About Decide

Decide is a service dedicated to helping consumers buy electronics with no regrets. The company has raised $8.5M in venture capital from Madrona Venture Group, Maveron, and angel investors. Decide was co-founded by Internet search pioneer Oren Etzioni and has gained support from consumer Internet and ecommerce veterans.

Team

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  Mike FridgenPresident & CEO

  Mike is a serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience launching successful consumer Internet companies. Most recently, Mike served as Vice President of Marketing & Product Development at Farecast.com, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. At Microsoft, Mike led product management for Bing Travel and Bing Shopping. In the late 90s, Mike was co-founder and CEO of TripHub.com, a venture backed online travel start-up. Mike has a MBA from Harvard Business School and BA from University of Washington.
  
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  Oren EtzioniCo-founder & CTO

  Prior to joining the Decide team Oren founded Farecast (acquired by Microsoft in 2008). He chairs Madrona's Technology Advisory Board and is a Professor at the University of Washington's Department of Computer Science & Engineering. He is the author of more than 100 academic papers on topics including Web search, data mining, agent technology, and various aspects of Artificial Intelligence. He was the Chief Technology Officer and board member of Go2Net Inc. (acquired by InfoSpace) and a founder of Netbot, Inc. (acquired by Excite). He received the NSF Young Investigator Award, was chosen to be an AAAI Fellow, and in 2007 received the Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Award for "long-standing technical and entrepreneurial contributions to Artificial Intelligence".
  
  At Netbot, Dr. Etzioni helped to conceive and design the web's first major comparison-shopping agent. In 1995, he and his student Erik Selberg developed MetaCrawler, the Web's premier Meta-search engine for several years. He also is a co-founder of Clearforest (acquired by Reuters).
  
  He received his undergraduate degree in computer science from Harvard University, and his MS and Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.
  
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  Michael PaulsonVP Product & Marketing

  Michael brings extensive retail and ecommerce expertise to the team. Prior to joining Decide, Michael managed Microsoft's online shopping brands MSN Shopping and Bing Shopping. He has held roles in strategy, product management, merchandising and operations at Amazon, Gap and Toys "R" Us.
  
  Michael is an active member of the retail industry, serving on the board of RAMA (the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association), as a charter member of the Shop.org Research Committee and a member of CEA Consumer Technology Enthusiast group. Michael has a BA from Yale University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
  
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  Andy FarsjeVP Finance & Administration

  Andy is a seasoned finance and operations executive who has helped launch and operate five successful start-ups, and helped lead over 10 financings, sales and/or acquisitions. Most recently, Andy founded two real estate investment funds where he raised $3M to purchase distressed rental properties in the Phoenix area. Previously, Andy served as VP of Finance & Administration at Farecast.com, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. Previous to Farecast, Andy helped open Qwest Field (now CenturyLink Field) as Director of Finance. Additionally, in the late 90's, Andy was co-founder and CFO of TripHub.com, a venture backed online travel start-up. Andy received his degree from the University of Washington and is a CPA in the state of Washington.
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  Kate MatsudairaVP Engineering

  Kate has spent her entire career working on amazing products with brilliant people. She has worked as the VP Engineering/CTO at several Seattle startups - including SEOmoz and Delve Networks (acquired by Limelight). Prior to joining the startup world she spent time as a software engineer, tech lead, and manager at Amazon and Microsoft. Kate has hands-on knowledge and experience with building large scale distributed web systems, big data, cloud computing and technical leadership. Kate has a B.S. in Computer Science from Harvey Mudd College, and has completed graduate work at the University of Washington in both Business and Computer Science (M.S.).
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  Hsu Han, Hsu Ken, Ian & BrianCo-founders

  With previous experience at Zillow, Zaaz, Microsoft, and Google, two sets of brothers decided to leave their cushy jobs to pursue the ever elusive startup dream armed with nothing more than UW diplomas, costco chicken nuggets, a cold basement, and sleeping bags. Realizing the opportunity to bring their skills to the chaotic ecommerce space they rapidly prototyped and built the beginnings of what turned into the site you see today.
  
  At Decide, they serve in everything from product management and design, to architecture and data mining. Despite the similarities among the co-founders (love of Starcraft 2, ping pong, and Rock Band), they actually are 4 different people with very diverse backgrounds. Each one has an arsenal of startup war stories probably better told over coffee or a nostalgic cup of Top Ramen.
  
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Board

• Dan LevitanMaveron

  Dan has led many Maveron investments, including Cranium, Potbelly Sandwich Works, and Pinkberry, and has directed a number of successful exits within the last 10 years, including Auctionpay (acquired by Global Payments Inc.), Capella Education Company, Cranium (acquired by Hasbro), Quellos (acquired by Blackrock), Good Technology (acquired by Motorola), and Shutterfly. He currently serves on the board of directors for Decide.com, NextFoods, PayNearMe, Pinkberry, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Trupanion and zulily. Dan is also a board member for The Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. He enjoys helping future entrepreneurial leaders, and has participated as a judge and mentor for several years in the annual Harvard Business School Business Plan Competition. He also serves on the board of the Seattle Children's Hospital Foundation.
  
  Incredibly, Dan has personal time. He devotes that to his wife and two daughters. He also loves Duke basketball, which we don't hold against him. But we have to give him props: he's climbed Mount Kilimanjaro once, and Mount Rainier twice.
  
