Stan Chudnovsky

Stan Chudnovsky
Born 1970
Russia
Nationality American
Occupation Software engineer, entrepreneur, business executive
Years active 1990s-present
Website NFX.com

Stan Chudnovsky is an American entrepreneur, computer engineer, and business executive.[1][2][3] After starting his career focusing on the growth of social networks, Chudnovsky's first startup company[4] Tickle.com[5] was co-founded in 1999, then acquired by Monster Worldwide in 2004[6] for around $100 million.[5][7] In 2007 Chudnovsky co-founded OogaLabs in California,[8] a business incubator and investment firm.[5] OogaLabs went on to found a number of digital network and ecommerce companies,[9] for example helping fund Goodreads in November 2007[10] (acquired by Amazon in 2013)[11] WonderHill (merged with Kabam in 2010)[12] and IronPearl (acquired by PayPal in 2013).[13] A periodic speaker at tech panels and other events,[14] in late 2014 Chudnovsky left his role as Paypal's VP of global strategy and special ops to become Facebook's VP of growth, working particularly on the Facebook Messenger product.[2][5] In 2015,[15][16] Chudnovsky and James Currier left OogaLabs and partnered with investor Gigi Levy-Weiss to form NFX Guild in California.[15]

Early life and education

Stan Chudnovsky was born in 1970[1] in Russia,[17] where he was raised.[2] He earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees from Lomonosov Moscow State University,[17] with both degrees in applied mathematics.[18] He also earned dual degrees in psychology and computer engineering.[2]

Career

Programming and Tickle.com (1990s-2004)

See also: Tickle.com

In 1994 he moved from Moscow to San Francisco,[18] arriving in California with "$20 in his pocket."[2] In the 1990s Chudnovsky worked for a number of Fortune 500 companies developing and managing applications.[18] According to VentureBeat, during this time he "created the first Internet 'scraper,' a program that automatically pulled address lists from users’ Hotmail and Yahoo email accounts and allowed the easy transfer of links and information from one user to another."[2]

Around 1999[8] Chudnovsky and American entrepreneur James Currier[4] began working together as business partners, and that year they co-founded the startup company[4] and quiz network Tickle.com[5][19] along with Rick Marini.[20] Originally called Emode.com,[21] among other features the site allowed users to create their own tests, which were available for other users to take for free or a fee.[6] The company survived the dot-com bubble burst of 2000, becoming profitable in early 2002.[6] Eventually the website grew to have $38 million in revenue and nearly 200 million registered users,[22] as well as 80 employees.[10] Tickle was acquired by Monster Worldwide in May 2004[6] for around $100 million.[5][7] At Tickle, Chudnovsky started as vice president of engineering, before eventually gaining responsibilities over product and operations[18] as general manager.[17] He was named CEO of Tickle in December 2005.[18] Tickle was eventually absorbed into Affinity Labs.[6]

Founding OogaLabs (2007-2011)

In 2007 Chudovsky and Currier founded OogaLabs in California,[8] a business incubator and investment firm[5][23][24][25] described by the founders as their "advising/investing vehicle."[8] Some of the team from Tickle also joined the new firm.[22] OogaLabs went on to found a number of digital network and ecommerce companies,[9] for example helping fund Goodreads in November 2007.[10] Throughout this period, Chudnovsky continued to write and patent programs.[26]

As of February 2008, OoogaLabs had 15 designers and engineers who "work in two-man teams to develop ideas in parallel." Currier explained that the point of the system was "to churn out as many promising ideas in as short a time as possible."[27] At the time, OogaLabs was serving as a holding company for five new business, including GoodTree.[27] Also in 2008,[10] OogaLabs spun out the gaming company Wonderhill, with Chudnovsky serving as Wonderhill's chief technology officer.[17] Before it was acquired by Kabam[9] in 2010,[22] the startup put out Dragons of Atlantis and reached USD$60 million in revenue.[10]

Chudnovsky co-founded the company Jiff[5][24] in December 2010.[28] Operating as a secure network and marketplace for the health care industry,[10][22] Jiff's[5][24] healthcare marketplace raised money from investors like Venrock,[29] GE Capital and Rosemark.[30] Other companies included a medical wiki.[31][32]

IronPearl and Paypal (2009-2014)

In 2012 OogaLabs spun out IronPearl,[22] a company which builds software tools and methodologies to help networks and marketplaces grow.[10] On April 11, 2013, it was announced that with the Paypal acquisition of IronPearl, Chudnovsky would be Paypal's vice president of growth.[33] Currier and Chudnovsky retained positions at Paypal while continuing to work with OogaLabs.[2][8] TechCrunch reported that Chudnovsky would be leading "a growth team that will focus on building out PayPal’s customer base beyond 123 million registered users."[33]

Stated PayPal president David Marcus about Chudnovsky's appointment, "creating a growth group is foundational for us. PayPal has grown to almost 125 million users almost organically, and we’ve never pulled the levers to grow much faster. There are only very few, world-renowned growth hackers in the world and Stan is one of them.”[33] According to the Wall Street Journal in late 2014, "under Chudnovsky, PayPal added about 34 million active users and has continued to outpace eBay’s marketplace business in sales growth. In this year’s third quarter, PayPal sales rose 20% to $1.95 billion, compared with a 6% gain at eBay’s core marketplace unit to $2.16 billion."[1]

NFX Guild (2014-present)

