Joshua Baer
Austinpreneur. Computer Science graduate from Carnegie Mellon University. Parallel entrepreneur and technologist. Early stage investor and startup strategist. Sucker for philanthropies that help kids.
| Headline: | Entrepreneur |
| Work status: | Employed Full-Time |
| Website: | http://www.joshuabaer.info |
| Industries: | Cleantech, Computing, Education, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Health, Information Technology, Internet, Lifestyle, Media, Real Estate, Retail, Travel |
| Skills: | AJAX, Architecture, Business, Copy Writing, Database Administration, Databases, Design, Engineering, English, Entrepreneurship, Facebook platform, Guerrilla marketing, HTML / CSS, Human-Computer Interaction, Investment, Java, Javascript, Languages, Languages and Platforms, Leadership, MacOS applications, Management, Marketing, Negotiation, Perl, Product design, Public speaking, Rails, Recruitment, Software Engineering, SQL, System Administration, Unix, Viral marketing, Web design, Web Development, Writing |
| Location: | Austin, TX |
| Interested in: | Advising startups, Brainstorming, Consulting opportunities, Finding business partners, Finding cofounders, Finding engineers, Finding experts, Finding mentors, Finding team mates, Getting press, Giving back, Helping friends, Investing in projects, Meeting new people, Mentoring, Offering Expertise, Participating in a competition, Professional opportunities, Promoting my startups, Providing services to startups, Raising money, Receiving feedback, Recruiting, Recruiting for my startup, Supporting my investments |
| Tags: | austin, email, green, spam |
| Schools: | Carnegie Mellon University |
FEATURED STARTUP
FULL BIO
WORK EXPERIENCE
| Employer: | Emerging Media at Datran Media |
| Position: | General Manager |
| Time period: | February 2008 - Present |
| Description: | I'm the guy to talk to about Facebook integration and social networking at Datran Media. Also a good place to start with crazy R&D ideas for any of the Datran Media family of products - EO.com, List Management, NetMargin affiliate network, StormPost ESP, UnsubCentral or our Display network. |
| Employer: | OtherInbox |
| Position: | Founder |
| Time period: | January 2008 - Present |
| Description: | Get ready for the rules to change. OtherInbox is going to bring transparency to email marketing and bring control back to the consumer. Stay tuned for more info! |
| Employer: | The Grove Wine Bar |
| Position: | Owner |
| Time period: | December 2007 - Present |
| Description: | The Grove is a wine bar and restaurant opened by Reed Clemons and Beth Lasita over on Bee Cave Road, just west of 360 and across from The County Line. Reed has been doing restaurants in Austin for years, such as Mezzaluna, The Bitter End, The Granite Cafe, Hangtown Grill, Reed's Supper Club, etc. I was fortunate to get involved as an investor!
From the get go our goal has been to provide a casual place where Austinites and visitors could enjoy great wine and food. When we first opened, we called ourselves a wine bar. However, since our inception, we have had a full kitchen. The menu is simply fantastic. Does this make us a restaurant, people wonder? It definitely makes us more than a wine bar, we are the grove wine bar | kitchen. We hope our customers appreciate and enjoy what we do. It truly is a labor of love. http://www.grovewinebar.com/ |
| Employer: | Hoop-a-paluza |
| Position: | Board of Advisors |
| Time period: | October 2007 - Present |
| Description: | Hoop-A-Paluza (HAPI) is a charity, a fundraiser and a big party all rolled into one. We hold an annual carnival each year. People register for the event online. Before the event, participants obtain pledges from donors who "sponsor" them to shoot 20 free throws. At the event, participants shoot their baskets to raise money for worthy children’s causes, after which they and their families enjoy rides, free refreshments, entertainment and fun contests. All proceeds benefit a select group of children's charities each year – and participants and their families enjoy a fun-filled carnival-style event free of charge.
With an all-volunteer organization since its founding in 2002, HAPI has raised more than $1,000,000 to aid children’s causes in New Jersey and spawned sister events around the country. |
| Employer: | Greenling Organic Delivery |
| Position: | Board of Directors |
| Time period: | December 2006 - Present |
| Description: | Greenling Organic Delivery provides home delivery of local and organic grocery items directly to your home. For the same price as whole foods, you can have high quality organic goodies brought to your door. This award winning startup is currently servicing the Austin and San Antonio markets and expanding rapidly.
