code review tool. In 2006 Jason wrote //Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review// which is now the most popular book on the subject with over 30,000 copies in print. Smart Bear’s customers include Adobe, Autodesk, Qualcomm, Cisco, Intuit, Cognos, RIM, Pfizer, and Siemens; Code Collaborator has won many awards including the coveted Jolt Award. In 2007, with a record of doubling revenue annually with a 50% profit margin, Smart Bear was sold to to [|AutomatedQA].
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/brian-beard-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/brian-beard-portrait.jpg"]] || Brian Beard || Brian Beard is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Austin. Brian joined the firm from the Austin office of Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP, which he co-founded in 1997.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/jeremy-benken-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/jeremy-benken-portrait.jpg"]] || Jeremy Bencken || Jeremy Bencken co-founded ApartmentRatings.com
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/billboebel.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/billboebel"]] || Bill Boebel || Bill Boebel is VP of Strategy at Rackspace, focusing on partnerships and M&A for the company’s cloud business. Prior to Rackspace, Bill co-founded and was CTO of Webmail.us, which Rackspace acquired in 2007. As an entrepreneur, Bill helped shape and iterate the company’s product vision and he built many of the company’s scalable systems including its mail storage platform, anti-spam/anti-virus, support and operations software. Bill is an active angel investor and a mentor at DayOne Ventures, Capital Factory and 500 Startups. Bill has given talks on technology and entrepreneurship at Structure Conference, HostingCon, ISPCON and Refresh Austin. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/RossBuhrdorf.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ross-buhrdorf/0/39/47a"]] || Ross Buhrdorf || Ross Buhrdorf is currently the CTO of HomeAway and oversees technology, trust and security, hosting, corporate IT, infrastructure and global customer systems. He has been instrumental in defining the product and technology while integrating multiple technology systems to contribute to the company’s rapid growth.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/andrewbusey.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.capitalfactory.com/http://www.linkedin.com/in/busey"]] || Andrew Busey || Andrew Busey is one of Austin’s most prolific entrepreneurs. He is currently the founder and CEO of Challenge Games, a publisher of short-form online games funded by Sequoia Capital and Globespan Capital. Before that he co-founded Pluck in 2003, funded by Austin Ventures, the Mayfield Fund, and Reuters, and recently acquired by Demand Media. Previous to that, Andrew co-founded living.com and iChat. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/neelan.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/neelan"]] || Neelan Choksi || Neelan Choksi is the President and COO of Tasktop Technologies where he manages sales, marketing and business development for a growing open source software infrastructure provider. Neelan has extensive technology management experience and recently served as the Chief Operating Officer of Lexcycle, the company behind Stanza, which became the most popular ebook reader for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Lexcycle was acquired by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) in 2009. Prior to Lexcycle, Neelan served as the COO of SpringSource, the venture backed open source infrastructure software company behind the Spring Framework. SpringSource was acquired by VMware (NYSE: VMW) in 2009. Before joining SpringSource, Neelan served as co-founder and President of SolarMetric, a leading object relational mapping provider, which was acquired by BEA Systems (NASDAQ: BEAS) in 2005. At BEA, Neelan was instrumental in the open sourcing of the acclaimed object/relational mapping tool Kodo as OpenJPA. Prior to SolarMetric, Neelan worked for Andersen Consulting Strategic Services (NYSE: ACN) and Exxon Research & Engineering (NYSE: XOM).