Early in the summer of 2015,[15][16] Currier and Chudovsky left OogaLabs and partnered with investor Gigi Levy-Weiss to form NFX Guild in Silicon Valley.[7][15] The business accelerator and investment fund was created to exclusively cater to network and marketplace companies,[34] with financial backers such as Charles River Ventures, Shasta Ventures, and Greylock Partners. As of September 18, 2015, NFX Guild was managing $10 million in investments.[5] As compared to opening an application process to choose portfolio companies, NFX Guild established a network of scouts[5] in California and Israel.[16] As part of NFX Guild's business model, each portfolio company was provided with consultation and underwent a three-week program in the Bay Area.[16] As of September 2015, sixteen companies had "graduated" from the initial NFX Guild program,[5] with eight choosing to change their company names as part of the process.[16] For the "Winter 2016 program," NFX provided each participating startup with "$120,000 in equity based funding."[35]

Facebook (2015-present)

At the end of December 2014, Chudnovsky left his role as Paypal's VP Growth, Global Strategy and Special Ops.[5] Recruited by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and VP of Growth Javier Olivan,[36] Chudnovsky joined Facebook to become its head of products for Facebook Messenger.[37]

Beyond Facebook, Chudnovsky is on the board of directors for startups such as PlacePop, Inc.[17] and Affinity Labs.[17]

Personal life

Chudnovsky resides in Palo Alto, California with his family and two children.[2]

Further reading

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Bensinger, Greg (December 17, 2014). "PayPal Global Strategy Chief Jumps to Facebook". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Byrne Reilly, Richard (March 25, 2014). "PayPal's secret weapon: A Silicon Valley success story you've never heard of". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  3. ↑ "Company Overview of NFX Guild". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  4. 1 2 3 "Team and About". NFX Guild. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "James Currier And Stan Chudnovsky Take The Wraps Off Their New Incubator, NFX Guild". TechCrunch. September 18, 2015. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Hendrickson, Mark (April 23, 2008). "No One's Laughing at Tickle". TechCrunch.
  7. 1 2 3 Loizos, Connie (November 8, 2015). "Twenty-Year-Old Shahed Khan Has More Connections Than You Do". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "About Ooga Labs". oogalabs.com/. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  9. 1 2 3 Kincaid, Jason (October 22, 2010). "Kabam Acquires WonderHill, Wants To Become The Blizzard Of Social Games". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "James Currier". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  11. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/28/amazon-acquires-social-reading-site-goodreads/
  12. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/22/kabam-wonderhill-games-facebook/
  13. ↑ https://pando.com/2013/04/11/paypal-snags-iron-pearl-to-focus-on-user-growth/
  14. ↑ "Growth Hackers Conference". Growth Hackers Conference.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Takahashi, Dean (October 20, 2015). "How one Israeli investor overcomes fears and continues to invest in games". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 Goldenberg, Roy (August 18, 2015). "NFX Guild accelerator unveils summer 2015 class". Globes. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Stan Chudnovsky profile". Bloomberg Businessweek. 2014. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 "Stan Chudnovsky". SVOD. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  19. ↑ "Exerpts: James Currier". Big Think. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  20. ↑ "Business". Nashua Telegraph. 2007. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  21. ↑ Hansell, Saul (March 8, 2004). "Getting to Know Me, Getting to Know All About Me: Web Personality Tests". The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 "James Currier". Growth Hackers. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  23. ↑ "Ooga Labs Profile". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  24. 1 2 3 "James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky Requires the Wraps Off Their New Incubator, NFX Guild". The News Worthly. September 18, 2015. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  25. ↑ Rao, Leena (May 27, 2013). "Ooga Labs Takes A Ground-Up Approach To Generate Growth And Network Effects For Startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  26. ↑ "Patents by Inventor Stan Chudnovsky". Justia. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  27. 1 2 Allison, Kevin (February 19, 2008). "Founders take aim at a bigger target". Financial Times. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  28. ↑ "James Currier". Linkedin. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  29. ↑ Perez, Sarah (September 23, 2014). "Jiff Raises $18 Million Series B To Make Employers' Digital Health Programs More Personalized". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  30. ↑ Pai, Aditi (May 21, 2015). "Jiff raises $23M from Rosemark, GE Ventures for employee wellness platform". Mobi Health News. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  31. ↑ "Medpedia Launches Giant Wikipedia-Like Medical And Health Encyclopedia". medicalnewstoday.com. 2008-07-23. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
  32. ↑ Nye, Calley (2008-07-22). "MedPedia Is Wikifying the Medical Search Space". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
  33. 1 2 3 Cutler, Kim-Mai (April 11, 2013). "eBay's PayPal Acquires IronPearl To Fuel Growth Beyond 123M Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  34. ↑ Avital, Yaneev (Dec 21, 2015). "The 100 most influential people in Israeli hi-tech in 2015". GeekTime.com. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  35. ↑ Finberg, Ron (December 23, 2015). "iAngels Expands Investment Opportunities with NFX Guild Partnership". Finance Magnates. press release. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  36. ↑ Wagner, Kurt (December 17, 2014). "Facebook Adds Another PayPal Executive, Stan Chudnovsky, to Messenger Team". Recode.com. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  37. ↑ Constine, Josh (April 27, 2015). "Facebook Messenger Launches Free VOIP Video Calls Over Cellular And Wi-Fi". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
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