As an investor and board member, I help Greenling with their eCommerce website and online marketing strategy, as well as fundraising and corporate strategy. |
| Employer: | Charity Partners of Austin |
| Position: | Board of Directors |
| Time period: | May 2006 - Present |
| Description: | CPA was founded in 2005 by a group of local philanthropists with the objective of giving back to our community, while producing fun and entertaining events for families and friends. We focus on providing funding support for nonprofit organizations that have a direct and meaningful impact on kids, families, and the arts.
http://www.charitypartnersofaustin.org/ |
| Employer: | ME Television |
| Position: | Board of Advisors |
| Time period: | April 2006 - Present |
| Description: | ME, “Music and Entertainment” Television, is a 24- hour regional network dedicated to showcasing and providing television exposure for regional artists as well as the hundreds of touring groups that make up the vibrant Texas live music scene. Supporting established artists and promoting and discovering new talent is a priority. ME is the entertainment resource, with venue schedules, artist information, interviews and local live music shows every night at 7pm on ME Live! ME Television launched October 1, 2005 and is currently broadcast to Austin and the 40 surrounding cities. ME Television is a national prototype for a series of regional music and entertainment networks around the country.
Besides hanging around the TV studio every chance I get, I also help out with the Internet strategy. http://www.metelevision.com/ |
| Employer: | Lashback |
| Position: | Board of Directors |
| Time period: | July 2005 - Present |
| Description: | Formed in 2003, LashBack was born from the idea that someone should be able to automate an email unsubscribe request. Since then LashBack has developed and patented several 2nd generation anti-spam technologies which are being adopted by the largest ISPs in the world to enhance their spam fighting abilities. LashBack's unsubscribe "Reputation" services and automated unsubscribe service "UnsubSafe" will play a key role in stamping out the burden of junk email to ISP's anti-spam organizations and their consumers.
LashBack is raising the value of email by developing and deploying technical solutions that bring visibility, accountability and control to all players in the email Ecosystem. Currently LashBack data is used to protect over 500 million inboxes worldwide. |
| Employer: | Buzz Manager |
| Position: | Owner |
| Time period: | June 2004 - Present |
| Description: | Create the technical direction, direct development resources and overall leadership for Buzz
Manager. The service monitors and anlyzes online word of mouth in fan-generated media such as social networks, blogs, fan forums and influence the buzz in sports, entertainment and lifestyle markets for PR and marketing purposes. |
| Employer: | Email Senders and Providers Coalition (ESPC) |
| Position: | Committee Chair |
| Time period: | January 2004 - Present |
| Description: | The Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) was formed to fight spam while protecting the delivery of legitimate email. The ESPC members have recognized the need for strong spam solutions that ensure the delivery of legitimate email and have been very active in the war against spam.
I founded and co-chaired the Vendor Relations committee (which later was renamed the Receiver Relations committee) and currently co-chair the Technology committee. http://www.espcoalition.org/ http://www.deliverability.com/ |
| Employer: | MassageEnvy |
| Position: | Partner |
| Time period: | November 2006 - August 2008 |
| Description: | Massage Envy® is a Scottsdale-based national franchise of massage clinics dedicated to bringing professional, affordable therapeutic massage services to consumers at convenient times and locations that fit busy lifestyles.
I was one of the partners and investors for a handful of MassageEnvy franchises in Austin. I was not involved with MassageEnvy corporate. |
| Employer: | EFF Austin |
| Position: | Board of Directors |
| Time period: | September 2006 - November 2007 |
| Description: | The Electronic Frontier Foundation Austin advocates establishment and protection of digital rights and defense of the wealth of digital information, innovation, and technology. We promote the right of all citizens to communicate and share information without unreasonable constraint. We also advocate the fundamental right to explore, tinker, create, and innovate along the frontier of emerging technologies.
http://www.effaustin.org/ |
| Employer: | Datran Media |
| Position: | Chief Technology Officer |
| Time period: | January 2006 - January 2008 |
| Description: | Datran serves optimized, relevant and custom created advertisements into your email inbox, like an ad server. Like paid search, performance dictates which ads float to the top and which sink to the bottom. EO.com is our media exchange that ties it all together with a real-time auction.
I became Chief Technology Officer of Datran Media in January 2006 after it acquired SKYLIST and UnsubCentral. I'm an executive sponsor for key strategic accounts including Microsoft and Turner, lead R&D projects across the companies, and represent Datran Media to the industry and the press. |
| Employer: | Capital Thought |
| Position: | Founder |
| Time period: | March 2004 - January 2006 |
| Description: | Capital Thought is an Internet think tank and development partner. We built version 1 of
SenderScore for ReturnPath, URaPI.com, UnsubCentral for SKYLIST, the Mosso hosting system for Rackspace.com, BuzzManager for SportsMediaControl, and BazaarVoice Ratings and Reviews. |
| Employer: | UnsubCentral |
| Position: | Founder & CEO |
| Time period: | January 2004 - January 2006 |
| Description: | In December 2003 Congress passed the CAN-SPAM act. It made the advertiser responsible for honoring unsubscribes and maintaining an email suppression list, which many had never done before. In order to comply with the law, email marketers now needed to securely exchange these suppression files.
