My Portfolio
Chronological
Autonomy Sports
Founder
The combination of machine learning, conversational AI, and even blockchain will enable a complete reimagination of our approach to participating in sports.
Worldwide, millions of people invest tens of millions of hours each year organizing sports; which includes, sending out billions of messages; yet seventy percent of all kids quit by age thirteen.
If you are interested in youth sports / sports, and have a background in ML, NLP, Blockchain, and/or software development, and want to consider joining me, please get in touch; together we can double participation within ten years.
SQGO Innovations
Co-Founder
More than five years prior to the launch of the iPhone, SQGO [Simple Quick GO] created a mobile app ecosystem that would enable any handset manufacturer or mobile operator to offer gorgeous cross-platform apps developed by anyone (reference examples shown on the right).
SQGO invented a unique user interface (capacitive touch did not exist at the time), software, and [patented] methods for efficiently building and provisioning mobile applications.
As of 2020, I manage a small team that works on monetizing SQGO’s intellectual property.
Real Estate
I have owned and managed real estate for over twenty years. This involves planning, permitting, managing contractor and tenant relationships, arranging financing, and paying attention to details. Although I spend most of my days working in the tech sector, I really enjoy this type of work.
Nonprofit Work
Every year, I donate labor (or work for a reduced rate) for founders dedicated to making a difference.
ROAR - [Rural Opportunity through Art and Restoration] - a group dedicated to building creative economies in rural America. I assisted with branding, language, and strategy.
Unified / AdaptX - Brendan Aylward works with adaptive athletes and continuously gives back to the community. I helped Brendan with his online presence, strategy, and branding.
Bella Gaia - Kenji Williams is an extraordinary artist known worldwide for delivering immersive eco-entertainment experiences. I helped Kenji with strategy and the financial planning pertaining to building an eco-dome theatre.
Clean Green Music Machine - The team at CGMM is dedicated to using entertainment and technology to fight climate change. I helped CGMM with business planning, impact analysis, websites, app design, and the conceptualization of an eco-token [crypto] protocol.
Music Think Tank - [2008] In partnership with Andrew Dubber and a handful of contributors, we turned MTT into the most trafficked site in the world for do-it-yourself music industry. As of 2020, this free resource for artists has served over 13 million pages to 6 million artists worldwide.
StackChat
Co-Founder
Sometimes ventures never see the light of day, and sometimes they take years to reemerge.
Prior to the launch of Slack [similar], I invested in StackChat, and I also took on the role of product designer.
We surveyed event planners and their customers, and we designed a minimally viable product (shown right).
However, the team split up to pursue other opportunities.
StackChat is still a good idea that may come back to life someday. I still want to build it!
Read my related blog post “The Haley Pitch Every Founder Should Know”.
Coppersmith Hall
In 2015, I helped a close friend put together Coppersmith Hall in South Boston.
My responsibilities were:
Use Facebook and Google advertising to drive traffic to a concept site that I constructed (HubHall.com) to demonstrate demand for event space in Boston. This effort generated $1M in tangible demand (via inbound inquiries) in one week.
Create an investor pitch deck and pro-forma, including a social impact analysis, for this multi-faceted business.
The edited pro-forma is now used by entrepreneurs around the world to launch new restaurants .
Smarter Glass
As a consultant to Mass Integrated Inc., I rebranded the company as Smarter Glass, managed a NetSuite implementation, and launched a blog for Smarter Glass called ‘Display Alliance’.
Spotlight.IO
Founder
In 2013, we tried to launch a SaaS product that influencers could use to process inbound promotion requests. I learned a lot from this experience:
Respect your advisors, but trust your instincts. Influencers are a big thing now.
Don’t go with the team you have. Recruit the best team possible.
Don’t write code until you have MVP mockups that your target audience is asking to pay for.
Understand how major trends impact your trajectory (somehow we missed the mobile-first paradigm).
Your software might be good, but your go-to-market strategy has to be even better.
Music Industry Ventures
Emergent Discovery utilized an inference engine to enable music-preference-based ad targeting. As a product manager, I designed software for the self-service creation and placement of ad units that featured music.
MusicXray used an early neural net implementation to predict hits; when this technology failed, I helped the company pivot to become the world’s first successful music submission platform.
Music Think Tank, mentioned above, has become the most widely read blog in the DIY music industry.
SongBoost was an early SaaS company that I founded to enable artists to self-promote music on sites like MySpace. SongBoost was acquired by MusicXray.
Jediah is an artist and a rock band that I worked with as a manager / record label. Through this relationship, I created and open-sourced the legal documentation that established a ‘360 deal’ with the band. These documents have been used throughout the music industry.
Longview Farm Recording Studios - I spent a year at this legendary residential studio helping the CEO transition to a sustainable business model (we still work together). Witnessing the challenges that artists had to overcome informed every thing I did in the music industry thereafter.
Lancaster Marketplace
I launched the Lancaster Flea Market (LFM) as the largest indoor/outdoor, modern flea market in the Eastern United States.
I wrote a series of innovative ad spots and designed corresponding landing pages (LFMradio and LFMtv) that together generated 10,000 visitors a weekend.
I also became the largest LFM vendor by aggressively acquiring antiques and pretiques (my wording) to remarket within a 15,000 square foot, racked section of the building.
LFM was acquired by a local entrepreneur.
Yospace
Co-Founder
London-based Yospace has become one of the leading server-side ad insertion companies in the world.
I was YoSpace’s first investor; I came up with the brand name; and I led the initial sales management effort that established YoSpace throughout the telecom industry.
Yospace has been acquired several times.
See recent acquisition announcement.
Bid Book
Inventor
Before “big data” was a thing, I managed a team that captured and processed all of the price, supply, and demand data for the entire auto recycling industry. We combined this data with our inventory data (~1M parts) to create an interactive Bid Book that we (see below) used at insurance auctions to smartly bid on salvage units. We also used this data to price our inventory.
This software was acquired by Ford Motor Company.
Crawford Truck Sales
Founder
I acquired this company and then managed a team that grew CTS into one of the five largest Jerr-Dan distributors in North America, and the largest seller of Jerr-Dan parts in the world.
CTS is now exceptionally operated by my brother in law.
United Auto Recycling
Founder
UAR was one of three related operating companies managed by my family (Leominster MA location shown here).
My responsibilities were software, tech, and marketing.
I also guided our companies to be the ‘greenest’ auto recyclers in the industry years before ‘green’ became a component of American industry.
All three operating companies were acquired by Ford Motor Company.
EDUCATION
Software Design - University of Massachusetts @ Amherst