David Adams

I'm David Adams, entrepreneur, serial startup founder, product guy, and product strategy consultant to the stars.

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I've been the founder or co-founder of half a dozen successful software or tech-related startup companies, mostly in a combination of SaaS, ecommerce, collaboration, and mobile computing, and was typically involved in pioneering these fields. I didn't invent the internet, but when some of the cornerstones of the modern internet were invented, I was there helping. I specialize in bridging the chasm between the engineering and marketing/sales/management worlds and providing an optimal environment for top-tier software developers. A leading bay-area VC once told me that I'd submitted the best-written business plan he'd ever read. He didn't invest, but it was his loss because that company ended up being successful anyway. In other words, I have strong writing and public presentation skills; from magazine articles to blog posts, social media updates, marketing copy, conference talks, and whitepapers. It's been a very long time since my entire staff worked out of the same building. More often lately they're spread out on four continents. I've developed methods and found tools to enable effective collaboration, and even promote company culture across the oceans to lone remote developers.

VP of Product at Benefitter

November 2012 - Present | San Francisco

Co-founder and head of product for Benefitter, a company that's revolutionizing the way that companies select, fund, and purchase health insurance benefits for their employees.

Chief Product Officer at Public Engines

October 2008 - April 2009

Public Engines develops a Software as a Service offering for Law Enforcement Agencies. Its primary service is crimereports.com, where, if your local police agency is participating, you can view reported crime activity in the vicinity of any address. I was brought in to put their product strategy on track and build a new software engineering team at a crucial turning point in their evolution. I brought their new Command Central and Neighborhood Central product lines to light.

CEO at Tabsling

February 2008 - October 2008

I was recruited by the founders of Tabsling to turn their business model around and secure financing. I engineered a transformation from a social bookmarking service trying to break into a crowded market to an enterprise collaboration platform pioneering a new segment. Ultimately, I identified that the poor economic conditions and contraction of the funding environment would make further investment into the startup quite risky, and recommended that the founders put the company in cold storage until conditions improved.

CEO at Lucid Homes

2004 - 2008

Lucid Homes is a consulting firm focusing on green building, energy efficiency, and energy-saving home automation technology.

Division Head, eBusiness at Red Hat

2000 - 2003

I was the head of Red Hat's web applications operation, overseeing the Interchange ecommerce application server, Stronghold secure webserver, and Red Hat's transaction management tools.

Chairman, Founder, Chief Product Officer at Akopia

1998 - 2000

Akopia was the maker of the Interchange ecommerce application server, used by over 10,000 companies to manage their online retail and B2B needs. Acquired by Red Hat in 2000.

Co-Founder, Head of Product at ShopSite, formerly ICentral

1996 - 1998

Maker of the ShopSite software, a pioneering ecommerce and SaaS tool used by thousands of merchants and distributed by a channel of ISP partners. Acquired by Open Market in 1998.

Chief Technology Officer at VIP Event Resources

December 2009

VIP Event Resources makes VIPER, a Software-as-a-Service enterprise automation tool for the corporate meetings and incentive travel industry. Though our market represents 15% of worldwide travel spending, or hundreds of billions of dollars each year, it has been largely untouched by automation. Launched in Q2 2010, VIPER has already attracted the top meeting planning and destination management firms in the market, and is being rolled out to their subsidiary offices worldwide.

Publisher at OS News

October 1997

I'm the Founder and Publisher of OSNews, a daily online news source covering operating systems and new computing technology. A collaboration between volunteer editors and contributors around the world, OSNews generates 4-5 million pageviews per month, and is the primary source for OS and computing news that covers all platforms without a preference or advocacy for one in particular.

Technology, travel, the Great Outdoors, mountain biking, architecture, politics, philosophy, good food, reading, writing, film, entrepreneurship.