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jeff bonforte

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A Product Guy

As an entrepreneur, you are often forced to be a jack of all trades. As such, I have had many senior roles in marketing and bus dev, but I am, in fact, a "product guy" through and through. The vast majority of my experience and skills are in product.

Interesting Things

Freefly skydiver (400 jumps), PADI-certified scuba diver (24+ hours underwater), rafted 160 km of down Zambezi river in southern Africa (22 class 5 rapids!), lived in Switzerland for two years from 2002 & 2003, and almost conversational in German (much worse than that in a few more).

"The Inside Story"

Next to many resume items, I have listed an option to read the "Inside Story", which provides a narrative explanation providing background and insight into each experience.

highlights @ Yahoo!

  • Moved Messenger from declining marketshare, #2 spot vs. AIM, to #1 spot (Nov 2007) in US IM users
  • Grew revenue 7x on RTC in two years. Increased engagement 25%
  • All Messenger accomplishments were made with a reduction in headcount
  • Recognized as a "top 1%" employee at Yahoo! every year at the company
  • Global responsibility for my products, with extensive experience in emerging markets like India and SEA
  • Member of Yahoo!'s senior leadership team (top 75 people in the company)
  • Filed 9 patents for Yahoo! in areas ranging from IM to Search to Voice Recognition to Social Networking
  • Transitioned Messenger from aging PC-only client to powerful RTC platform supporting six different desktop clients and four web apps
  • In September, moved into Y! Search team to lead Social Search, including Yahoo! Answers and Delicious
  • Helped to develop product manager recruiting and development standards
  • Frequent company spokesman for press and speaking

highlights as entrepreneur

  • Demonstrated technology and web product innovator and entrepreneur
  • International experience in Asia, Europe, North and South America
  • Founder i-drive, formerly the web's leading online storage service
  • Raised over $35M in venture funding
  • As CEO and founder of i-drive, grew company from 0 to 100+ employees and 8mm registered users
  • Honored as the "Internet Entrepreneur of the Year" by President Clinton chaired Family Celebration in April 2001
  • Extensive Internet, venture, entertainment and tech industry contacts
  • Extensive press exposure with 15+ TV appearances including 48 Hours, MSNBC, CNN, CNNFn and CBS News, 20+ radio appearances and over 200 journalist interviews resulting in over 500 articles in publications including Fortune, WSJ, USA Today, and Forbes and hundreds of leading blogs
  • Recognized technology evangelist and pundit

experience

Xobni

CEO | February 2008 - present

Company Description Xobni is a great startup working on transforming email into a much more powerful and useful tool for consumers. The company has a great founding team with incredible investors.

Accomplishments I just joined very recently, so we will have to see.

Yahoo! Inc.

Vice President, Social Search | August 2007 - February 2008

Vice President, Real Time Comms | March 2007 - August 2007

Sr. Director, Real Time Comms | August 2005 - March 2007

Company Description Come on, it's Yahoo!, biggest internet network in the world. Over half the people on the internet visit at least one of Yahoo!'s properties every month.

Social Search As head of Social Search, I had ownership over Yahoo! Answers (community q&a) and Delicious (social bookmarks). My focus was to build unfair advantages for Yahoo! Search using these social web services. Can't really detail any more at this point for competitive reasons :(

Real Time Communication As the head of the Real Time Communications group, I was responsible globally for Messenger, Avatars, Chat and Voice for Yahoo! RTC accounts for over 100M unique users each month. Y! Messenger is the second largest instant messenger network in the world.

Accomplishments Recognized as a "top 1% employee" by Yahoo! (top 100 of 14,000). Worked closely with executives in company to build and execute Yahoo!'s real time communications strategy. Revitalized Yahoo! Messenger from an unprofitable, ailing asset to a vibrant, profitable asset for Yahoo! in under 12 months. Led Messenger from#2 spot with declining US marketshare under AOL to #1 spot (excluding AOL IM). Oversaw the release of six new critically acclaimed Messenger products from inception to release (which is five more than were released under previous heads in similar time frames). Built a powerful RTC platform for Yahoo! Moved from one massive do-it-all client for Win 98-XP, to a powerful RTC platform powering seven RTC clients/services. Leveraged new platform to build allow Y! to build the "right experience for the right customer".

