About
When I meet people they often ask me what I do for a living. My answer is “it depends on the day.”
I am currently playing many roles: entrepreneur, business owner, investor, husband and dad – and my activity depends on what I’m doing that day.
Many years ago (mid 80′s), after graduating from Law School and after working 2 years in the computer industry (I decided law was not for me) I co-founded a technology consulting and education company. 13 years, 200 employees and $30M in revenue later, my partner and I sold the company in 1999. During that time I did everything you could imagine: programmed, sold, marketed, designed, hired, fired, raised capital (twice), almost went out of business (once), acquired a company, and then ultimately sold a company.
Since that wild ride I have been involved in 5 startups; 3 of my own and two non-profits I helped get off the ground. In the “for profit” category I co-founded and still own the majority of TechWise Group, a regional technology consulting company. Beginning in 2003 I started an internal project with a friend to build short term trading robots to trade equities in the stock market and we run them daily. In 2007 I co-founded and became operating partner of DreamIt Ventures, a seed stage VC fund and business accelerator. In 2008 I co-founded WizeHive, a business collaboration tool used to help people collaborate in a way that I was unable to find otherwise on the web.
On the not for profit side, I helped my former partner start the 3E Institute, an entity focused on teaching teachers how to think and teach like entreprenuers. I then helped fund, organize and currently serve on the board of the Academy of Manayunk, a school for children with learning differences.
Along the way I have also made dozens of investments through my investment company, YellowLab Ventures. Some of our investments include: RCD Technology (RFID), Paradigm Spine (Spinal Products), Meridian Bank (Bank), DriverTech (Navigation), Preclick (Photos), Acklero (Mortgage Processing), Core Essence (arthroscopic products), BioAdvance (Life Sciences).
As an former and current entreprenuer (WizeHive) and someone who takes “boot strapping” to the next level, I can live and breath what it takes to start up a business while keeping costs incredibly low. As an investor and as one of the DreamIt Partners, I have reviewed hundreds (or thousands) of applications and business plans and I have have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t.
When I’m not working or sleeping (what’s that?) you can normally find me walking my two yellow labrador retrievers or playing with my young daughter. I figure it’s only a few more years until she doesn’t want me around so I better make the most of it while I have the chance. At that point I plan to rediscover my golf game, which has been on hiatis the last few years since I’ve managed to screw up my retirement with all of these other stimulating activities.
I hope you enjoy the blog!
