Judges

  • Andrew Warner

    Andrew Warner Visit site

    Andrew Warner is the founder of Mixergy, which helps startups grow through live events and online audio programs. His previous company, Bradford & Reed, created and incubated a collection of Web sites that in 2003 were sold to eUniverse.

    Andrew will leverage his broad knowledge of innovative companies in and outside of LA to select the finalists and ultimately the Judge’s Choice of Twiistup 5.

  • Brian Solis

    Brian Solis Visit site

    Brian Solis is an entrepeneur, renown author, technology thought leader, photographer, and publisher of two top Technorati blogs, PR 2.0 and bub.blicio.us.

    He documents the rapid evolution of products, services and trends and how businesses and consumers can actually use these tools. He is also an active leader in spotlighting and cultivating new tech startups and emerging visionaries.

    Brian will be on hand at Twiistup 5 to document the event for his popular publications and to help determine the Judge’s Choice Award. If you haven’t had the opportunity to connect with Brian yet, you’re in for a treat at Twiistup 5. He’s a big supporter of all of the great things happening for LA tech and has been involved with Twiistup since the beginning.

  • Devlyn Steele

    Devlyn Steele Visit site

    The people’s choice at Twiistup 4 was the self help social network, ToolsToLife. To continue with the Twiistup tradition, the founder of the winning startup at the previous Twiistup automatically becomes a judge at the following Twiistup. This time around, that’s Devlyn Steele.

    Founder CEO ToolsToLife.com a Web 2.0 Social Network based around Self Help that uses proprietary software providing an educational platform allowing users a multi media online learning experience while giving each other support. Mr. Steele is an Internationally Recognized authority on Life Coaching and Human Behavior. The developer of the Self Help Program Tools To Life, he is a speaker, a prolific author of internet articles, he’s a successful public and business consultant, a one-to-one counselor, volunteers with the homeless, hosted two long-standing radio programs, designed and released an online Dating Kit, and has appeared as a guest on over five hundred radio and TV shows.

    Mr. Steele is an inspirational guy and we’re all looking forward to his participation in Twiistup 5.

  • Frank Gruber

    Frank Gruber Visit site

    For Frank, social media is life. Founder of SOMEWHAT FRANK, Frank started blogging the same time as TechCrunch. Frank went on to contribute to TechCrunch as it began to grow into a well-known technology blog. Frank speaks at conferences nationwide and has been featured in multiple national publications about social media, building community and brand. Frank also co-founded TECH cocktail, a community building startup which offers events and community-powered projects open to bloggers, technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs & professionals interested in technology in under served technology communities. Hosting events in Chicago, D.C., Boulder, Boston and Champaign and more.

    Frank also has a wealth of experience in web technology and product development for AOL, including most recently the product development and strategy for myAOL a personalized start page product rolled out in 24 locales in 19 languages. Prior to AOL, Frank led product development efforts at Tribune, Cars.com and Apartments.com. Additionally, Frank has consulted and advised startups and other Fortune 500 companies across the globe.

    Frank was in attendance at the first Twiistup event and is psyched to be headed back again as a judge of the Twiistup 5. You can follow Frank as he journeys to southern California via Twitter: @somewhatfrank.

  • Jackie Peters

    Jackie Peters Visit site

    Jackie is the co-founder of Heavybag Media, an interactive marketing firm. She develops marketing strategies that utilize social tools, community platforms, traditional and non-traditional media and cutting edge technology in order to enable brands to engage their audience on a meaningful level.

    In addition to her role at Heavybag Media, Jackie is an interim member of the Board of Directors for the Social Media Club and Director of the LA Chapter of the Social Media Club.

    At Twiistup 4 Jackie & co. brought a bed to liven up the corporate pitch. The curiosity is killing us to see how she tops the ‘get in the sack’ message at Twiistup 5. Oh yeah, and her choice for the top Showoff as well.

  • Peter Pham

    Peter Pham Visit site

    As CEO of BillShrink, Peter drives company expansion and is an advocate for consumer rights and transparency among service providers. He was previously Vice President of Business Development at Photobucket, where he was the fifth employee of a growing startup and was responsible for driving user acquisition, strategic partnerships, and corporate development which lead to an acquisition in 2007 by Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corporation. When Peter left in 2008, Photobucket had grown to over 61M users making it the #1 photo sharing site and the 38th most visited site in the US. Prior to Photobucket, he was in the enterprise space for over 8 years being involved in multiple startups in areas such as mid-range server computing, software as a service, solid state storage, and mobilization of enterprise software. Peter has had many roles including sales, marketing, reseller channel development, product, and strategy. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and a minor in Business Management from the University of California, Irvine.

    Peter obviously has a knack for identifying unsolved consumer needs and effective solutions. He’s the perfect person to help choose the Showoffs and ultimately the Judge’s choice. His contributions to this event are huge!

  • Richard Wolpert

    Richard Wolpert Visit site

    Mr. Wolpert has been a pioneer in the fields of consumer digital media and entertainment for more than 20 years with experience as an entrepreneur, an operating executive, and as an investor. Mr. Wolpert has been responsible for many firsts in the technology and Internet fields.

    Richard is currently the Managing Director of the Mail Room Fund. The Mail Room Fund is backed by Accel Partners, AT&T, Venrock and the William Morris Agency. The Mail Room Fund focuses on early state investments in the internet, technology, and digital media areas. In addition to his role as the Managing Director of the Mail Room Fund Richard also serves as a venture advisor to Accel Partners and an Executive Advisor to Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks

    It’s an honor to have Mr. Wolpert on board as a judge for Twiistup 5.

  • Sarah Lacy

    Sarah Lacy Visit site

    Sarah Lacy is an award winning journalist and author of the critically acclaimed book, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0″ (Gotham Books, May 2008). Lacy has been a reporter in Silicon Valley for nearly a decade, covering everything from the tiniest startups to the largest public companies. She writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek.com called “Valley Girl” and is co-host of Yahoo! Finance’s Tech Ticker. She lives in San Francisco with her husband.

    Sarah will be helping us determine the lineup of Showoffs that will demo at our next event in February. She will also attend the event and weigh in on the Judge’s Choice award. We’re psyched to have her on board and can’t wait to see her at Twiistup 5.

  • Will Jessup

    Will Jessup Visit site

    Will Jessup brings a boat load of development and entrepreneurial experience to our esteemed lineup of judges. As the founder of Citrusbyte, Will drew on his entrepreneurial and technical background and he quickly grew this company to become the largest Ruby on Rails agency in Los Angeles. Working at Citrusbyte Will helps helps entrepreneurs architect and build web companies on a daily basis, so he understands the startup terrain from all perspectives althought we’re looking to him for his technical perspective. Will also organizes the LA web application developers meetup group, which has over 700 members. Will’s participation in this event is key as we’re also interested in companies that hold a technological advantage over their competitors.

    You can connect with Will at Twiistup 5 where he’ll be on hand with the rest of our judging panel. In the meantime you can get in touch with him over at Citrusbyte for your immediate development needs (877-556-4112).