We launched UnsubCentral in January 2004 to provide a secure, central repository for email suppression lists and easy access control. It quickly became the gold standard for email suppression lists and provides trusted, third party compliance for billions of email messages per month. |
| Employer: | URaPI |
| Position: | Chief Technology Officer |
| Time period: | May 2001 - January 2005 |
| Employer: | Netmonitor, Inc. |
| Position: | Founder & CEO |
| Time period: | January 2000 - January 2005 |
| Employer: | IveBeenGood.com |
| Position: | Director of Business Development |
| Time period: | October 1999 - August 2000 |
| Description: | IveBeenGood.com was incubated in Trilogy University and also operated as UberWorks, Inc.
We launched at Internet World 1999 and were covered on the CBS Evening News and New York Times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz39wHj95c http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E0DC1E... I was a key contributor from product conception to company acquisition for $20mm by Network Commerce. I developed the sales pitch and strategy for >$1M software licensing and hosting deals, opened the initial pipeline, closed $2mm+ in revenue in 6 months, and developed and executed $250,000 online marketing plan with <$3 customer acquisition cost. |
| Employer: | VentureBeginnings |
| Position: | Entrepreneur in Residence |
| Time period: | September 1999 - January 2001 |
| Description: | VentureBeginnings was an Pittsburgh incubator run by RF Culbertson and focused on the students coming out of Carnegie Mellon. |
| Employer: | Trilogy Software |
| Position: | Trilogy University |
| Time period: | July 1999 - September 1999 |
| Description: | TU is a three to four month total-immersion program that many view as the most challenging and most rewarding period of their career.
Each TU class is tasked with using innovation and technology to drive the execution of Trilogy's strategy. Previous TU classes have built new products and even new businesses. Others have driven Trilogy’s focus on e-commerce. A TU project in 1999 became one of our largest software deals of the year. As the company intensified its focus on leadership development the next year, a TU team created a web site that the company still uses today to communicate our vision and exchange ideas that drive forward every day. Recognized in a case study for Harvard Business School and described in an article in the Harvard Business Review magazine, TU is a program in which young professionals are proud to have participated. Here is an article from Fortune in 1998 that talks about life at Trilogy back then... http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/21/insanity.html |
| Employer: | Ferris Research |
| Position: | Guest Analyst |
| Time period: | May 1997 - January 2006 |
| Description: | I started out working with David Ferris in college as a contract programmer for his Filemaker Pro database and website. Soon I became a guest analyst, writing and reviewing research notes on emerging technology, regulation, and best practices for distribution to F500 CTO / CIO client base. |
| Employer: | SKYLIST, Inc. |
| Position: | Founder & CEO |
| Time period: | January 1996 - January 2006 |
| Description: | I started SKYLIST as a dorm-room dot-com while studying at Carnegie Mellon. I was working with ListSTAR as an intern at StarNine and one of my consulting clients asked me if I would host the Computer Book Publishing discussion list on my server. One list became two, and then ten, and then a hundred.
By the time I graduated from CMU, I had a nice little business with a few hundred thousand a year in revenue. But it was when we decided to take the plunge and create our own email platform called StormPost that the company really started to grow quickly. We also shifted focus from discussion forums to newsletters and promotions. By the time I sold SKYLIST to Datran Media, it was ranked best value by Jupiter research and had earned clients such as Microsoft, Nascar, Disney and the Boston Globe. In 2006, SKYLIST was rated one of the best places to work in Austin. |
| Employer: | ListMom-Talk |
| Position: | Moderator |
| Time period: | January 1996 - June 1999 |
| Description: | ListMom-Talk was an email list of almost 1,000 people who were responsible for running email lists on all platforms. Administrators from the biggest mailing list sites and the developers of mailing list software such were all active on the list. List etiquette, comparisons of list software, problems with members of a list, and listserver configuration were all appropriate topics. The List-Unsubscribe header and the rest of RFC 2369 were developed by this group and is now widely implemented by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, LISTSERV, Majordomo and pretty much everyone else.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2369.html |
| Employer: | StarNine Technologies |
| Position: | Intern |
| Time period: | April 1995 - May 1997 |
| Description: | My first real job other than bagging groceries, I was hired by Tom Biddulph to respond to ListSTAR customers on public forums and develop AppleScript extensions. This is when I first started to learn about email. |
EDUCATION
| University: | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Time period: | 1994 - 1999 |
| Degree: | Computer Science & Information Decision Systems |
INFORMATION
| Hobbies: | Entrepreneurship
Angel investing Sustainability and Green Tech Dogs and most other pets Porsche and racing Live Music Downhill longboarding |
| Memberships: | Carnegie Mellon University: Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Interfraternity Council, Dow Jones Entrepreneurship Center |
| Awards: | Carnegie Mellon University Dow Jones Center Enterprise Award with Distinction
Carnegie Mellon University Senior Leadership Award SKYLIST 2006 13th Best Place to Work in Austin |
