Senior Digital Media Exec
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
-
- Board Member at Phoenix Energy
- CEO/BOD member at vSocial and Snapp Networks
- Past
-
- CEO/Board Member at uXcomm
- CEO/BOD Member at Me.com - sold to Apple
- Founder at Verdada
- CEO and Co-Founder at Rapid Logic - sold to Wind River
- Founder at CafeNet Online
- Western Sales Director at Tribe Communications - sold to Zoom Telephonics
- Director of Marketing and Co-Founder at CBM (Northern California Division)
- Recommended
-
6 people have recommended Mark - Connections
-
231
connections
- Industry
- Internet
- Websites
Mark Sigal’s Summary
I am an eight-time entrepreneur (four-times as co-founder) and 'platform guy' with deep domain expertise in digital media, social networking, software as a service, systems management and embedded systems.
I have been marketing leader (incl. product management, product marketing, marcomm) at every one of my companies dating back to 1996 (team sizes managed to 60+ people).
I have also had four liquidity events: Rapid Logic (CEO/Co-Founder - sold to Wind River for $67M); Me.com (CEO - sold to Apple); Whistle Communications (Angel Investor - sold to IBM for $100M); Tribe Communications (Sales Director - sold to Zoom Telephonics).
These days, I am focused on social media services, interactive marketing and community building initiatives for a mobile broadband powered world (examples: online video, social gaming, customer engagement communities).
Through my ventures, I have negotiated numerous transactions with Media, Mobile, Internet, Advertising, Gaming and Music companies in the areas of sales, distribution, technology integration and M&A.
When you need someone who is “boundary-less,” with deep experience in building and managing the product lifecycle of platform-oriented offerings, who is a user experience nut, who is equally comfortable running numbers, negotiating contracts, setting strategy, executing tactics/process, chasing customers, building partner channels, fund raising and coaching the team, that’s me.
Mark Sigal’s Specialties:
digital media, social networking, online video, mobile, social media, community, SaaS, iphone, platform strategy, consumer services, embedded systems, device management, systems management, internet infrastructure equipment, financial and operations management, advertising, aligning tactics and strategy, product marketing, sales, OEM business models
Mark Sigal’s Experience
-
Board Member
Phoenix Energy
(Renewables & Environment industry)
December 2008 — Present (8 months)
Phoenix Energy constructs and installs on site biomass power plants fueled by waste wood.
-
CEO/BOD member
vSocial and Snapp Networks
(Internet industry)
September 2005 — Present (3 years 11 months)
vSocial delivers a social media promotions platform that enables brands, media companies and agencies to rapidly deploy, track, analyze and manage branding and direct response campaigns & contests. The offering is delivered via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Name customers include: Chevy, Disney, Ford, Foster’s, Hallmark, The Knot, UPS and Vespa. vSocial's video portal, which I drove Product Strategy and Go-To-Market on, was one of the Top 10 Online Video Sites.
Snapp Networks (formerly Me.com) is the maker of SnappVille, a web-based platform for building, branding, customizing, moderating and managing online communities. Our approach enables marketing personnel to manage day-to-day social networking and information gathering/sharing initiatives, while providing API accessibility to developers for deeper integration and customization efforts. The feature-rich platform is in its third generation, and has been battle-tested by over 500 communities across a number of verticals.
The functional modules in these products that I developed (i.e., drove requirements, use cases, workflows and wireframes) included: Blogging; Video Channel/Microsite/Contest builder; Mobile Video Uploading, Viewing and Twitter integration; Calendar/Event functions; Wish List building tools; Photo/Video albums; Chat/IM; Design Manager/Skins/Customizable Media Player; Deep Profiles; Threaded Discussions/User Forums; Widgets for User Badges, Polls, Video Rolls and Slide Shows; Tag, Rate, Comment and Share capabilities; RSS-feeds; Search by Keyword, Tag, User or Content type; Landing Pages (spotlights community hot spots – new/popular/related/recently viewed content); API-level integration with Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Amazon Web Services and Google AdSense; API-level abstraction of key product functions for third-party composite service creation.
