Mark Coker Email Address

Chief Strategy Officer

Legions of zombies are at your door, trying to claw their way inside. Starving and alone, you make your stand. Will you survive?

Founder of Smashwords, an ebook distributor now serving 100,000+ indie authors and distributing to Apple, B&N, OverDrive, Scribd, Kobo and more. Previously founder of BestCalls.com, an earnings conference call directory in '97. Our effort to open earnings conference calls to small investors was a catalyst for the SEC's Regulation FD. Acquired in '03 by Shareholder.com, which was acquired by the Nasdaq in '05. Contributor to the Huffington Post's books section since 2009. On advisory board of GoGoCater (restaurant order automation technology). Previously on advisory board of Flat World Knowledge (open source text books) and AVG (security software). Former contributing writer for VentureBeat. In 1993, founded Dovetail Public Relations in Los Gatos, a tech PR firm specializing in venture-backed startups. Prior angel investor in over a dozen private firms over the years, including Exploit Prevention Labs (acquired), RightNow (IPOed), Quova (acquired), IP Metrics (acquired), NeoScale (BK), Shareholder.com (acquired), Terracheck (acquired), FamilyWonder (acquired), GetQuik (operating), Flat World Knowledge (operating), Utopy (acquired) and others. More: IP Metrics - '98-'03. Served on BOD for this software company, did their PR, and was an investor. Acquired by FalconStor. Rightnow - '98-'01. Helped grow from Greg Gianforte's bedroom to 300+ employee leader in SaaS CRM. IPO. Storage Dimensions - '94-'98. Early LAN storage pioneer. Took them through IPO to acquisition. McAfee - '93-'97. Executed and led their PR effort. Helped grow them from under $20 million to over $300 million. A wild, fun ride reporting directly to Bill Larson and his many awesome vps of marketing and product managers. What else? Co-author with my wife of BOOB TUBE, a novel about daytime television soap operas. Specialties: Entrepreneur, writer, strategic communications consultant, angel investor and business advisor to technology companies, with focus on startups.