Scott Porad

I recently introduced myself to a local tech leader via e-mail, and asked for a meeting.  In part, his response asked:

Tell me about yourself – what are you working on, what interests you, what are you looking to do with your career, how do you think a meeting would help you achieve whatever goals you’ve outlined for yourself?

My reply is below (exactly as I sent it, with a few minor edits):

About myself

Born and raised in Seattle, degree in business (but my career has been a developer and product manager), moved to NYC for a bit in the mid-90’s, moved back, got married, had two kids, now ages 4 and 7, love music and hopelessly addicted to golf.

What am I working on

Currently the CTO at Pet Holdings which is the company behind I Can Has Cheezburger? and Failblog…a lot of focus on really lean starting-up, user-generated content and user-engagement. Previously was part of the launch team at drugstore.com, and before that at Paul Allen’s Starwave, Scott Murphy’s Small World Software, and Seth Godin’s Yoyodyne Entertainment.

What interests me

I like the startup…starting from scratch. Also, I didn’t plan this, but a lot of what I’ve worked on has involved creating tools so that non-technical people can create things online. I come from the school of “simplest thing that could possibly work” and “a lazy solution is a good solution”…I suppose both of those phrases my need some unpacking, so don’t judge them prematurely.

What am I looking to do with my career

I don’t know where my career will lead me next…leaving drugstore.com and going to Cheezburger wasn’t deliberate, but has worked out very nicely because I really enjoy working with content.  I enjoy startups, but I’ve always done it on the product side of things…I’ve been thinking for sometime that I would like to work on the revenue side of the business.  I have indirect experience with it because startups are small, but that’s never been my role, per se.

In addition, and this is a bit different, I have a secret passion to be an interviewer like Charlie Rose or David Letterman. Generally speaking, I’m a curious person, and I think most people have an interesting story to tell, so I really enjoy hearing them. I enjoy studying interviewers to learn how they a conduct good interview, and studying the editing and production. For the last six months or so, I’ve been investigating doing an interview show and publishing it online–technically, it isn’t a challenge, and I feel like I have access to plenty of interesting subjects.  But, doing it as a side-project, I don’t feel like I have the time to produce the quality that I would feel good about, or to promote it effectively, so I haven’t done it yet.

How would a meeting help me achieve my goals

My goal (one of them) is to broaden my network and tell my story because when someone has a problem or opportunity, perhaps I can be the solution. It turns out that in my career I’ve been “that guy” who helps an entrepreneur turn a vision into reality.  Notwithstanding what I said about the revenue side and interviewing, that’s what I bring to the table…I’ve always been the guy who is the operator.  So, from my point of view, I value meeting people because you never know when someone is going to need someone like me.

So, that’s me, but what about  you?  I am always interested in connecting with people, so click here to get in touch.