Success Stories

CLIENTS
TOMBSTONES
TESTIMONIALS

Client:

DevZuz (fka Simula Labs), backed by Mission Ventures and RedPoint, helps IT organizations maximize software development innovation by enabling enterprise IT to rapidly adopt open-source software throughout the application development life cycle. DevZuz Maestro supports distributed development environments with the proven technologies and best practices of artifact-driven, component-based engineering used in today's open-source communities. DevZuz leverages the same collaborative processes and technologies behind open-source development to deliver support, consulting, and ongoing product maintenance to the DevZuz library of distributions and components.

Context:
We were approached by DevZuz Founder and CEO Winston Damarillo and lead investors Leo Spiegel and Dave Ryan of Mission Ventures. DevZuz, at the time called Simula Labs, was about to spin off one of its product lines (LogicBlaze, sold to Iona in 2007) and rebrand itself, and Winston was looking to move into the Chairman’s role. The company needed immediate help in driving revenue and a new executive leader who could successfully reposition the company, grow the user base, and secure the financing required to get to escape velocity. We placed the former VP Worldwide Sales from Trolltech, Borland, and StarBase, who joined DevZuz while we were completing the CEO search. Subsequently, we placed the former President of WebLogic and Enlighten Software as DevZuz’s CEO.

Results:
Chief Executive Officer
Vice President Sales

Client:

CircleUp, backed by Sid R. Bass & Associates, is a social communication service that turbo-charges email and instant messaging for information gathering, collaboration, and decision making in online and offline groups and communities. It provides a fast, easy way to ask questions of any community using email and IM and get back a single, organized result instead of a blizzard of emails and instant messages. CircleUp users come from a variety of online and offline communities including youth sports, volunteers, schools, Scouts, clubs, church groups, and political, alumni, and professional organizations. The company is privately funded and based in Newport Beach, California.

Context:
Jim Jonassen was integrally involved in the formation of CircleUp, originally called QandA, from its roots. We brought in Doug Tung, formerly CTO of YouBet, to define the technology and then enlisted John Payne to advise the company. John, the former CEO of Stamps.com, had been incubating an idea that was similar and complementary. Within weeks John agreed to join the company, which he renamed CircleUp. JJ&A landed Jim Davis, former VP Business Development at eBay, as the launch CMO as well as to join CircleUp’s board. Finally, we were instrumental in raising $600,000 in seed capital from our network.

Results:
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Technology Officer
Chief Marketing Officer

Client:

GreenDot (fka Next Estate Communications), backed by Sequoia Capital and GE Capital, is a leading provider of retail-based financial services for America's underserved community. The company offers consumers a comprehensive portfolio of financial products and services through tens of thousands of leading retailers nationwide. Products include Green Dot MasterCard®, Visa®- and Discover®-branded prepaid debit cards, Green Dot Visa credit cards, and Green Dot MoneyPak(TM). The Green Dot MoneyPak(TM) is a consumer to business "C2B" cash-processing gateway that provides a convenient and efficient way for consumers to load cash to prepaid cards, use cash to pay bills, and add cash to a variety of accounts. Green Dot is headquartered in the greater Los Angeles area. For more corporate information, visit http://www.greendotcorp.com. To learn more about Green Dot products and services please visit http://www.greendotonline.com, http://www.getmygreen.com.

Context:
GreenDot is an emerging growth company that is revolutionizing consumer financial services. The company’s hyper-growth created the demand for a partnership with a source of executive level talent. JJ&A was initially called in to find a world-class CTO to own all aspects of the company’s technology infrastructure as well as the IT aspects of all products and partnerships. We placed the former CTO of Elite Information Systems. Sales growth at the company created the requirement for a scalable SVP of Sales with a strong retail background. We recruited the then VP of Worldwide Sales from CaseStack.

Results:
SVP Retail Sales
Chief Technical Officer
Upgrade Management to Achieve Escape Velocity….

Client:

Sonics, Inc., backed by Cadence, Toshiba, Samsung, Lehman Bros., Investar Capital, JAFCO America, and Spinnaker Ventures, is the premier supplier in the interconnect segment of the Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) market. Sonics offers SMART InterconnectTM solutions and Memory Management products that facilitate the rapid development of Systems on a Chip (SoC) for embedded systems markets. SMART Interconnect solutions combine advanced fabrics and optionally data flow services that replace the need for SoC developers to design, verify, and maintain similar complex functions on their own.

Context:
Sonics’ consistent growth and profitability meant that it would need to put in place the infrastructure for the company to scale, while charting a course toward liquidity through a public offering. Sonics’ CEO and Board approached JJ&A to rebuild the management team to prepare it to go public.

Results:
Chief Financial Officer
Vice President Worldwide Sales
Vice President Marketing
Vice President Engineering

Client:

HireRight is a venture-backed (Mellon Ventures, Doll Capital, Northwest) leading provider of on-demand employment background and drug-screening solutions that help organizations effectively implement, manage, and control multifaceted screening programs. Many companies, including more than fifty of the Fortune 500, trust HireRight because the company delivers customer-focused solutions that provide greater efficiency and faster results. HireRight offers screening services across more than 200 countries and territories and is a leader in providing pre-integrated employment screening solutions for top e-recruiting applications. HireRight's worldwide headquarters are located in Irvine, California, with offices and affiliates around the globe.

Context:
Hireright’s Board (VCs) approached JJ&A with a common scenario in this portfolio company. HireRight was experiencing hyper-growth while nearing profitability. Meanwhile, the product development, sales and financial leadership were not scalable. The board decided to point the company toward a two year path to a liquidity event and therefore called in JJ&A to execute on key replacement searches. HireRight filed its S1 in February of 2007.

Results: Chief Financial Officer
Vice President, Engineering
Vice President, Sales