Architected monetization as a core component of the product and business. Doubled searches originating from Messenger. Tripled revenue in 2006, doubled revenue in 2007, while reducing headcount. Significantly upgraded team talent in product, engineering and marketing. Revamped data reporting to improve decision making and operational effectiveness. Implemented aggressive monetization projects leading to increases of tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the company quickly and sustainably. Increased customer engagement by 25%. Grew user base significantly. In fact, Yahoo! Messenger was the only IM network to grow its US marketshare between 2005 and 2006, and it overtook AIM, the reigning king in the space from day one in Nov 2007. Overhauled Yahoo!'s free PC-to-PC calling service and launched Yahoo!'s premium voice service, growing it the second largest, after Skype. Oversaw the launch of the MSN + Yahoo! interop.

Filed nine patents in usability, product features, voice recognition and more. Represented company with leading international press, spoke at top industry trade shows around the world.

Improved Yahoo! Messenger's global position by emphasizing regional and local requirements, implementing IP and BT targeting, additional languages, market specific features, and even market specific products. Implemented social networking and community experiences into Messenger.

SIPphone, Inc.

President | January 2004 - August 2005

Company Description SIPphone, maker of Gizmo Project is a leading free VoIP startup, started by MP3.com founder, Michael Robertson. The company was founded in April 2003, with its initial service launch in August 2003. Gizmo launched in June 2005

Job Description Develop and execute on the company strategy in conjunction with the CEO. Complete operational responsibility and day to day management of the company.

Accomplishments Conceived and designed of Gizmo, a critically acclaimed VoIP product and network. Repositioned the company in the market. Negotiated and signed major partnerships with SingTel (Singapore) and D-Link. Represented the company on four continents with some of the world's largest telcos. Grew customer base by 20x in under 1 year. Quadrupled revenue. Doubled (and tripled) margins on all products. Recruited and hired all key employees. Revamped customer support and e-commerce systems. Managed launch of four new products.

Starbox Systems, Inc. [inside story]

Founder | March 2002 - Present

Company Description Starbox Systems designs and sells a small patented ratings device to movie, music, wine, book and software retailers. The devices allow customers to see the rating of an expert (i.e., Roger Ebert), the average rating from fellow customers and lets a customer register their vote. Major customers include Hollywood Video.

Job Description Primary responsibility for marketing and product development and fund raising.

Accomplishments Conceived of the idea. Wrote the business plan. Raised the startup capital ($200,000). Assembled the team. Managed product development. Oversaw production in China. Managed customer pilot tests.

New Internet Computer Company [inside story]

SVP, Marketing and Bus Dev | July 2001 - March 2002

Company Description NIC was a second attempt at the Internet Computer for Oracle's founder, Larry Ellison. The company was founded with $10mm from Larry. The company was kept small compared to his previous attempt (fewer than 30 people) and most of the engineering, manufacturing and support was outsourced. NIC sold about 60,000 computers in a year, more than all the other Internet computer startups combined.

Job Description Managed all business development and marketing for the startup.

Accomplishments Managed all business partnerships. Set and managed marketing strategy. Repositioned product and company from failing consumer strategy to vertical focus (see case study on right). Built partnerships with software vendors to bundle hardware with ASP solutions, doubling product margins for NIC. Negotiated logistics deal with Ingram Micro Logistics reducing domestic logistic costs by 15% and international costs by 40%. Assisted in fundraising and expanding company into Latin American market. Redesigned all offline and online marketing (samples and case studies available). Closed deals with Epson (printers), BEI (education software bundles), Tiger Direct (catalog sales) and killed many bad bus dev deals negotiated before I arrived. Helped negotiate sale to HUD. Wrote a white paper on the total cost of ownership of the NIC in the Enterprise versus the PC.

