Smarterer People
Dave Balter, Co-Founder, Executive Chairman
Dave created the vision and original seed funding for Smarterer, his 5th startup. He remains actively involved in the strategy and direction of the business.
Dave is the founder and CEO of BzzAgent, Inc., a venture-backed social marketing firm which has delivered more than 2,000 programs for the world’s largest brands. Prior to launching BzzAgent in 2001, Dave ran and sold two promotions agencies, and even wore a suit to work for a few years in the financial marketing industry. Since its launch, BzzAgent has been featured everywhere from the CBS Evening News to the BBC to The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and is the subject of two Harvard Business School cases. Dave co-founded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association in 2004 (WOMMA) and has authored two books on the subject of Word of Mouth and Social Media, Grapevine and The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II.
In 2007, Harvard Business School dubbed Dave one of Boston’s “Hottest Technology CEOs.” Dave was named to the “40 under 40” list by The Boston Business Journal and Advertising Specialty Institute, and in 2008, Dave was recognized as a Future Legend by the AdClub. Dave is an active angel investor, including startups like FitnessKeeper, ProctorCam, E La Carte and Relay Rides and sits on the advisory boards of the Wharton Future of Advertising Project, Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange, and the Boston Boys & Girls Club Marketing and Communications Committee.
Jennifer Fremont-Smith, Co-Founder, CEO
Jennifer is a technology entrepreneur with extensive experience in building Internet businesses - including strategy, product, marketing, and sales.
Before co-founding Smarterer, she was VP of Business Development at High Start Group, a product strategy consulting company in Boston. She was also Founder and CEO of AnswerSmart, which provides candidate skills assessment solutions to SMBs; COO of Eventective, a search engine for the meeting & event space; and Founder of OnDemandCRM.com, which provided CRM for the financial services market.
She has a BA in International Business from Georgetown University and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, where she was a Sloan Fellow.
Michael Kowalchik, Co-Founder, CTO
Michael is an Internet technologist and innovator. Before co-founding Smarterer, Michael was co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Grazr, a web technology company based on web feeds and social media data analysis, where he led the engineering team.
Prior to Grazr, Michael worked for seven years in in the advanced research and development labs of Hopkinton, MA based EMC Corporation and before their acquisition by EMC, Data General Corporation. He worked with cutting-edge distributed computing and storage architectures, parallel processing, hardware, software and systems design and analysis. While at EMC, Michael was awarded patents on large-scale, high-performance, storage architectures.
Michael is also director of TenZeroLab, a mentoring/collaborative workspace for startups. He also actively mentors first-time entrepreneurs and provides technical assistance and advice to others in the Boston startup community.
Sarah Hodges, Marketing
Sarah runs Marketing at Smarterer, is an advisor to Flybridge Capital and is the co-founder of Intelligent.ly, a learning campus that lets entrepreneurs learn from experts. Prior to Smarterer, she helped RunKeeper grow to a community of over 10M passionate users as the Director of Marketing. Before RunKeeper, she led web analytics and online optimization at Carbonite leading up to the company’s 2010 IPO. She learned the ropes in online marketing as the co-owner of Pavo Real, a women’s clothing ecommerce site. Sarah likes pisco sours, long walks on the beach and unicorns. She wishes she hadn’t spent so much money on her MBA.
Josh Velasquez, Director, User Experience
Josh loves to design for people. Empathy is his middle name. (He actually doesn’t have a middle name.) Josh developed his knack for experience design through stints as a UX architect at Arnold Worldwide, product manager at Wayfair, retail specialist and developer at Apple, and project manager at MIT (where he also earned his undergrad degree). Josh is an avid student of Apple’s design process, and strives for the same level of workmanship in his own designs. When he’s not at work, Josh can be found exploring local shops and restaurants, and serving as his wife’s sous chef at home.
David Sturgis, Software Engineer
David Sturgis is a software developer and architect with over a decade of experience building packaged enterprise software for vertical markets.
Before joining Smarterer, Dave spent 12 years as a software developer for DCIT, an enterprise business applications company, where he specialized in data management, analytics, and e-commerce connectivity. He has also worked as a Boston area technology consultant for Divmod, Inc, assisting web developers and companies with security, database technology, and backend web development.
In the open source community, Dave is a frequent contributor to (and sprint coordinator for) the popular Twisted networking engine. In his spare time, he writes interactive fiction, cooks, and gardens, though not necessarily in that order.
Daniel Pratt, Marketing Associate
Daniel is a marketer with a passion for helping communities grow both online and offline.
Prior to joining Smarterer, Daniel studied Political Science at Suffolk University in Boston, MA. His love of entrepreneurship grew after traveling to Central Europe and Central America to conduct research on street food vendors and their impact on the informal economy.
Daniel is a proud graduate of the inaugural class of Boston Startup School, and sits on its board of alumni. When he’s not busting out some serious metrics, you can find him cooking something tasty and brewing some of the finest beers around.
Brian Lynn, Growth Hacker
Brian helps the Smarterer team acquire target users and optimize growth by leveraging big platforms, integrations as well as creative marketing channels.
Prior to joining Smarterer, Brian co-founded a Boston-based web development firm that served clients such as Bravo TV’s Project Soulmate, University of Connecticut, and professional image consultant for Chris Rock. He also worked on several consumer web and mobile product concepts, managing everything from user acquisition strategies to initial product development.
Brian is a former investment banker turned startuper, a top 5 finisher at Lean Startup Challenge in 2011, and was once a state champion in the video game “Tekken”.
