Advisors - Valuable Resources at Your Finger Tips

An expert group of Silicon Valley start-up advisors available to help your company grow.

The Office of Silicon Valley has assembled a set of advisors designed to help start-ups with all aspects of creating and launching a successful start-up business and product. Each of the experts below is a proven Silicon Valley veteran.

Each advisor has agreed to mentor the start-ups in The Office, answering questions and offering advice. If any start-up requires in-depth assistance on a topic, they will either introduce the start-up to someone that can help, or potentially offer the assistance themselves (preferred rates are then provided to the start-ups, and are handled directly between the advisor and the start-up).

Venture Funding – Jim Heffernan

Jim is a long-time valley veteran. He co-founded US Web, and served as CFO. He has served on the boards of NBCi, XOOM and several other companies. He has helped numerous companies raise capital and guided several others through acquisitions and public offerings.

Product Strategy – Marty Cagan

Marty is the founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group, and is a Silicon Valley-based product executive with more than 20 years of experience with industry leaders including eBay, America Online, Netscape Communications and Hewlett-Packard. Before founding SVPG to pursue his interests in helping others create successful products through his writing, speaking, consulting and training, Marty was most recently Senior Vice-President of Product for eBay, where he was responsible for defining products and services for the company’s global e-commerce trading site.

User Experience – Kyrie Robinson

Kyrie is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group. Her passion is to create world-class user experience and product design for consumer technology products and services. She has developed and led several successful User Experience teams at leading Silicon Valley companies, but she is best known for her pioneering work building and leading the user experience team at TiVo. Kyrie has a Ph.D. from Stanford, and is the co-inventor on multiple patents for product designs at TiVo and Shutterfly. She has also been a design consultant at several other high profile technology companies such as eBay and Zinio.

Product Marketing – Martina Lauchengco

Martina is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group and advises companies on how to use marketing and products to reach their goals. Her multi-disciplinary approach pulls from 17 years of experience in executive positions at companies including Microsoft, Netscape, AOL and Loudcloud/Opsware.  Martina helped contribute to several industry leading products but is best known for her defining marketing work first for Microsoft Word, then Microsoft Office, and later for the Netscape browser, two of the most successful software products of all time.

Technology – Marty Abbott

Marty is a partner at AKF Partners, and is an inventor, entrepreneur, technologist and business leader with executive experience in both Fortune 500 and startup companies. He was formerly the COO of Quigo, an advertising technology startup sold to AOL. Prior to Quigo, Marty spent nearly 6 years at eBay, most recently as the SVP of Technology/CTO. He is also the co-author of “The Art of Scalability”.

Operations – Boogie Shafer

Boogie is the president of Dubious, Inc. He assists start-ups with infrastructure, site architecture, virtualization, benchmarking and performance analysis, systems engineering, network engineering, load balancing, and operations management.

Design and Promotion – Bruce Williams

Bruce launched Westminster Promotions in 1992. His active leadership, experience, and management ability has guided Westminster throughout the company’s journey. With Bruce at the helm, the company survived the ‘Dot-Bomb’ crash which decimated similar companies and Westminster emerged as an industry leader, experiencing continual growth and success. He excels at helping clients coordinate and strengthen their entire brands, from logo and web site development, to email marketing and social media messaging. Bruce is at his best when he is working on a variety of challenging projects and translating a client’s thoughts into rock-solid, results-producing concepts. Bruce was previously Vice President of Sales & Marketing and a founder of Westminster Software, a venture funded company.

Finance – Matt Brown

Matt is currently the Assistant Controller at Netgear. He is a CPA and an expert in US GAAP and accounting compliance. He was formerly at Brocade as Senior Revenue Accounting Manager where he led the effort to adopt new revenue accounting guidelines. Prior to Brocade, Matt was an Audit Manager at KPMG, leading audit engagements for various clients including Brocade, Verisign, SGI, Sanmina-SCI, and Pinnacle Systems.

Sales & Marketing – Chris Hyrne

Chris is a valley executive with 30 years experience developing and executing product and go-to-market strategies. A 10 year IBM veteran, Chris successfully led sales organizations targeting large enterprise clients in the Finance, Manufacturing, High Tech and Public sectors. In addition he drove business development for joint product development and go-to-market initiatives with Valley leaders such as Apple, Intel, and HP. Following his tenure at IBM, Chris served as the marketing executive for five successful software start-ups targeting large and mid-range enterprise customers. Here he led all aspects of inbound/outbound marketing strategy and operations; ranging from company launch through IPO/M&A phases of growth. Currently, Chris is consulting for pre-IPO firms in the Clean-Tech space. For start-ups bringing a Business-to-Business offering to market, Chris offers a unique perspective and breadth of practical experience to help ensure success.

Organizational Strategy – Denise Martin

Denise is the managing principal of BridgeLite Consulting.  She helps companies maximize potential through organizational architecture, successful change management, teamwork, collaboration, communications, and performance excellence. She possesses a strong interdisciplinary background comprised of Sales, Services, Marketing, Corporate Education/Training, Human Resources, and IT and has 16 years of operational senior management experience in Fortune 500 companies and start-ups worldwide.

Accounting – Pat Carson

Pat has provided expert accounting software consulting, outsourced bookkeeping services, controllerships, and financial statement preparation for 30+ years. In addition to client consulting, she and her firm, Carson & Crew, provide services to software developers who seek advice on best practices for integrating their applications with QuickBooks and other accounting software products. She specializes in using current technologies to provide efficiency and productivity for your business.

Communications/PR – Nicole Amsler

Nicole is currently the Vice President of Marketing at Shavlik Technologies.  With two IPOs under her belt, Nicole is an expert in helping start-ups build programs and develop strategic communications plans designed to position companies for success.  Prior to Shavlik, Nicole served in multiple executive and senior level positions throughout Silicon Valley.