Daniel Curran

Angel. Founder: CustEx Product Improvement Platform. VP/COO@Western Digital - San Jose. $170MM in exits. Worked@/founded 14 startups.@Stanford@Berkeley@UIUC@USC

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dancurran/
Accredited investor
Member since July 21, 2014

Angel. Founder: CustEx Product Improvement Platform. VP/COO@Western Digital - San Jose. $170MM in exits. Worked@/founded 14 startups.@Stanford@Berkeley@UIUC@USC Quote_down

About

Investor interests

Type of investor	Angel Consulting
Typical investment size	Under $25,000
Typical investments in a year	100
Categories of interest	Consumer Internet (B2C)
Locations of interest	Silicon Valley Los Angeles, California, United States Palo Alto, California, United States
School/Associations of interest	UC Berkeley
Credentials	Accredited Investor

Activity

Investments made	Gil Penchina Backers Fund - $10k, CustEx
Board seats	CustEx

Education

1987 UIUC , MS , TAM - Math/Comp. Sci.

1985 Penn State , MS , Eng. Mech. / Materials Sci.

I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:

CustEx, US Lab, Inc., AlaStor Networks, Inc.

Companies I work or worked for:

Western Digital Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp.

Achievements (products built, personal awards won):

Worked @ or founded 14 Startups.

If you're an entrepreneur or corporate innovator, why?

I want to change the world.

My favorite startups:

Dollar Shave Club, Scripted, Life360, Pley, Informed Data Systems, One Month, Vouch Financial, Kiwi Crate, inDinero, Late stage Pre-IPO syndicate, Red Tricycle, CARD.COM, Hive, uBiome, Wevorce, Soothe, Breeze, Contactually, Little Bird, Happy Inspector, ChangeCoin, Kinsa, Beepi, Cabify, Peer5, Gil Penchina Backers Fund I, GoCoin, Zuli, Density, MeUndies, WedPics, Clubhouse Software, REscour, Lenda, Zirtual, WalkSource, Ticketbis, haystagg, NodeSource, Barricade, Bento, CustEx

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?

Rising above the noise of trivial startups.

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs/innovators make?

Waste time seeking funding instead of seeking Customers and sales.

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

1. Prioritize - determine what's important vs. trivial.
2. Review Critical Items Focus List daily.
3. Keep inputs and outputs in focus.

Full bio

Productivity / Claims to Fame:

-Founder/CEO, 1st Internet [StockPicks.com, 1995] Timing Service that saved investors $ billions [NASDAQ IPO in 1998: raised $130MM as CEO]
-COO at Western Digital Silicon Valley subsidiary [landed $40MM sale to Brocade &PMCS/Snap, 2001], which led to
-Founder/CEO of 1st company [AlaStor, 2003] to converge IP and FC SAN Networks - saved $ billions on expensive FC staff; vision adopted by Cisco Systems [UCS, 2009], followed by:
-Founder/CEO of disruptive Internet Platform CustEx [2012].

Experienced ramping up companies using innate ability to quickly size up a company’s position & execute pro-customer decisive action with positive cash-flow results. Began career at large companies as a software engineer and morphed into a business entrepreneur/CXO at startups with responsibility for up to 250 teammates.