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.
Shimon Rura, Director, Product Management
Shimon helps the Smarterer team identify and build the right product. Before joining Smarterer, Shimon was co-founder and CTO of a cloud Platform-as-a-Service company.
Prior to that, Shimon worked as a freelance web application developer, specializing in efficiently building version one of a new product. His work has led to launches and strategic pivots that are now earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
He is also an active participant in the Boston technology community, and has been an organizer of BarCamp Boston since 2005. In his spare time, he enjoys performing improv comedy and gradually improving his 120-year-old house.
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.
Hao Chen, Developer
Hao is a web developer with a passion for building world changing products.
Before joining Smarterer, he spent four years as a senior development engineer at 3DVIA, an online community and publishing site for 3D users. Back in the day, Hao owned an island in Second Life, where he experimented with virtual paintball. Hao has also worked as a contractor and freelance consultant for many Boston based companies.
After five long years with part of it living in his RV trailer parked at a campground (long story), Hao finished his BS in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Ross Foniri, Marketing Manager
Ross is a marketing and project manager with extensive experience in direct and online campaign planning, design, production, and measurement. He brings 8 years of B2C and B2B marketing experience to the Smarterer team where he helps execute and grow the Smarterer strategy.
Before joining Smarterer, Ross spent three and half years managing and driving global digital marketing initiatives for Sonos, a consumer electronics company with offices in Cambridge, MA. Prior to that, he developed CRM and online marketing campaigns for a management consulting firm in the greater Boston area.
Outside of Smarterer, Ross enjoys playing music, all things digital, and is an active member of the Boston arts community.
Hallie S. Cho, Intern
Hallie is a researcher with a product development and marketing background.
Prior to joining Smarterer, Hallie was a teaching assistant at MIT and has taught courses such as Product Engineering Process and Controls and Dynamics. Her research experiences include studying morphologic designs of galloping animals to design a passive compliant knee joint, understanding core elements of a driving experience to design the driving experience of a smart car with radical design changes, and analyzing information flow systems of bees and ants to design an efficient supply chain management software.
Hallie earned her two Bachelor's Degrees (one in Mechanical Engineering and the other in Management Science) from MIT and is currently finishing up her Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering at MIT.
