Working Toward a Successful Exit
Dan Willis of Google (formerly Adscape)
Martin Horne, Investor and Entreprenuer (formerly of TravelPod, acquired by Expedia)

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Dan Willis of Google (formerly Adscape)

The EBC is pleased to launch the 2007 season with two of Ottawa's emerging breed of bootstrap entrepreneurs.  They will share their secrets and lessons learned on how to grow your business and engineer strategic acquision by some of the world's leading global vendors. The event provides both the entrepreneurial and investors perspective on working toward the exit.

Speaker Bios

Dan Willis of Google (formerly Adscape)
Dan started on the Ottawa tech scene working in defense consulting, where he got an appreciation for highly distributed, real time programming.  In 1987, Dan made the move to Bell-Northern Research.  There, over the next 15 years, he was a "jack-of-all-trades" and a master of a few.  His work in distributed systems spanned I.T., pure research and product development.  Dan was often on the bleeding edge whether it was ATM or IP telephony, broadband access networks for DSL and Cable, interactive television, voice over IP or eBusiness.

After 15 years at then Nortel Dan decided it was time to leave the mothership.  A long time gamer and visionary, he recognized the opportunities that would present themselves as the worlds of console gaming and the Internet came together.  With the founding of BiDamic Broadband, Dan set out to tap this new emergent space.  Over the next few years the company evolved, grew and evolved again.  In that time Dan established himself as one of the key pioneers in the Dynamic In-game advertising space.  In 2006, the company Dan had founded caught the eye of Google Inc.  In 2007, Adscape Media was acquired by Google.

Today, Dan continues to influence the in-game ads industry as the Technology Lead on the Google in-game advertising initiative.

Martin Horne, sold TravelPod a travel blogging site to Expedia
Martin Horne has over 25 years experience in High Technology including management positions with Digital Equipment, DY-4 and Monenco Agra.  For the last 15 years Martin has founded and led several venture backed companies as CEO.  His has returned to investors over $122M on $19M capital raised.  In 1994 he founded ProMIRA Software and in 1998 he sold it to Manugistics.  In late 1998 he founded Nitidus Technology and in 1999 he sold the company to Parametric Technologies.  Most recently Martin as founding CEO grew online Web 2.0 travel site TravelPod into the leading Travel Blog community culminating in an acquisition in late 2006 by online travel leader Expedia.  

In 1999 Martin acted as the initial Entrepreneur in Residence at Vengrowh, Canada’s largest Venture Capital firm. Martin has a deep technical background and applies a strong sense of innovation and ability to execute to help guide early stage high growth organizations.

Martin’s recent knowledge includes online advertising, viral communities, and Web 2.0.

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