Founder of Smashwords and Dovetail Public Relations, angel investor, writer
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
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- Founder at Smashwords
- Contributing Writer at VentureBeat
- Founder at Dovetail Public Relations
- Past
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- Founder and Former President at BestCalls.com
- Sr. Associate at Neale-May and Partners
- Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Coker Electronics
- Education
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- University of California, Berkeley - Walter A. Haas School of Business
- Recommended
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2 people have recommended Mark - Connections
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106
connections
- Industry
- Public Relations and Communications
- Websites
Mark Coker’s Summary
About me...
Founder of Smashwords, a digital publishing venture.
On advisory board of a few companies: Flat World Knowledge (open source text books), GetQuik (restaurant order automation technology) and AVG Technologies (security software).
Founder/CEO of Dovetail Public Relations in Los Gatos, a tech PR firm specializing in venture-backed startups. Celebrating our 14th year in business.
Occasional contributing writer for VentureBeat. See links above.
Most of my angel investing is via Dovetail, often in the form of discounted services in exchange for equity. We've invested in over a dozen private companies over the years, including RightNow (IPOed), Quova, Exploit Prevention Labs (acquired), IP Metrics (acquired), NeoScale, Shareholder.com (acquired), Terracheck (acquired), MovieStreet/FamilyWonder (acquired), GetQuik, Flat World Knowledge, Utopy and others. If you're prepping to launch a cool startup and want venture PR, pitch me.
More background:
BestCalls.com - I founded BestCalls in '97, an earnings conference call directory. Our efforts to open earnings conference calls to small investors was a catalyst for the SEC's Regulation FD. Was acquired in '03 by Shareholder.com, which was itself acquired by the Nasdaq stock exchange in '05. Nasdaq still operates BestCalls.
IP Metrics - '98-'03. Served on the BOD for this software company, did their PR, and was an investor. Acquired by FalconStor.
Rightnow Technologies - '98-'01. Helped grow the company from Greg Gianforte's bedroom to 300+ employee leader in on demand CRM. Now public.
Storage Dimensions - '94-'98. Early LAN storage pioneer.
McAfee Associates - '94-'97. Helped grow these guys from under $20 million to over $300 million. A wild ride reporting directly to Bill Larson and his many vps of marketing and product managers.
What else? Co-author with my wife of a novel called BOOB TUBE, a satire on the daytime television soap operas. Yeah, soap operas.
Mark Coker’s Specialties:
Strategic communications consultant, entrepreneur, writer, angel investor and business advisor to technology companies, with focus on startups. Visit Dovetail's web site at www.dovetailpr.com
Mark Coker’s Experience
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Founder
Smashwords
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Publishing industry)
January 2008 — Present (5 months)
Digital publishing startup. Stay tuned!
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Contributing Writer
VentureBeat
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Publishing industry)
March 2007 — Present (1 year 3 months)
Occasional contributing writer for VentureBeat (www.venturebeat.com), the Silicon Valley business blog. Covering innovative startups and select conferences.
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Founder
Dovetail Public Relations
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)
October 1993 — Present (14 years 8 months)
Dovetail is an award-winning technology PR firm based in Los Gatos, CA. The firm specializes in startups and high-growth companies in the areas of storage, security, web services, network infrastructure and software. Although I own Dovetail, my role is limited primarily to planning and strategy for clients, and agency biz dev. My awesome employees manage most of the day to day operations and client service. The Dovetail team consistently generates great results for our clients. For a summary of current Dovetail clients, visit www.dovetailpr.com/clients.htm If you've got questions about how we can help support the growth of your company, ping me.
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Founder and Former President
BestCalls.com
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Services industry)
July 1997 — June 2003 (6 years)
Founded BestCalls.com, an online directory of earnings conference calls. Our work at BestCalls helped open up earnings conference calls to average investors, helped level the playing field between main street and Wall Street, and served as a catalyst for the SEC's Regulation FD and other disclosure reform actions that followed.
BestCalls.com was acquired by Shareholder.com in 2003. Shareholder.com, along with its BestCalls.com division, was acquired by the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2005. -
Sr. Associate
Neale-May and Partners
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)
1991 — 1993 (2 years)
Some day, books will be written about Neale-May. Neale-May veterans (yes, support groups have formed from time to time) almost universally refer to the place as PR boot camp. I'm thankful for everything I learned there, and for the incredible people I met.
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Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Coker Electronics
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)
January 1987 — June 1991 (4 years 6 months)
Coker Electronics, founded by my father Charles, developed the tPost family of email software, which was among the first (along with cc:Mail) to allow corporations to create their own store and forward email systems. Coker Electronics also developed tPost Faxforward, which was the industry's first email-to-fax gateway. This was a true garage startup. My dad gave me a really big title but no sales and marketing budget. It was through necessity that I learned the art and science of public relations, because PR is the only way we could make the phone ring. This was all pre-Internet.
Mark Coker’s Education
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University of California, Berkeley - Walter A. Haas School of Business
BS, Marketing, 1983 — 1988
- Activities and Societies:
- Casa Zimbabwe (formerly Ridge Project) co-op house manager, workshift manager, and founding editor of Ridge Roach Newsletter (my first foray into media and publishing). Former resident of Barrington co-op before it was condemned, and resident of Crandall Hall (now Clark-Kerr).
Additional Information
Mark Coker’s Websites:
Mark Coker’s Interests:
Helping startups succeed. Angel investing. Entrepreneurship.
Mark Coker’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
