Keith Teare
CEO and Founder of just.me and partner at Archimedes Labs LLC
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
- Industry
- Internet
Summary
I am the CEO and founder of just.me (http://just.me), and a partner at Archimedes Labs (http://archimedeslabs.com) in Palo Alto, California. I am a product-centric entrepreneur and love working with designers and engineers to realize dreams.
I have founded or co-founded several companies in the digital space since the early 1980s. Up until 1998 these were UK based entities. Since then they have been Silicon Valley based ventures. My resume chronicles these.
I have built teams that created companies that were valued by others at more than $1 billion (EasyNet and RealNames).
I have always focused on the point at which great change is happening. In the 1980's networking and databases (cScape). In the 1994-1998 period, Internet Access (EasyNet and Cyberia). From 1998-2010 - Internet Services and Content (RealNames and TechCrunch) and since 2010 Mobile Consumer Applications (just.me and Archimedes Labs).
I am proud of my successes and my failures. I learned a great deal from each. I have had to deal with partners, customers; advertisers and their agencies, investors; bankers; Governments; Organizations and Institutions. I have served on many boards. I have managed small teams of 2 or 3 and larger teams of over 300.
But, above all else, I have been privileged to work with great people whilst doing what I love - making change a positive experience.
Specialties
C level relationship management and negotiations;
Corporate Strategy;
Product Strategy;
Policy Issues;
Standards Efforts;
Evangelizing;
Communicating;
Leading
Experience
Co-Founder
Techcrunch
Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry
March 2005 – September 2010 (5 years 7 months)
I co-foinded TechCrunch through my friendship and business partnership with Michael Arrington. We started edgeio and TechCrunch simultaneously whilst cooperating through Archimedes Ventures LLC. I can't claim a lot of credit for TechCrunch ... I'm the one who advised him not to do it :-). I hope I helped Mike get to the point where he wanted to do it, and was able to help him be successful.
Founding Board Member
fotopedia
February 2008 – September 2009 (1 year 8 months)
fotopedia (formerly fotonauts) is an exciting startup, created by Jean-Marie Hullot, former CTO of NeXt and of Apple's Applications Division, and his team. I helped raise the company's first round of financing - $2.5m - in Summer 2008 and organized the launch of the product at TechCrunch 50 in September 2008. I was a founding board member. I remain an active supporter of the company and a significant shareholder. Jean-Marie is a friend and a hero. And fotopedia is awesome.
ceo
edgeio corporation
Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry
March 2005 – December 2007 (2 years 10 months)
Mike Arrington and myself started edgeio to facilitate the publishing and syndication of listings. edgeio is a state of the art platform for aggregation and distribution of content and is able to do so in near real time.
President/CEO/Chairman
Santa Cruz Networks
March 2003 – June 2004 (1 year 4 months)
Was Chief Executive of this Real Time Communications over IP company.
A great 15 months, during which I learned a lot about the IP Communications space, and particularly the emerging voice, video and data (converged IP communications) network.
Rebranded the company, launched VidiTel, built a distributed platform for service providers, and took the sales run rate up from about $350k a year to about $2.4m a year without raising expenses.
In April 2004 I raised the first close of the company’s ‘C’ round, a $3.5m investment and passed the baton to the new CEO at the close of the round.
CEO, President, Chairman
RealNames Corporation
Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry
January 1998 – June 2002 (4 years 6 months)
Founded and took this company from formation to a profitable company, between 1998 and 2002.
The journey included:
An S1 filing with Morgan Stanley.
Profitability in Q1 2002.
Deals across 12 countries in 18 months for namespace management, effectively creating country-level registries for multi-lingual namespaces. In China, with CNIC and the Chinese Government; In Japan with JPRS; In Korea with a consortium of companies; In France; In South Africa; In India; In Taiwan; In Israel; In the UK.
A strategy that gave ownership of RealNames customers to a registrar channel,and beyond them, a global, nationally based registry channel, with RealNames as a technology enabler of the entire ecosystem.
A contract with Microsoft to make RealNames available worldwide through the Internet Explorer Browser and a relationship to VeriSIgn to sell Internet Keywords through its channels.
An IPO filing.
Over 350 employees.
Chairman & Director
NetNames
Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Internet industry
January 1998 – July 2001 (3 years 7 months)
I seed funded NetNames. We sold it to NetBenefit in 2000. I was a board member of the merged entity through 2001. NetNames was the world's first domain name reseller, founded by Ivan Pope and Anthony Van Couvering.
Founder
CYBERIA, Cybercafe Ltd
August 1994 – September 2000 (6 years 2 months)
Founded the world's first Cybercafe. With Eva Pascoe, Gené McPherson, David Rowe.
We franchsed it around the world, including in the Centre Pompidou in Paris; Thailand; Japan; the Philippines; Scotland; London; Dublin; Rotterdam.
We had to negotiate with Virgin (for the Rotterdam Megastore) and the French Government (for the Centre Pompidou presence); British Telecom (for UK based training for their employees).
The who's who of the global Internet used CYBERIA for product launches and mixers. Most UK startups formed during 1994-2002 started in CYBERIA or at least hung out there. Great experience.
Financed my Maurice Saatchi and Jean Pigotzzi
Great fun, poor business. Oh well!
CTO, Founder
The EasyNet Group
Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Telecommunications industry
June 1994 – November 1996 (2 years 6 months)
Britain's second consumer facing ISP. Took it public in 1996. Now one of Europes largest DSL carriers, and a telco. CEO is David Rowe, my co-founder.
EasyNet was both a big success and a learning experience. My first large company. My first IPO. My first media interviews. My first technology book. My first web site development. My first IP based network experience. My first experience of globalization (from 1 to 29 countries in 10 years). My first public company board role.
David Rowe was a great partner for the journey. He is awesome.
Of course, tons of hard work. And learning.
Founder, CEO
cScape.com
Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry
September 1983 – June 1994 (10 years 10 months)
I founded cscape as "Brent Computer Services" in the early 1980's. We designed networks (Novell and later Microsoft based) and databases. We supported customers who bought our integrated solutions. Customers include Mobil Oil, Warner Music, The Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD), and many municipal authorities.
We sold it to NetB2B2 as an operating company withing the group in 2001. My co-founder, Brian Teare, remains CTO.
Skills & Expertise
- Policy Issues
- Business Strategy
- Negotiation
- E-commerce
- Start-ups
- Business Development
- Product Management
- Social Media
- Entrepreneurship
- Marketing Strategy
- Product Development
- Strategy
- Strategic Planning
- New Business Development
- Strategic Partnerships
- Online Advertising
- Product Marketing
- Public Speaking
- Digital Marketing
- Marketing
Publications
-
TechCrunch
- Online
Authors: Keith TeareWorld's largest Technology Blog
Additional Information
- Websites:
- Honors and Awards:
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Computerworld Smithsonian Laureate, for visionary use of information technology. 2001. For RealNames.
British Telecom award for innovation, 1996. For CYBERIA Cafe.