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/russell-hinds-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.capitalfactory.com/mentors/"]] || Russell Hinds || Mr. Hinds is a serial entrepreneur, with a dual background in technology and real estate investment. He is Managing Director of RSH Ventures, an angel investment fund partnership, focused on early stage investments in biotechnology, life sciences, software, semiconductors, and wireless sectors. He is active in the Band of Angels, Keiretsu Forum and Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN); angel investor groups in the Bay Area and Austin. Mr. Hinds serves on the boards of several companies. He also manages with his wife a Real Estate investment and land development partnership based in Austin, Texas. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/rony-kahan.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rony-kahan/0/720/393"]] || Rony Kahan || Rony Kahan co-founded Indeed.com in 2004 and has grown it into the leading global search engine for jobs with over 25 million monthly unique visitors. Prior to Indeed, Rony co-founded jobsinthemoney.com, the leading job site for financial professionals in 1998 and sold it to Financial News in 2003.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/joshkerr.png width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/joshkerr"]] || Josh Kerr || Josth Kerr has been building technologies to help empower consumers for over a decade. He’s a software developer turned entrepreneur and is currently working at YouSendIt, a company that acquired his startup Zosh in December 2010.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/kipmcc.jpeg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/kipmcclanahan"]] || Kip McClanahan || Kip McClanahan’s career spans nearly twenty years across the security, networking, communications, software and media industries. Kip has served as both CEO and board member to public and private companies leading all functional areas including strategy, operations, product, sales and marketing, as well as M&A deal structuring. He has demonstrated a consistent pattern of creating shareholder value with his companies returning nearly $800 million in gains to shareholders. Kip also represents Austin’s [|Silverton Partners] (an early-stage investment firm). ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/jackmcdonald.png width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jack-mcdonald/6/979/933"]] || Jack McDonald || Jack was chairman and CEO of Perficient, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRFT) from 1999-2009, during which time he led a team that grew the business from eight to 1200 employees and startup to $230 million in revenues, completed 17 acquisitions, led the company’s IPO and created $500+ million market cap on a total net equity investment of ~$10 million.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/bryan-menell-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/bmenell"]] || Bryan Menell || Bryan Menell is an investor and advisor to early stage technology companies, as well as an entrepreneur. He currently sits on the board of directors of Moximity, a location based mobile company, and MomentumSI, a systems integrator. He is also advising a handful of early stage companies including Socialware.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/john-price-portrait-150x150.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdprice"]] || John Price || John Price’s career spans three decades of high tech startups. After a stint as an AI researcher at Shell, John jumped into building high tech startups and never looked back. As VP of Marketing and Business Development at Trilogy, John helped drive Trilogy and pcOrder to great heights in the 90's. Now as the CEO of Vast.com, one of the hottest San Francisco and Austin based internet search companies, John continues to drive growth through his vision and leadership in all aspects of internet and enterprise business. John is also a board member of Sparefoot, a Capital Factory company from 2009. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/mellie-price-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/mellieprice"]] || Mellie Price || Mellie Price has over 15 years experience as a successful entrepreneur and senior executive in the information technology and entertainment sectors. She is the Founder of Managing Partner of Source Spring – a micro-business application development and investment group.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/marcsmookler.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/smookler"]] || Marc Smookler || Marc Smookler is a creator and builder of lasting brands/products, their market penetration, and the companies that support them—in both the SMB and consumer space. To date, Marc has founded 4 companies. His latest B2B venture is www.fonality.com, the leading SaaS, Unified Communications cloud company servicing small and mid-sized businesses. Marc’s latest B2C venture is www.sakesocial.com, the largest online retailer of Japanese sake.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/johnthornton.gif width="100" height="100" link="http://www.capitalfactory.com/mentors/"]] || John Thornton || John Thornton joined Austin Ventures in 1991 and focuses on software investing and firm strategy. Previously, John was with McKinsey & Co., where he served clients in the U.S. and Europe. He has worked with companies such as Active Power (NASDAQ: ACPW), Dazel (NYSE: HP), Lombardi (NYSE: IBM), Metasolv (NASDAQ: MSLV), Mission Critical (NASDAQ: NTIQ), Motive (NASDAQ: MOTV), Pentasafe (NASDAQ: NTIQ), SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI), TechRepublic (NYSE: IT), Tivoli (NYSE: IBM), Vignette (NASDAQ: VIGN), and Waveset (NASDAQ: SUNW).
