What is Huddler?
We created the Huddler Platform as a way to open the vast amounts of
content in the discussion forums we love to a much larger audience. The
Huddler Platform allows
existing discussion forums to give their users more functionality,
increase their traffic, and find additional revenue streams. We have
created sophisticated content generation and interactivity tools
designed to provide forum users with new ways to share their knowledge
with the world, in an interface that even a novice can take advantage
of.
We were incorporated in March of 2007, and launched the
first community on the Huddler Platform in March of 2008. Huddler HQ is
in San Francisco, CA, so let us know when you're around!
We're grateful to have the support of A-list investors including The Pilot Group (NYC), as well as 4 renowned Silicon Valley angel investors.
Frank Farmer
1) What is your role at Huddler?
PHP/SQL hacker. I'm always either making it work faster, in a new way, or with something else.
2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
I started programming in junior high. Since then I've written bits and pieces in a dozen languages on a half-dozen platforms, and worked a few internships, including a few months working with a Java AJAX framework back before anyone called it that. Most recently, I hacked PHP/SQL for a small consulting outfit for a few years.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
Rock some Guitar Hero, troll some forums, code a little something for fun -- a macro, a macro engine, a grease monkey script... And every once in a while I get out and take a hike or catch a show.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
I've been a forum regular for years, and coding for longer, so it's great to be able to put both of those together and be a part of building something great.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
Hmm. Guitar, PC hardware, video gaming, board gaming... Something geeky.
Cristina Foung
1) What is your role at Huddler?
I do everything from helping mods learn the ins and outs of the Huddler platform to networking with partner bloggers and manufacturers, from blogging about updates to the platform to setting up the product category taxonomies for each site (sounds boring but it's actually pretty fun...for me anyway).
2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
Pre-Huddler, I was in school at Brown University studying International Relations and Global Environment. I've been involved with a variety of organizations, including Breakthrough Collaborative, an environmental education preschool, the County of Santa Clara, a green architecture firm, to a community health non-profit.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
I'm a big fan of being outdoors, photography, biking in Golden Gate Park, and hanging out in my favorite coffee shop (complete with all fair-trade deliciousness and San Francisco hippies, of course). A few things on my to-do list are getting back into Latin dance, going to see more live music, and expanding my cooking repertoire.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
It's exciting to work on something where what I do really matters - of course, sometimes it's a little terrifying too. But I wouldn't trade it in a million years for being a cog in the wheel of a large company. That...and maybe having the Huddler boys make fun of me.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
I'd be really excited about anything photography or cooking related...two things I wish I did more of.
Peter Galletta
1) What is your role at Huddler?
I have the honor of conceptualizing and designing the overall user interface, various themes and other graphical elements associated with Huddler.com and our community of sites. I also get the opportunity to handle some of the front-end programming duties and information architecture.2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
Life before Huddler was spent as the Interactive Director of a small, but successful design and development firm in Washington, DC.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
When not consumed with shades of white or the particular alignment of pixels, I've been living the American dream. I try to spend as much time as possible with my wife, kids and dog, in that order of course.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
Creative freedom? Ability to truly contribute? Being part of something with some actual technical merit (vs hamster dance). Too many to list.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
Hmm...another excellent question. I think the most self-serving response would be a DIY (Do It Yourself) community with the focus being on residential home improvement and repair. Like so many other topics, there is a wealth of information on the world wide web, but it is scattered about and fractured to the point Bob Villa couldn't fix it. I believe could help create an excellent community for DIY weekend warriors and seasoned professionals to share tips, techniques and ideas.
Dan Gill
1) What is your role at Huddler?
I'm one of the two founders of the company and am the CEO. I basically just try to do whatever I can to help grow the company from working with investors, to brainstorming features with the team, to buying and cleaning used furniture on Craigslist. It's glamorous.