  Dan graduated from Horace Mann School, and received a BA, magna cum laude, from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
  
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• Greg GottesmanMadrona Venture Group

  Greg joined Madrona in 1997 and currently serves on the boards of AdReady, Bocada, BuddyTV, Cheezburger, Decide, Nimbic, Intrepid Learning Solutions, ThinkFire, and WildTangent. "I love early-stage. I like really early-stage, like two guys and a great business idea. That's the most fun time working with a business, when every decision counts and every hire is critical."
  
  Greg managed the firm's investments in Dantz Development Corporation (prior to its acquisition by EMC), Rendition Networks (prior to its acquisition by Opsware), Singingfish.com (prior to its acquisition by Thomson Consumer Electronics), LiveBid.com (prior to its acquisition by Amazon.com), and AdRelevance (prior to its acquisition by Media Metrix). Before joining Madrona, he worked as an Associate of the Boston Consulting Group.
  
  Greg is a board member of the Evergreen Venture Capital Association and an advisory board member of the University of Washington Technology Transfer Office and Seattle Repertory Theatre. He is the author of three books. Greg is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Washington Business School, where he teaches a class on entrepreneurship. When not working, he spends time with his wife and three kids, watches too much reality TV, and regularly injures himself playing non-contact sports.
  
  Greg graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors and distinction from Stanford University, with honors and distinction from the Harvard Business School, and with honors from Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
  
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• Hugh CreanFormer CEO of Farecast

  Hugh is the former CEO of Farecast, the smart travel search site that empowered consumers to buy with confidence with innovative airfare predictions, hotel rate keys and travel planning tools. Farecast was acquired by Microsoft in 2008, and Hugh joined the Microsoft search team to manage the development and launch of Bing Travel, a key component of the Bing "decision engine."
  
  Before Farecast, Hugh was Senior Vice President of Business Development at National Leisure Group (NLG). Before NLG, he served as Vice President of Product and Corporate Development with Priceline and as Vice President of Strategic Analysis for Citigroup's Advanced Development/e-Citi division. Hugh also held positions with DLJ, Viacom, and AC Nielsen/Dun & Bradstreet. Hugh is a graduate of Boston College.
  
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• Oren EtzioniDecide

• Mike FridgenDecide

Investors & advisors

• Ram ShriramGoogle Founding Board Member

  Ram served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Ram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. While at Amazon, Ram helped grow the customer base during its early high growth phase in 1998/1999. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. He drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get massive distribution for its browser and server products during those now legendary early days of the Internet.
  
  Ram is a founding board member of Google Inc. and 247customer.com. Ram also serves on the boards of Next Jump, Zazzle.com, and StumbleUpon.com. Ram is on the board of trustees of Stanford University.

• Erik BlachfordFormer CEO of Expedia

  Currently a Venture Partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, Erik is also Executive Chairman at Terrapass, Inc., a leading provider of high quality carbon offsets, and a partner at Butterfield & Robinson, Inc, a leader in international active travel. Previously, Erik has served as CEO of Expedia, Inc. and as CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp's travel division, IAC Travel, including online travel businesses Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Classic Custom Vacations and Interval International.
  
  Erik also serves as a board director at Zillow, Inc, and Glassdoor, Inc, and is on the U.S. National Council of the World Wildlife Fund and a member of the Board of Cutting Ball Theatre in San Francisco.
  
  Erik holds a bachelor's degree in English and certificate in theater from Princeton University and a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.
  
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• Rich BartonCo-founder & Executive Chairman of Zillow

  Rich is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Zillow. He served as Chief Executive Officer from 2005, when the company was founded, until September 2010 when he passed the baton to Spencer Rascoff. Before co-founding Zillow, Rich founded Expedia.com, the world's largest online travel agency. Expedia was started within Microsoft in 1994, and then spun out in 1999 as a public company; Rich served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Director until 2003. Rich also co- founded and serves as Non-Executive Chairman of Glassdoor.com and TravelPost. Rich is also a venture partner at Benchmark Capital in Menlo Park and is on the boards of directors at Netflix, Avvo, RealSelf.com, and CommonSenseMedia.Org. Rich holds a Bachelor of Science degree in General Engineering: Industrial Economics from Stanford University.
  
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• Jay BartotCo-founder & CTO of Medify

  Jay is co-founder and CTO of Medify, specializing in data-driven care management. Prior to Medify, Jay served as Vice President of Engineering of Farecast (acquired by Microsoft). Mr. Bartot co-founded AdRelevance and served as its Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering. Jay studied Computer Science and Music at the University of Iowa.
  
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• Dan WeldUW Computer Science Professor

  Dan is Thomas J. Cable / WRF Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. After formative education at Phillips Academy, he received bachelor's degrees in both Computer Science and Biochemistry at Yale University in 1982. He landed a Ph.D. from the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1988, received a Presidential Young Investigator's award in 1989, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator's award in 1990, was named AAAI Fellow in 1999 and deemed ACM Fellow in 2005. Dan is an area editor for the Journal of the ACM, was a founding editor for the Journal of AI Research, was guest editor for Computational Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, and was Program Chair for AAAI-96. Dan has published two books and scads of technical papers.
  
  Dan is an active entrepreneur with several patents and technology licenses. In May 1996, he co-founded Netbot Incorporated, creator of Jango Shopping Search and later acquired by Excite. In October 1998, Dan co-founded AdRelevance, a revolutionary monitoring service for internet advertising which was acquired by Media Metrix and subsequently by Nielsen NetRatings. In June 1999, Dan co-founded data integration company Nimble Technology which was acquired by the Actuate Corporation. In January 2001, Dan joined the Madrona Venture Group as a Venture Partner and member of the Technical Advisory Board.
  
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