Kelly Smith - Founding Partner
Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Imagekind, the fastest growing online venue to buy, sell or create original artwork. Imagekind was sold to Cafe Press in July 2008.
He designed the original platform and directly managed the engineering and design teams in addition to his daily duties as its first chief executive. Today, Kelly serves on the Board of Directors for Imagekind and Kevin Saliba is the CEO.
Kelly founded RocketVox, an early marketer and distributor of online digital video. RocketVox was merged into thePlatform.com - now the leading developer of content management and publishing systems for rich media content (e.g. streaming audio & video). thePlatform was purchased by Comcast in July 2006.
Kelly has over 15 years software & digital media experience and brings a broad base of skills to the “office of curiousity”. His most recent position was managing IPTV product marketing as Vice President Product Marketing of Seattle-based Myrio Corporation. In April 2005, Myrio was acquired by Siemens AG. For a brief time, Kelly continued in his role at Siemens until founding a highly targeted IP television consulting company.
In 1995, Kelly joined RealNetworks - the pioneers of the Internet “digital media” industry where he managed business development for Europe, Middle East and Africa from Real’s London offices.
Prior to RealNetworks, Mr. Smith held various sales and marketing positions with Seattle-based SPRY, - the world’s first Internet software suite and commercial implementation of the Mosaic browser. The company was subsequently acquired by CompuServe and has long been part of the AOL family.
Mr. Smith was an early investor in several domestic and international companies include LB Icon AB (Euronext Amsterdam, OMX Stockholm: ICON) - one of the largest European internet consultancies.
He serves on the board of Imagekind and on the advisory boards of GridNetworks and Wishpot. He’s also the occasional board observer at SEOmoz.
Mr. Smith maintains a personal blog at: http://www.kellysmith.com
You’re very welcome to send Kelly an email at: kelly@curiousoffice.com
Adrian Hanauer - Partner
Adrian has over 15 years of business experience in a variety of industries. Mr. Hanauer has invested in numerous early stage technology companies in gaming, advertising, infrastructure, and wireless communications and was a seed stage investor in aQuantive Inc. (NASDAQ: AQNT), the largest interactive advertising company. aQuantive was acquired by Microsoft for $6 billion in May 2007. He was also an early investor in Amazon.com
In 2001, Adrian became co-owner and managing partner of the Seattle Sounders - the most successful professional soccer franchise in its league. In 2007, Adrian and other investors purchased a new Major League Soccer franchise which will compete in 2009 and has yet to be named. The team ownership is split among several investors to include legendary Hollywood producer Joe Roth, Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder and owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers; and Drew Carey, a comedian and game show host.
Hanauer also brings a great deal of “brick and mortar” business success. The Hanauer family owns the nation’s largest pillow and bedding product manufacturering companies as well as a chain of picture framing stores that has grown to 60 stores and three divisions in the United States. In 2001, Adrian became co-owner and managing partner of the Seattle Sounders - a professional soccer franchise.
Hanauer is involved in many organizations in Seattle and sits on the advisory board of The University of Washington Intercollegiate Sports Master’s Degree Program. He also is on the Board of Trustees for the Museum of History and Industry.
Kelly gives Adrian a hard time for not starting his own blog.
Merrill Brown - Advisor
Merrill Brown is the founder and principal of MMB Media LLC, which provides clients with management and strategy consulting, corporate, editorial and program development, business analysis and marketing services. Since the founding of the MMB Media, clients have ranged from companies in the news, information and wireless businesses to a large foundation. Brown was recently appointed National Editorial Director of News for the 21st Century: Incubators of New Ideas (News 21), part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.
Before establishing the firm, Brown served as Senior Vice President, RealOne Services from August 2002 through August 2003 and was responsible for all facets of the RealOne programming business including programming, subscription sales, marketing, advertising sales and technology. During his tenure, RealOne expanded subscription programming offerings in news, sports, entertainment and music and grew from 750,000 paid subscribers to over 1,000,000.
Brown became the first Editor in Chief of MSNBC.com in August 1996 after serving as acting managing editor for the July launch of the service. He became Sr. Vice President in August 2000. During his tenure, the fledgling company grew to become one of the most visited news offerings on the Web, maintaining a position as the No. 1 online news provider since 1999
Prior to joining MSNBC in May 1996, Brown was a media and communications consultant whose work included strategic development work at Time Inc., NBC, U S West and a score of other media ventures (1995-96). While at Time, he served as consulting senior editor of Money magazine, developing online and Internet services for the publication. He also served as acting editor for Time Magazine Daily (the periodical’s daily online news operation) and as a consulting editor for Time magazine. During that time, Brown also served as a launch consultant for NBC Desktop Video, designing the network program plan and creating the network’s on-air look for NBC’s business news service delivered to personal computers.
Brown was one of the initial strategists responsible for creating the Courtroom Television Network (Court TV). As a founder of the cable network, Brown worked on all facets of the network’s operation leading up to its July 1991 launch. As senior vice president, corporate & program development, he oversaw program planning, advertising, promotion, marketing, public relations and development of day-to-day management of the cable network (1990-1994).
From 1985 to 1990, Brown was editor in chief of Channels magazine, repositioning the bi-monthly as a highly successful television business monthly, tripling the amount of ad pages in three years. Channels was named a National Magazine Award finalist for general excellence during Brown’s tenure.
Brown was associated with the Washington Post from 1979 to 1985, serving as a financial reporter (1979-1982), New York financial correspondent (1982-1984) and director of business development, Washington Post Company (1984-1985). Prior to that, Brown was a financial reporter at the Washington Star (1978-1979), Washington correspondent for Media General Newspapers (1975-1978), a reporter at the Winston-Salem Sentinel (1974-1975) and reporter and freelance critic at the St. Louis Post Dispatch (1973-1974).
Brown has also made numerous television appearances, including the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (1980-1990), as a regular media analyst for CNBC and FNN (1988-1990) and on dozens of other major broadcast and cable news programs. Brown serves on the board of The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, the International Women’s Media Foundation, and The Media Center, a division of the American Press Institute.