2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
I had a very interesting, but nebulous role in operations at a startup...we grew from 10 to 65 employees when I was there and it was an amazing education. Before that, I was a gymnast at Stanford University and competed for the United States National team.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
I'm trying to rekindle a lot of old passions...mountain biking, rock climbing, excessive eating...stuff like that. I also compulsively check email and the status of the communities.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
Building something from nothing. It was not long ago at all that it was just Ted and I driving across the country together with a few paragraphs of a plan. We have a long way to go, but I'm very proud of the progress we've made.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
I think photography could be really great. I also want to see us expand EcoHuddle out to include Green Building, Green Travel, Green Parenting, and more...who knows?
Ted Gill
1) What is your role at Huddler?
I am the other founder of the company and the CTO. Typically, I handle most of the front-end engineering for the site.
2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
I worked for two other startup software companies and founded a small services firm in the DC area before moving out to the Bay Area to start Huddler.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
Usually I go straight home and get in front of the computer...it's pathetic really. Also, I'm a total car nut and I can't seem to kick my video game habit. The two weekends a year I involve myself with physical activity, it's usually on skis.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
I've wanted a web app with this functionality for far too long and we're finally building it.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
Probably the Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos action figure community...who's with me?....Bueller?....
Briana Lenz
1) What is your role at Huddler?
I'm the Operations Specialist, which means I'll be taking care of all
the details involved in maintaining a growing office of super busy
Huddlers. I'm here to make sure they can work efficiently and to bring
the fun whenever possible!2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
Since graduating from UC Santa Cruz, I've worked for a few other start-ups in SF. I handled purchasing for Al Gore's Current TV and coordinated logistics for RooftopComedy.com's marketing events. And immediately prior to starting at Huddler, I spent about six months being unemployed, which was actually kind of amazing - until about month five.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
I'm usually found at a dive bar with friends, posted up with a blanket and some tunes on the panhandle, in my kitchen cooking up some fresh bread or some crazy recipe I found online, or visiting my family in LA or the East Bay.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
So far, it's the amazingly cool vibe in the office and the fact that I get to help build a company from the very early stages. So often you start a position and instantly have a dozen systems and procedures to figure out - and more often than not you realize that they don't make any sense at all. So that's pretty awesome, because I don't miss filling out overly complicated expense reports at all.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
I'm excited about all of them, but in terms of new additions? I'd have four thumbs up for anything related to cooking, baking, beer, wine or whiskey drinking, music, SF art and literature, or tech gadgets. Oh, and hoodies. Because there are a surprising number of amazing hoodie-related websites out there.
Benjamin Keyser1) What is your role at Huddler?
Director of Partner Services, so here at Huddler.com that means I do partner relationship management and product management.
2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
I was most recently a Product Manager at a startup doing social media products for the web and the iPhone.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
I zoom around on my scooter.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
The Huddler platform is cool, and the communities that use the Huddler platform are awesome, so it makes the job a lot of fun.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
I'm a food, wine, and cocktail geek...so...when's the wild boar jerky and gin cocktail forum coming on board??
Adam Farren
1) What is your role at Huddler?
I'm working on monetization and building the revenue models for our sites.
2) What did you do before joining Huddler?
I was just a few blocks away at the startup Wikinvest.com, where I built and managed revenue operations from the ground up - pretty similar to what I'll be doing with each Huddler site.
3) What do you do when you leave the office?
I walk home to my apartment on Bush and Octavia St. where I watch my 40" HD Samsung and Blu-ray discs on my PS3. In the winter I love to ski in Tahoe and Salt Lake City - particularly at Squaw Valley and Alta. Oh you mean besides stuff that's relevant to Huddler's forums? Well I like to play ultimate frisbee and basketball, read historical novels, and travel - I'm from the East Coast so since I've moved to SF its been fun exploring the great American west.
4) What is your favorite thing about working at Huddler?
How each site we work with has a unique, passionate community centered around a given topic - its an interesting problem to solve, discovering the interests of the users on each site and coming up with strategies for connect with brands and businesses who want to reach this audience.
5) What kind of communities are you most excited about working with?
I'd love to work with a finance-focused community, since I'm pretty familiar with that topic; music or guitar sounds fun; also other outdoors interest and sports communities would be pretty cool!