http://www.sdforum.org/SDForum/Templates/CalendarEvent.aspx?CID=1901

SDForum's Start-up SIG features a fabulous double-hitter: founders from OddPost and WordPress. Speakers: Toni Schneider, Oddpost's CEO before its acquisition by Yahoo, & now Automattic's CEO; Iain Lamb, Oddpost co-founder; & Matt Mullenweg, Automattic (WordPress) co-founder.

Come hear Toni, Iain and Matt talk about what it takes to start up a venture, all the way through to acquisition. Possible topics include building a business around open source projects, bootstrapping techniques, smart venture capital, DEMO and other tech conferences, talking to potential acquirers, and more. This is a great opportunity to hear from those who've built wildly popular products and successful companies.

Toni Schneider

Toni Schneider is CEO of Automattic and a venture partner at True Ventures. True is a new venture fund focused on early stage software investments. True's initial investments include Meebo, Sphere, and ScanR. Previously, Toni created and ran the Yahoo! Developer Network, and was also CEO of Uplister.

Iain Lamb

Iain Lamb and Ethan Diamond co-founded Oddpost, a very early web-based email system, one of the first services with a dynamic desktop-like interface, years before the term "ajax" was coined. Oddpost was bootstrapped, then angel-funded, and profitable with 11 employees. Yahoo acquired Oddpost in 2004 and made it the foundation of Yahoo! Mail.

Matt Mullenweg

Matt is perhaps best known as the founding developer of Wordpress, the blogging software that runs hundreds of thousands of sites around the world. Last October, Matt started Automattic, which provides WordPress.com, Akismet, a spam blocking service, and other blogging tools and services. Matt's personal blog, Photo Matt, is Google's #1 search result for "Matt".

No charge for SDForum members, $15 at door for non-members.

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