Wasabi Ventures:
A Results-Oriented Part Of Your Team




Our management and partners are experienced professionals who have done it all before, from building sales and marketing organizations to designing technology solutions to raising millions of dollars in venture capital financing. In addition, the management team at Wasabi Ventures has assembled a complete team that can be dedicated to any start-up's operations.

We never engage a client without first defining the tangible results that constitute a successful outcome. Our number one goal is to become an integral part of your team and meet or exceed your expectations. Wasabi Ventures will help you build your business whether you're an established firm or just starting out.

Managing Partners:


Tom Kuegler



Prior to starting Wasabi Ventures, Tom led the sales efforts at MedAptus (a handheld healthcare charge capture solution) and at Amicore (an EMR company founded by Microsoft, Pfizer, and IBM) where he was instrumental in formulating and creating the sales processes. He has also held senior positions at ClickRebates (an online advertising software company) and RightNow Technologies (a Web-based CRM company). Tom has been a founding member of two companies, Skyline Network Technologies and SpinBox.

Mr. Kuegler is the author of all three editions of the highly acclaimed book, Web Advertising and Marketing. He has authored dozens of articles covering the Internet and World Wide Web, and been published in leading publications like inc.com and ClickZ. Tom has spent a great deal of time lecturing at colleges, seminars, companies, and conferences about the corporate benefits of utilizing interactive technologies, presenting at over 100 events.

You can reach Tom by e-mail at tk@wasabiventures.com

Chris Yeh



Chris Yeh was on the founding team of pioneering Internet companies such as United Online Services (Nasdaq: UNTD) and Merrill Lynch's Intelligent Technologies Group.

Mr. Yeh is a much-quoted thought leader in the field of interactive marketing; his research and publications have been incorporated into the Harvard Business School curriculum, while his projects have received press coverage in Fortune, SmartMoney, and the Financial Times. He writes a monthly column on entrepreneurship for SitePoint, and has written over 25 other articles on entrepreneurship, marketing, and sales for publications such as ClickZ. Mr. Yeh holds two degrees from Stanford University, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar (High Distinction).

You can reach Chris by e-mail at chris@wasabiventures.com


Partner/Advisors:

Ben Casnocha, Author and Entrepreneur



Ben is the author of the bestselling business book My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley, which the New York Times called "precocious, informative, and entertaining." He is founder of Comcate, Inc., the leading e-government software company for small cities and counties in the U.S. Ben's work has been featured in dozens of international media including CNN, USA Today, CNBC, and ABC's 20/20. PoliticsOnline named him one of the "25 most influential people in the world of internet and politics." BusinessWeek named Ben "one of America's top young entrepreneurs." He writes prolifically on his blog which the San Jose Business Journal called one of the "Top 25 Blogs in Silicon Valley." He's a commentator for public radio's "Marketplace." Ben has given 50 paid keynote addresses on business and has traveled to more than 25 countries. He also co-runs the Silicon Valley Junto, an intellectual discussion society for business and technology executives. In his free time Ben enjoys playing chess, ping-pong, reading, and writing.

Rachel Pennig, Support Guru



Rachel Pennig is your go-to person if you need to set up a support department, work on improving your customer satisfaction rates, lower your response times, or improve escalation procedures.

With a background in library and information science, Ms. Pennig is an expert at all things organizational - setting up systems, organizing information into human-readable (and findable!) structure, and defining process in an organization. After spending time at PBworks getting doubling satisfaction rates and lowering response times to under 10 minutes, Ms. Pennig is currently developing the support team at Syncplicity, Inc.

Chris Wu, Vice President of Mobile Products, Snapfish



Chris runs all wireless products and solutions at Snapfish, a leading digital photography company. Prior to joining Snapfish, he was the Director of Yahoo! Mobile and built Yahoo!'s wireless business from the ground up. He is a well-known expert and speaker in the wireless space. Chris is also a former managmenet consultant from AT Kearney and Mercer Management Consulting. He has helped companies such as Handspring, Earthlink and Tellme to plan their wireless strategies. Chris has a BA from Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar.

Frans Johansson, Author, "The Medici Effect"



Frans Johansson is an author, speaker and consultant. His latest book, The Medici Effect has been hailed by innovation guru Clay Christensen as "one of the most insightful books about managing innovation I have ever read." He is a founder and former CEO of Inka.net, a Boston-based enterprise software company and a founder and VP of Business Development for Dola Health Systems, a health-care company in Baltimore and Sweden. He earned a BS from Brown University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Francis Chen, Entrepreneur



Francis has been a private investor, co-founder and/or Board member of a number of high-tech companies, such as Supertek (acquired by Cray Research), EcoSystems (acquired by Compuware), Keystone Laboratories (acquired by BioScience International), Navius (acquired by Endosonics), Digital Market (acquired by Agile Software), and E-Color (acquired by Lightsurf). He was co-founder and Chairman of EastNet - an ISP in Beijing. He has more than twenty years of senior management experience in the healthcare industry (Becton-Dickingson, Baxter Healthcare, Hygeia Sciences/Tambrands). Francis graduated from Tufts University and received a doctoral degree from Harvard University.

Don Yates, Organizational Expert



Don envisions an organization characterized by freedom, equality, community, and individual fulfillment that also delivers unparalleled customer service and exceptional results. However, we can build such an Extraordinary Organization only if we start with a set of beliefs radically different from the one underlying the current hierarchical, command and control model used in virtually all organizations today. His ideas are not just idealistic fantasy but come from ten years in the engineering/construction business and over twenty-five years of organizational consulting with startups to Fortune 100 companies. That work is itself built on an educational foundation including a Stanford BSCE, a Harvard Business School MBA, and a UCLA Graduate School of Management Ph.D. in Behavioral Science.

John J. Walters, Associate



A newcomer to the entrepreneurial game, John does freelance work for various Wasabi Ventures projects, research work for the Maryland Public Policy Institute, and is CEO of MeetingCaptain. His first publication, an economics companion-text written by himself and five other students during his final year at Loyola University Maryland, is slated for publication in November 2011. Samples of his writing can be found regularly on the Wasabi Ventures blog, the Maryland Policy blog, and the MeetingCaptain blog.

 

Latest Post

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Thing I Learned from my Boss

About the Author: John J. Walters is a freelance associate at Wasabi Ventures and CEO of MeetingCaptain.

I realized while I was filling out my invoice for last month that I’ve been working freelance for Wasabi Ventures for nearly a year now.  It’s been an education experience to say the least, and I thought I’d jot down a few things that I’ve learned from my boss during that time.  Not all of them will work for everybody (see numbers four and five), but hopefully you’ll find a few of them helpful.  Oh, and they’re in no particular order, for the record.

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