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/yvonne.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/1a6/396"]] || Yvonne Tocquigny || Yvonne Tocquigny is founder and CEO of [|Tocquigny], an internationally recognized digital marketing firm that was founded in 1980. Tocquigny was named the #2 Interactive Agency in the nation by B-to-B Magazine and ranked a Top 10 Digital Agency by Adweek. ICONS Web Design: Studios has also recognized Tocquigny as one of the top 100 web design firms in the world.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/michael-trafton-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltrafton"]] || Michael Trafton || Michael Trafton is the founder and CEO of Blue Fish Development Group, a software consulting firm providing Enterprise Content Management solutions to Fortune 500 companies. Blue Fish specializes in delivering fixed-price, product-quality consulting solutions for clients such as Southwest Airlines, Wells Fargo, ExxonMobil, and Overstock.com.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/mark-yagjian-portrait.jjpg_.jpg width="100" height="99" link="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/b8/748"]] || Marc Yagjian || Marc Yagjian is an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor to early stage technology companies. He is currently a managing director of Origin Partners, an early-stage venture capital fund which he co-founded in 1999. As an entrepreneur, Marc was a co-founder and senior executive of Tivoli Systems, a pioneer in systems management and enterprise software. Following a strong public offering, Tivoli was purchased by IBM in 1996 for $750 million. Marc also led successful start-up companies Creagen Biotech and Quadralay which ran Austin City Links, Austin’s most trafficked website before Netscape changed everything.

Mentor Alumni
Today, he guides the company from a product and strategy perspective by identifying opportunities that will help Rackspace remain a leader as more and more IT is consumed as a service. Pat is currently working on Rackspace’s cloud computing initiative. Pat has won multiple awards and been repeatedly recognized for his entrepreneurial vision. Most recently he was awarded the 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year regional award by Ernst & Young and was a finalist nationally. In 2008, he was selected by the San Antonio Business Journal as a winner of their annual 40 under 40 Award. Pat is most proud, however, of helping create a place where people love coming to work every day. Rackspace was ranked #32 of Fortune’s 2008 list of Best Places to Work in the country. Pat is also an active angel investor. He focuses on early-stage Software-as-a-Service companies that serve small businesses and free agents. Pat lives in San Antonio with his wife, daughter, and two dogs. || Most recently he founded Show Initiative, LLC with the creation of the Austin Game Conference in 2003. He sold the company’s portfolio of game industry events to CMP Technology in 2006 and refocused on virtual worlds and social networks. Show Initiative is now in the process of evolving once again. In 2001 Chris created the Texas Entrepreneur Initiative. From 2001 to 2006 TEI published the daily email newsletter AustinXL and produced events designed to bring together Central Texas entrepreneurs and investors. Prior to all this Chris was involved in a variety of startups, including various media companies, a web services company managing investment portfolios for angel investors, an online music company, a grid computing company and an ecommerce firm dedicated to horror and Halloween related merchandise. Last century Chris launched UGO Entertainment which went on to become one of the leading online media networks catering to men aged 18 to 34. He sold UGO in 1999. UGO is now part of Hearst Corp. Chris enjoys getting his hands dirty with new product development. || thinker and activist on issues relating to freedom of speech, intellectual property law, and technology. Ian is the founder and coordinator of the Freenet Project; designed to allow true freedom of communication, Freenet was the first decentralized anonymous peer-to-peer network, and a precursor of the “distributed hashtable” data structure. Ian has also founded a number of innovative and diverse commercial ventures, including Revver, the first online video website to share revenue with video creators, and Thoof, a collaboratively generated personalized news website. Ian’s current venture is Uprizer Labs, which has developed SenseArray, an easily integrated collaborative filtering technology. SenseArray is already in use in a variety of industries ranging from targeted advertising to online dating. || Samy grew up in Seattle, studied Computer Engineering at the University of Washington, and lives in Austin with his wife and two young daughters. || Before Dell, Decker spent more than six years in the Bay Area leading marketing, sales and product strategy at B2B and media startups. Decker has authored two books on word of mouth marketing, serves on the digital advisory board for P&G, served on the board of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and posts occasionally at deckermarketing.com or @samdecker. || Ed founded Ghostfire Games, an Austin TX company specializing in making exercise video games for the Nintendo Wii system. Prior to this, he was founder and CEO of The Middleware Company, a Java training/consulting company, which he sold to Precise Software. While at The Middleware Company, he created the world’s largest Java developer community, [|www.TheServerSide.com]. He also created TheServerSide Symposium, a series of international Java conferences which brought the brightest developers together. He is also the author of “Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans”, a critically acclaimed book on developing complex business systems in Java. || Prior to SolarWinds, Mr. Van Zant was the EVP of Marketing and GM of the Communications BU for Motive and the co-founder and COO for BroadJump, where he managed growth from start-up in 1999 to over $100M in sales and 350 global employees by 2002. Prior to BroadJump, Mr. Van Zant held engineering, marketing, and sales positions for Cisco Systems, NetSpeed, Cypress Semiconductor and Thomas-Conrad. