The short version about the author, Mark Suster:
- Grew up in NorCal
- Graduate of UCSD (economics) and University of Chicago (MBA)
- First job: programmer at Accenture
- Startups: BuildOnline (sold to publicly traded French company) and Koral (sold to Salesforce.com)
- Now: Partner at GRP Partners, the largest venture capital firm in Southern California
- Current Investments / Boards: RingRevenue, GumGum, Adly, Burstly, Pose & TextPlus
- Angel investor in: Affordit, EagleCrest Energy, EcoMom, ExpenseCloud, Gendai Games,LaughStub and several others (including a company that is the global patent holder in resealable aluminum cans)
- Also: on the board of UCSD’s Rady School of Business Venture Capital Fund
- I founded Launchpad LA, a mentorship program designed to help the most promising LA-based companies get funded and become successful (and stay in Los Angeles!)
- I’m the host of This Week in Venture Capital, a weekly web television series designed to help entrepreneurs better understand the world of Venture Capital and to put a human face on prominent VCs