CEO 2.0 and some funding news

Dan Farber blogs on how I've officially stepped down from the CEO role at Socialtext.  Eugene Lee joins us as CEO 2.0 and we announced our $9.5M Series C.  From founding a collaboration company that he sold to Banyan, to being an executive there and at Cisco, and most recently at Adobe, he can certainly take us to the next level.

I've actually worked with Eugene for about a month now, and we waited until the technical close of the round to go public.  Its been an absolute delight and I'm learning a lot.  We had the whole company fly in for a face to face meeting and the energy is amazing.  Now comes the challenge.  Socialtext is in a fantastic position in the market that is ours to execute.  And I'm confident that Eugene is the guy to take us there.

One thing that is of interest is how we met Eugene through the strength of weak ties.  I blogged it and he saw the post via TechCrunch.  I also posted it on LinkedIn and sent it to my contacts.  One of them was a mutual acquaintance and when they happened to have breakfast the next week.  We had 250 applicants that we narrowed down collaboratively through a wiki, of course.  Finding the right guy in two months this way is in stark contrast to paying an executive recruiter $100k to act as a PI for six months.

Today I'm in Denver for Defrag and look forward to introducing Eugene to some of you.

UPDATE: Eugene introduces himself and his passions

See Also: TechCrunch, eWeek, VentureBeat, Vendorprisey, The Open Road
 

Comments

[Nick Mehta]

Congrats Ross and team! As a former customer of SocialText, I'm a big fan and wish you and Eugene the best of luck.

[Glenn Gow]

Ross, I'm very happy for you and Eugene. I agree that you guys are in a fantastic position, and together, will execute to make it happen.

BTW, I thought you guys might enjoy this post Marketing To Business Decision Makers - The “Smile Curve”

[Seb]

And Eugene is a musician and a physicist, too, from what I can see. I think he'll rock!