small-business-software
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Rachel Nulman-Schapiro Makes Software Speak Small Business
She started an agency while still at university. Now, as vcita's Chief Marketing Officer, Rachel Nulman-Schapiro works at the seam between software and the small-business owners expected to use it.
Wyatt Ozmore Left Wall Street to Give Main Street a Marketing Department
After learning to price risk in finance and growth in software, Owner.com’s CMO is applying both disciplines to a stubborn problem: helping independent restaurants compete with chains that can outspend them.
Songe LaRon Left Big Law to Learn the Barbershop, One Sweep at a Time
A corporate lawyer traded merger documents for appointment books, then discovered that the useful software was hiding behind the barber chair. SQUIRE grew because Songe LaRon and Dave Salvant stopped pitching an industry and started learning its work.
Michael Kulczyckyj Built the Back Office He Couldn't Buy
Before Dashboard OSM was a SaaS product, it was Michael Kulczyckyj's practical answer to a retailer's daily mess. His career is a study in turning operational friction into software - patiently, locally, and one useful feature at a time.
The Accidental Founder Who Wanted Software to Get Out of the Way
Andy Fowler never planned to run a company. He followed his curiosity from a Kentucky dial-up shop to an Ann Arbor CRM, then spent sixteen years making the machinery of sales feel a little less mechanical.
Michael Strickman Built the Recommendation Engine Before He Bought the Traffic
Before leading Xero's global marketing, Michael Strickman spent years teaching software to narrow choices, measuring demand at Tripadvisor and scaling performance marketing at Uber. His career is a study in how technical judgment becomes commercial judgment.
Igor Shvartsman
Igor Shvartsman is a technology executive associated with Breezeworks, the San Francisco company behind mobile and desktop software that helps independent service professionals - plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, appliance techs and similar trades - run scheduling, dispatch, invoicing and payments from a phone. Breezeworks launched as 'Breeze' on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in 2013 and went on to raise roughly $7 million, including a $5 million Series A led by Obvious Ventures with backing from technology figures such as Marc Benioff, Max Levchin and Peter Thiel. Shvartsman is listed as chief executive of the company in current business records.
Dhanush Balachandran
Dhanush Balachandran is the founder and CEO of Sortly, a visual, QR-code-driven inventory and asset tracking platform used by small businesses, families, and teams in construction, medical, retail, and education. A marketer-turned-iOS-developer, he taught himself to code, built an app originally called 'My Things,' rebranded it to Sortly, and grew it to millions of downloads. Before Sortly he spent over 15 years across Intel, Apple, DJI, and Y Media Labs, where he forecast worldwide CPU demand, priced server chips, and built ResearchKit medical research apps.
Danielle Cohen-Shohet
Danielle Cohen-Shohet is the CEO and co-founder of GlossGenius, the all-in-one booking, payments and point-of-sale platform built for salons, spas and independent beauty professionals. A summa cum laude Princeton graduate and former Goldman Sachs analyst, she taught herself to code and wrote the first version of the product after running a freelance makeup business out of her dorm room. Founded with co-founder Karim Butt and run alongside her twin sister Leah, GlossGenius now serves tens of thousands of beauty and wellness businesses, crossed roughly $100M in revenue, and reached a $510M valuation on its 2023 Series C.
Michael Beaudoin
Michael Beaudoin is the CEO of Housecall Pro, the Denver-based vertical SaaS platform that helps plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, cleaners and other home-service pros run their businesses from a phone. He joined the company as a board member in 2015 and stepped into the chief executive role in 2020, bringing two decades of experience leading and investing in consumer and home-services companies including HomeAdvisor, Einstein Bros. Bagels, and Waldo Photos, which he co-founded. Under his leadership Housecall Pro has scaled to serve tens of thousands of service businesses and roughly 1,400 employees, raising a $116.5M total war chest including a $65M Series D.
Neil Tolaney
Neil Tolaney is a General Partner and Co-Head of Consumer + SME at TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures), one of the world's leading growth equity firms. Based in San Francisco, he leads a team of roughly 20 B2C-focused investors backing category-defining companies in consumer internet, digital media, subscription services, and small business software. His path from investment banking to venture associate to e-commerce operator - running PersonalizationMall.com as Managing Director - to buyout dealmaker at Francisco Partners and back to TCV gives him a rare dual lens: he has sat on both sides of the cap table. He holds board seats at LegalZoom and Strava, and has backed companies including GoodRx, ByteDance, Mercury, Hotmart, and Grow Therapy.