Speakers & Mentors

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  Kevin Taylor
  Groupon
  Kevin sold his company, Obtiva, to Groupon in 2011. He now does technology stuff at Groupon. He is building EventWax.com during his bounteous (early) morning time. Oh, and he teaches Technology Entrepreneurship to DePaul engineering students.
• 
  Saya Hillman
  Mac 'n Cheese Productions
  Saya is an Accidental Entrepreneur. Seven years ago, she began helping folk connect because she enjoyed helping folk connect. Who knew self-proclaimed bad-dancers would pay to dance in front of 700 at the Park West?
• 
  Ray Hightower
  WisdomGroup
  Ray Hightower is founder of WisdomGroup, organizer of ChicagoRuby, and producer of three tech conferences: WindyCityRails, WindyCityDB, and WindyCityGo.
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  Marian Mangoubi
  Little Screen Entertainment
  Marian has 10 years of integrated (digital, traditional and mobile) marketing experience working for Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. She has designed, implemented and evaluated online strategies to drive business growth in B2B, B2C and CPG companies. In 2010, Marian created Sassy CEO, an online media site that shines a light on female tech and mobile entrepreneurs.
• 
  Bernhard Kappe
  Pathfinder
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  Eli Gratz
  VS Networks
  Eli spent 5 years in a management training program and in Lean Process Improvement roles at GE Healthcare before he joined VS Networks, a digital media startup based in Chicago working in product and business development in 2011. He was a finalist at the University of Chicago Booth Business School's New Venture Challenge and a winner of Lean Startup Machine Chicago 2011.
• 
  Neal Sales-Griffin
  Code Academy
  Neal Sales-Griffin is the co-founder of Code Academy, an in-person 12 week program that teaches non-technical entrepreneurs how to build web applications with Ruby on Rails. Neal graduated from Northwestern in 2009, has worked at OCA Ventures, Sandbox Industries, and was on the founding team of ContextMedia - a pharmaceutical digital signage company.
• 
  Sarah Gray
  Technical Advocates
  Sarah has been developing things for the web for a long time now, and has recently started a foray into building her own projects and products. This is awesome.
• 
  Jonathan Gottfried
  Twilio
  Jon Gottfried is a Developer Evangelist at Twilio and one of the organizers of the Hacker Union. He is a die-hard hacker and loves to help people build amazing products and learn something new in the process. Before joining Twilio, Jon worked as a developer for various startups and Big Co's and even founded his own small startup Lemonade Stand, which was a Semi-Finalist in the StartupBus competition at SXSW.
• 
  Ted Gonder
  Moneythink
  Ted is a serial social entrepreneur who believes in the power of metrics to change the world. He has helped lead a number of movements, most recently Moneythink, an initiative that mobilizes college students to teach financial and entrepreneurial skills to urban youth.
• 
  Ryan Lelek
  LaunchRock
  Ryan has been working on start-ups since he was 15, and loves every minute of it. He has been a part of LSM Chicago, LSM New York, and the StartupBus. Ryan also founded Curly Cloud, which optimizes operating systems and creates tools that make computers simpler. He is now employee #1 at LaunchRock, and is looking forward to helping other startups find enthusiastic customers and build products people love.
• 
  Dave Hoover
  Groupon
  Dave likes growth. He grows startups, and he grows technologists. He helped grow Obtiva. He's currently growing Groupon, Mad Mimi, Code Academy, and StyleSeek.
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  Amanda Chocko
  Momentum
  Amanda Chocko is the program director for the west Michigan seed accelerator, Momentum. Inspired by last year's Chicago LSM, she launched the annual Michigan Lean Startup Conference and the Michigan Lean Startup Circle. Amanda has over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience and is a certified small business adviser.
• 
  Marcy Capron
  Polymathic/Junto
  Marcy is the CEO of Polymathic. Polymathic uses its toolkit called Junto, an online environment for building startups within an open feedback loop, to make MVPs accessible for nontechnical entrepreneurs.
• 
  Seth Kravitz
  Technori.com
  Co-Founder of InsuranceAgents.com; Co-Founder of Technori; Mentor at Excelerate, the Knapp Center at IIT, and the Coleman Center at DePaul; Avid photographer and beer explorer. Launching a coffee company in 2012.
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  Ethan Austin
  GiveForward
  Ethan is the co-founder of GiveForward, a 2010 Excelerate Labs company. He likes creating unexpected joy and eating burritos.
• 
  Daliah Saper
  Saper Law Offices, LLC
  DALIAH SAPER handles high profile cases and is frequently relied upon by the news media as a go-to expert on intellectual property, social media, and business issues. For example, Daliah has been featured on CNBC, ABC News, Fox News, NPR, and WGN 720. She has repeatedly received the honor of being named a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers magazine, is recognized as a leading Media and Entertainment lawyer by Chambers and Partners, and was recently nominated for the prestigious ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Award. In addition to conducting Seminars at Saper Law on a monthly basis, Daliah is a frequent lecturer, panelist, and instructor for organizations around the city and the country.
• 
  Sheel Mohnot
  FeeFighters
  Sheel previously served as director of online marketing for Kiva.org and bootstrapped a couple of e-commerce websites.
• 
  Nick Yecke
  PVPower
  Nick is co-founder of PVPower, making it easier for independant solar installers to plan and execute solar projects across the U.S. Nick is an experienced entrepreneur focused on product development, digital marketing and operations. He's also a huge fan of his undersized dog and the Green Bay Packers.