After confirming Kevin Hartz, Co-Founder & CEO of Eventbrite, as our first Keynote Speaker yesterday, we’re very excited to announce another great speaker.
It’s Dan Shapiro, Former Founder & CEO of Sparkbuy and Ontela.
We know Dan very well, as he’s one the most active, and highest rated, Mentors for the Founder Institute. Based in Seattle, Dan currently works at Google as a “kept entrepreneur” following the acquisition of his most recent company, Sparkbuy. Dan was the Founder and CEO of Sparkbuy, a comparison shopping website, and sold it to Google within 6 months of inception.
In fact, Dan recently gave a great talk about his experience, with advice on how to think about selling your startup, to the Seattle Founder Institute. The video is below – it’s a MUST WATCH.
Before Sparkbuy, Dan was the Founder and CEO of Ontela, a pioneering mobile imaging company, where he was named CEO of the Year by MobileBeat. Ontela was frequently recognized including the Dow Jones Top 10 in Wireless list, receiving the CTIA award for Best Social Networking Application, and being named Breakthrough Startup of the Year by the WTIA. Ontela merged with Photobucket in December of 2009 where Dan now holds a seat on the Board of Directors.
He now serves on the board of Bonanzle, an ecommerce company backed by Ignition, Matrix, and Voyager, and on the board of the nonprofit Washington Technology Industry Association. He has also invested in several startups, including Smore, Vizify, and Pathable. You can read his great blog about startups and entrepreneurship at DanShapiro.com.
We’re very excited to have Dan as a speaker, and we hope you’ll join us.