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Dan Shapiro, Founder & CEO
Ontela, Inc.
www.ontela.com
The Background
When Dan Shapiro was graduating from Harvey Mudd College with a degree in Engineering, he remarked to a friend, “If I ever go work for a software company, do me a favor, shoot me. Put me out of my misery.” Two months later he moved to Seattle to work at Microsoft. While there, he ran a broad swath of projects ranging from the recesses of the Win32 driver model to the familiar Windows XP user interface. He also met colleagues with great passion in other divisions – Expedia, Office – that would form the core of an all-star team a decade later.
With Windows XP behind him and an “18 month project” called Longhorn ahead, Dan stepped out of the product team and tried something different. He prepared a report analyzing Linux as a competitive threat to Windows for Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. The report was well received and Dan left to go work for a company building a Linux-based cell phone.
Wildseed was a pioneering company on many fronts. “Identity,” the first commercially available phone to run Linux, didn’t look like a Linux phone – or much of any phone for that matter. It was curved like a banana, had keys on the top and a screen on the bottom, and taco-shaped faceplates that snapped on and off, bringing digital content along via an embedded smartchip. Dan had responsibility for the software stack, from kernel drivers to video games. The phone was a hit with teens and critics, but the company was snapped up by AOL before it hit mass production.
Dan then spent a year at Real, running the RealArcade software product. The software storefront sold casual games like Bejeweled and Solitaire in record numbers – 70% to the heretofore-unrealized market of 35-65 year old women. Even as he lead the team through a major release cycle, late night brainstorming sessions with an old friend Charles Zapata launched him down the path to found a new company. It was literally in his garage, in the middle of a woodworking project, covered in sawdust, when the flash of inspiration came that would turn in to Ontela.
Why We Invested
Where do all those pictures people take with the cameras on their cell phones go? A recent survey shows that while people are increasingly selecting camera phone handsets, they are frustrated by how hard it is to access the pictures and put them to use. The study also shows that 98 percent of all photos snapped with camera phones never leave the handset. Forty percent of mobile phone owners would consider changing wireless service providers in order to get a seamless photo sharing experience. Respondents overwhelmingly said that they would expect to pay for the service, leaving the door open for carrier-based photo sharing services that deliver images to users’ PCs and popular photo sharing web sites such as Windows Live Spaces, Facebook, Snapfish, Flickr and others.
Why It's Working
Ontela provides technology to wireless carriers and image service providers that allow their customers to unlock the photos in their phones. For the first time ever, mobile phone users have a way to save all their pictures to their PC, email accounts and favorite imaging sites without a single extra click. The company’s patent-pending technologies install in under 60 seconds and move images automatically and securely from camera phones to their destinations of choice. Ontela’s solution supports the leading wireless handsets and platforms.
The company launched their service commercially with their intial carrier, Cellular South, in late 2007. Cellular South is the nation’s largest privately held wireless provider. Additional carriers have been signed and will begin launching in early 2008.
Dan has maniacally assembled a team that beyond talented, is truly passionate about what they do. Passion to deliver can make all the difference.
