Shane Neman
Principal at Neman Ventures
Shane Neman
Principal at Neman Ventures
Miami-Fort Lauderdale Area
Overview
Work Experience
Principal
1999 - Current
I’m a prolific venture capitalist and backer of startups including Impossible Foods, Athletic Greens, SandboxAQ, Cirkul, Flexport, Convoy, Prose, Kraken, Obe, Deep Sentinel, Anvyl, Future, MapAnything, VinePair, Hyperice and Gupshup. In addition to my many years as a technology entrepreneur and executive, I’ve also honed my expertise as a real estate investor and developer. I am an investor, developer, and manager of various types of properties ranging from commercial shopping and industrial centers to large residential buildings. Currently, I run a portfolio of over 20 properties in major metropolitan cities across the U.S.
Director of Corporate Development
2014 - 2015
In September of 2014 I transitioned my role at CallFire / Ez Texting from Chief Product officer to Director of Corporate Development. I currently spearhead all of the companies M&A activity and acquisitions strategy. I initiated, sourced and closed the successful acquisition of Fire Text UK by CallFire in November of 2014.
Chief Product Officer
2012 - 2014
Since late 2012, I have helped drive product revenues up by 20%+ YOY. While overseeing East Coast operations and leading a team of 15+, I spearhead full cycle product development including user experience design. In addition to corporate development initiatives, I have also led telecom litigation issues and FCC matters. Some product features I have introduced and deployed include MMS functionality, native IOS & Android Apps, and third party Application & API integrations.
Founder & CEO
2006 - 2014
I founded and bootstrapped EzTexting.com after recognizing a need for mobile SMS marketing software while at JoonBug.com, enabling offline data collection and distribution. I built a team of developers, system admins, customer service reps and operations managers into a full-time employee base of 25+, handpicking and recruiting each one for our offices in NYC, Hoboken and Kiev. Although first used for internal JoonBug.com purposes, the demand for the software grew tremendously, driving revenues from 0 to over 8M annually within 5 years. In response, I developed a white label reseller program servicing over 20 large resellers. Additionally, I created an affiliate marketing program, increasing online affiliates to over 100. I oversaw all marketing efforts, including both SEO and SEM strategies, which resulted in multiple first page rankings for core industry terms. Simultaneously, I designed complex and efficient SEM CPC campaigns with budgets exceeding $100k per month. Over the course of seven years, I grew our customer base from 0 to over 50,000+ SMBs throughout the US and Canada including such brands as The Home Depot, Public Storage, Pepsi, The Container Store, The VA and Uber. EzTexting.com now helps tens of thousands of businesses around the world build affordable and effective SMS Text Message Marketing campaigns using our SaaS platform.
Founder & CEO
2001 - 2008
In 2001 I created JoonBug.com – the only events and media company of its kind at the time. Joonbug.com married online media (event, music and lifestyle content and photos) with actual events targeted for young urban professionals and tastemakers throughout major metropolitan markets such as NYC, LA, Miami, Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Within 7 years we increased revenues from 0 to 25M+, built a user database to over 1M email subscribers, and a company of over 75 employees that included event staff, content staff, developers, marketing and sales people in our NYC based office in Chelsea. During this time we negotiated, planned, produced and executed over 300 yearly events at different venues with 100,000+ attendees. Additionally we marketed and launched proprietary and client facing events for over 100 brands including Esquire Magazine, Pepsi, Johnny Walker and Playboy. Our online media sales of email newsletters, banner ads, custom sitelets, and online videos grew to over 12M in revenue per year. In 2008, the company was sold to long time competitor, Skynet Media Group.
Founder & Lead Developer
1999 - 2001
At Offyx Corporation, I was the Lead Developer for a full-service provider (FSP & ASP) startup, providing software and consulting services to over 700 clients ranging from network administration and software development/hosting to user support. I grew and lead a team of 17, including developers and network administrators. I conceptualized, created, and provided hands-on leadership of operations and implementation, bringing projects to term. In addition to conceptualizing and designing program specifications for the entire Offyx Manager web application, I managed product development and planning phases. Aside from tactical hands on leadership in every technical aspect of product development, I spearheaded a VC capital raise of 2M+.
Co-Lead Developer
1998 - 1999
At Convey, I co-managed, designed, and developed high-load, web-based ASP for content management implementing Cold Fusion and MS SQL 7.0. Additionally, I designed JAVA client-server applications and developed a custom implementation of verity search, DTS Packages, real-time multi-homing modules using IIS, and accounting system modules including credit card processing. Convey was one of the first blogging systems to come to market before the word "blog" was coined.
Education
BA
1995 - 1999
HIgh School Diploma
1991 - 1995