These modules, in turn, were backed by a User Administration, Community Provisioning and Analytics Console that I scoped out. -
CEO/Board Member
uXcomm
(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)
March 2004 — March 2008 (4 years 1 month)
Recruited by Foundation Capital and OVP Venture Partners (Intel Capital is also an investor) to refine product strategy and build management team for Series “A” stage startup, secured $4.6M follow-on investment
Refocused company from software developer’s kit vendor targeting modular system OEMs to datacenter automation software platform provider targeting service-oriented enterprises
Secured C-level relationships with Deutsche Telekom, Harvard, Intel, MCI, Lockheed Martin -
CEO/BOD Member
Me.com - sold to Apple
(Internet industry)
October 2005 — December 2007 (2 years 3 months)
Me.com was the consumer portal portion of Snapp Networks, the social media/community building platform company where I continue to operate at.
We sold this portion of the business to Apple late last year, and it was recently announced as part of Apple's MobileMe data synchronization service which replaces .Mac.
Needless to say, I am very proud of this outcome. -
Founder
Verdada
(Internet industry)
October 2002 — January 2004 (1 year 4 months)
Verdada created an online companion application called VSOS (pronounced VEE-sauce) that integrated with your email, web browser and email address book.
The SOS stands for "save, organize and share," and that's what our product enabled you to do as you come across products, businesses, people, web content, emails or notes on products you want to buy, topics you have an interest in cultivating, or travel activities you want to plan.
I created the product plan (MRD/PRD), use case documents, wireframes, interaction model (for both a toolbar app and a standalone runtime application), defined composite service functions for integrating MapPoint mapping APIs, Citysearch listing data and Amazon web service APIs, and created all web content, online demos, collateral, etc. -
CEO and Co-Founder
Rapid Logic - sold to Wind River
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; WIND; Computer Software industry)
October 1996 — February 2001 (4 years 5 months)
Founding CEO of unified device management software company that secured customer wins at over 100 leading device manufacturers, including Cisco, Alcatel, Nokia, Sony, Nortel and HP.
With a great team, fantastic partners and wonderful investors, took the company from first heart beat through seven product releases, $10M run rate and eventual sale to Wind River for $67M. Today, the RapidControl product family makes is a cornerstone of Wind River's WindManage device management solution. -
Founder
CafeNet Online
(Consumer Electronics industry)
January 1994 — March 1997 (3 years 3 months)
Conceived, self-funded and developed the first network of coin-operated internet terminals, with locations from Southern California to San Francisco. Grew business to consistent monthly cash flow profitability on an investment of $36K.
-
Western Sales Director
Tribe Communications - sold to Zoom Telephonics
(Computer Networking industry)
January 1994 — October 1996 (2 years 10 months)
Tribe was a pioneer of packet switching, remote access and internet router networking hardware equipment with a primary focus on the Apple/Macintosh market.
I sold to customers ranging from Apple, Cisco and E! Entertainment to Lawrence Livermore Labs and the educational market.
Tribe was a great company for a number of reasons. It emerged before money changed the tech game, when the web was just dawning and it had a wonderful culture. -
Director of Marketing and Co-Founder
CBM (Northern California Division)
(Commercial Real Estate industry)
August 1988 — December 1993 (5 years 5 months)
Built real estate asset management company into one of the top 20 largest real estate companies in the Bay Area (according to the Business Journal), with a portfolio of more than 100 shopping centers, and over 1.5 million square feet under control.
Additional Information
Mark Sigal’s Websites:
Mark Sigal’s Interests:
bikram yoga, digital media, information arbitrage, buddhism, coaching, ideation, advertising, marketing, social media, investing, yoga, mobile, iphone, gaming, analytics, blogging