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/patrick-condon-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/patrick-condon-portrait.jpg"]] || Patrick Condon || Pat Condon is one of the co-founders of Rackspace Hosting (NYSE:RAX). Over the last 10 years Pat has lead marketing, sales, customer care and business development and has helped champion Rackspace’s unique flavor of customer service, Fanatical Support.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/adam-moore-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/adam-moore-portrait.jpg"]] || Adam Moore || Adam Moore is the co-founder, and serves as co-president, of Springbox, an interactive agency. From 2001 to 2004 he managed all business development and client acquisition at T3 (The Think Tank). Prior to that, Adam managed Dell’s Small and Medium Business (SMB) online group. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/marc-nathan-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/marc-nathan-portrait.jpg"]] || Marc Nathan || Marc Nathan currently advises several startup companies as a Director of Development at the Houston Technology Center. He is also the Marketing Chairman of the Houston Angel Network, and an investor in early stage companies. ||
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/chris-sherman-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/chris-sherman-portrait.jpg"]] || Chris Sherman || With more than 17 years experience, Chris is one of the world’s foremost experts on the video game industry and virtual worlds. He has been at the intersection of media and technology since the early 1990s, having founded numerous companies during that time.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ian-clarke-portrait.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ian-clarke-portrait.jpg"]] || Ian Clarke || Ian Clarke is a Computer Scientist and Entrepreneur, with a track record of both technical and business innovation, and an outspoken
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/samy.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/samy.jpg"]] || Samy Aboel-Nil || Samy Aboel-Nil was most recently the technical co-founder of MessageOne, responsible for product definition, product strategy, business development for key channel partners, and sales engineering. MessageOne managed well over a million corporate mailboxes before being acquired by Dell Computer in 2008. Prior to MessageOne, Samy ran Sales Engineering and Software development teams at PCOrder and Trilogy software.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/sam-decker-portrait.gif width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/sam-decker-portrait.gif"]] || Sam Decker || Prior to Mass Relevance, Sam Decker was founding Chief Marketing Officer at Bazaarvoice, the leader in Software as a Service (SaaS) social commerce technologies serving over 1,000 brands. Decker was responsible for building the company’s brand, products and platform. Before joining Bazaarvoice, Decker spent seven years of leadership at Dell, Inc. in marketing, online, CRM, and customer-centricity strategy. From 1999-2003, he led Dell’s consumer web site, building Dell.com into the largest consumer eCommerce site at $3.5B in annual sales, and established global best practices in merchandising, analytics, product management, and operations. Sam pioneered Dell’s customer-centricity strategy and customer segmentation using Six Sigma methodology.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ed-roman-portrait-127x150.jpg width="100" height="125" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ed-roman-portrait.jpg"]] || Ed Roman || Ed Roman is a serial entrepreneur with over 12 years of experience running startup companies. His expertise spans a wide range of talents, including marketing, sales, leadership, and software development. Ed has been an advisor to several startup companies.
 * [[image:http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/kenny-van-zant-150x150.jpg width="100" height="100" link="http://capitalfactory.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/kenny-van-zant.jpeg"]] || Kenny Van Zant || Kenny Van Zant is a technology entrepreneur, executive, advisor and board member, with over 20 years of experience with both private and public companies in the Austin area. Mr. Van Zant has been the Senior Vice President and Chief Product Strategist for SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI) since 2006, where he is responsible for the company’s product, market and technology strategy.


 * 6. Startups graduated ** **(edit) :**

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 * 7. Pictures **

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 * 8. Comments **

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