Corporate Venture Consulting [inside story]

President| December 2000 - August 2001

Description Assisted tech startups in strategy, marketing, PR, and corporate and business development. Hired by boards or senior management to assist particularly with corporate development issues in tight capital market. Primary Client: Sony Entertainments 550 Digital Media Ventures.

Accomplishments Helped Sony Music's ventures group focus and sell portfolio companies. The majority of work was for Kick.com. Helped a number of startups seeking funding, rewriting business plans and investor presentations.

i-drive.com [inside story]

Chairman and Founder | June 2000 - January 2001

CEO and Founder | August 1998 - June 2000

Company Description Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer recognized i-drive in a NY keynote addresses as, "the leader in online file storage" at his NY MacWorld keynote address. i-drive received 10mm+ unique monthly visitors and 250mm+ monthly pageviews. i-drive's software service was licensed by over 40 major universities including UCLA, UCI, UCB, Wake Forest, Case Western Reserve University, and George Mason University. i-drive signed the largest wireless storage deal with Access (Japan).

Job Description 30% of time spent on fundraising. 30% managing business development, marketing, PR and sales for 18 months. 15% managing the corporation. 5% managing the investors and board. 15% setting strategic direction of the company. 5% evangelizing the company and the industry.

Accomplishments Conceived idea. Wrote business plan. Built team. Raised over $30mm in three rounds of funding from leading investors and corporations including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Infinity Capital, Global Retail Partners, Partners Group (Switzerland), Hikari Tsushin (Japan), Philips Electronics, EMC and ZDNet. Built team from 1 to 100. Led the acquisition of The Digs, Inc. Took i-drive from zero to 8mm+ registered users, storing over one petabyte of logical file storage or over 50mm files. Led i-drive to become the number one download site, the number one music download site, the number two photo site, the number one desktop document storage site, the number three college site (Neilsen Ratings), top ten site for 18-24 (Media Metrix), Upside's Showcase "Audience Pick", Fortune Magazine's "Three Technologies to Watch" and CNet's "Top Five Applications on the Web". Spent less than $300,000 in marketing.

As CEO, recognized as the Internet Entrepreneur of the Year by an organization chaired by President Clinton. Invited to the White House twice to meet with President Clinton. Gathered more press covereage than all 30+ competitors, combined. Gathered the largest user base in the industry spending less than $1 for every $100 our largest competitor spent in marketing. Conceived of and built successful University Consortium.

Bonforte Consulting [inside story]

President | January 1996 - August 1998

Description Benchmarking and reengineering services to Fortune 500. Specialize in service delivery and support for corporate IT. Clients include Cinergy, Equifax, CSC, and Marathon Oil. Billed over $1mm annually.

Accomplishments Launched private consulting firm at 23. After first year, ran 97% profit margin and 140% billiable for 24 months. Reengineered IT support and procurement large corporations.

May 2002 - July 2003 [europe]

Description Entrepreneur in Residence to Partners Group (Zug, Switzerland) and consultant to First Tuesday Zurich and its clients (Swisscom, AXPO, IBM, Cisco).

Accomplishments Assisted client in numerous consulting engagements and redesigned all brand and marketing for the firm. Managed and completed web site redesign and launch.

Verity Consulting [inside story]

Senior Consultant | June 1993 - December 1996

Company Description Specialized in benchmarking customer service and IT services for Global 1000. Conducted business around the world for clients such as Siemens, Ford, Intel, AT&T Boeing, Kodak, Ryder, Chase, Fujitsu, Philips and Aerospatiale/Airbus. Verity was acquired by MetaGroup in 1997.

Accomplishments Leader in sales and managed work for the firm. Fastest promoted consultant in the firm history (the only non-MBA executive in the firms history). Salary tripled in first 12 months. Designed, sold and managed the firms two largest initiatives accounting for over 60% of the firm's revenue. Helped launch the European office (London). Completed projects in Japan and across Europe.

education

University California, Los Angeles [inside story]

BA, Classical Civilizations | Graduated June 1993

Accomplishments Deparmental Honors. UCLA College of Honors member. Magna cum Laude. Graduated in 3 years. Top 3% of class (3.8 GPA).

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