Mark Sigal

I am a founder of five companies, with successful exits to Apple, IBM and Intel.

My focus is on mobile apps, big data, social media and web services, with a decided platform, design and user-interaction tilt.

My core forte is the marketing function, including product management; product marketing; marcomm (plus social media); and business development.

That stated, when you are an entrepreneur, you simply learn to solve problems, and so I am comfortable in all phases of being an operator.

If there is any ‘unfair advantage’ that I bring to the table it is this. There are strategists and there are tacticians. Strategists are great at big picture thinking and vision, but often not so good at execution and details. Tacticians, by contrast, are all about execution and details, but often fail to see the forest from the trees.

I am that rare bird that is comfortable doing both strategy and tactics.

I may not always be right, but I am rarely confused, and you never will find me being passive or willfully ignorant when it comes to taking necessary action. I will always lead by example, but am team-first all the way.

My operating approach is best thought of as co-creation, and I am as at home talking deep tech with engineers and PHDs, as I am with sales and marketers, and ordinary consumers.

When you are looking for a product nut, someone who is a hands-on, technical problem solver with domain experience across online video, community, social media, post-pc devices (especially, iOS) and SaaS, that’s me.

The projects that I am currently involved in include:

- Recurring columns at GigaOM and O’Reilly Radar; Attendee and Presenter at both Maker Faire and Foo Camp.

- BrightStreet Ventures, the technology affiliate of NewMark Merrill Companies, a shopping center developer and manager with over 75 shopping centers, 1500 merchants and 10M square feet of retail in California, Illinois and Colorado.

- Datex Property Solutions, makers of Datex BI, one of the leading Real Estate Business Intelligence platforms deployed across the Retail, Multi Family and Commercial real estate markets.

- Insider Engine, a service that algorithmically tracks insider buying activity to generate stock recommendations.

- Verdi Capital, an angel investment and strategic advisory firm (with Gregory Malin of Troon Pacific).

On the human front, I have a great wife and two really awesome sons. I have maintained a Bikram Yoga practice for 19 years, and am a devotee of Tibetan Buddhism.

If you have any ideas, skills, deal flow, connections or investing thoughts that you'd like to share, shoot me an email. I can be reached at msigal at gmail dot com.