Sharpend

I work with startup founders to develop self-awareness, improve emotional intelligence (EQ), learn communication/leadership skills and scale with their business.

Prior to coaching I spent 7 years as founder and head of marketing at Looksharp, and then worked as a marketing executive and advisor to a number of leading San Francisco startups. 

Learn more at https://www.sharpend.co/

Executive Coach

500 Startups

Mentor

Parallel18

Various Companies

Advise, consult, and do marketing work for various venture backed startups.  

Specialties include:
-SEO
-Content Strategy
-Content Development
-Marketing Ops (automation through sale)
-Lead Generation 
-Business Development
-Data and Analytics
-Email Marketing
-PR and Marketing Communications
-Brand Strategy & Creative

Software Expertise includes:
-Google Analytics
-SQL
-Marketo
-Salesforce
-ExactTarget
-Mailchimp
-Optimizely
-SproutSocial
-Trello
-more

Marketer in Residence

Carta

Helped Carta through a critical rebrand, new marketing team hires and growth of demand gen channels that resulted in a 40% lift of net new MQLs.

Demand Generation:
-Managed Carta's inbound marketing efforts including webinars, white papers, and product marketing content. Webinars alone accounted for a 20% increase in monthly marketing generated revenues.
-Collaborated with Carta engineering team to implement site-wide SEO changes that resulted in numerous keywords moving from 50+ rankings into top 3 results and a 70%+ increase in organic traffic.
-Developed and launched Carta's first-ever event marketing series including two large-scale half-day events in New York and San Francisco. Each event was cash-flow positive and resulted in hundreds of net new leads, increased brand exposure and powerful online content.
-Worked closely with Carta's outbound email team to nurture new leads from lead generation through the sales pipeline.

Rebrand:
-Helped develop new brand messaging map, including key messages for press, current customers, internal stakeholders and more.
-Worked with engineering team to develop strategy for domain cutover and technical rebrand implementation.
-Collaborated with marketing, engineering, and design team to help redesign and rewrite content for every webpage on the Carta website and reposition product pages with new brand in mind.

Team:
-Hired and grew marketing team from 1 to 6 people. Led charge in interviewing, hiring and training new marketing hires.
-Used Asana to manage team goals and sync day-to-day work with broader business strategy.
-Developed marketing dashboards and pulled key marketing metrics using SQL, Google Analytics, Looker, and other tools.
-Presented marketing metrics at monthly KPI and leadership team meetings.

Digital Marketing

Looksharp

Founded Looksharp and led the marketing team from idea stage through Series A and beyond. Used an "Iterative Marketing" approach (running rapid fire tests and using data to track and scale campaigns) to drive user and revenue growth.

Overall:
-Grew student audience from 0 to over 10 million uniques annually through SEO, business development, content, press and more.
-Generated over 100,000 inbound B2B leads to support successful sales operation.
-Built reports using SQL and Google Analytics to measure campaigns and drive business strategy.

SEO:
-Worked with engineering and design team to optimize website and gain #1 ranking for over 90% of top keywords in the internship space.
-Developed content strategy and managed team of fifty plus writers to support SEO goals. 
-Used Optimizely to improve conversion rate on SEO landing page by over 50%. 

Content:
-Developed long term content strategy using personas, competitive positioning, and SWAT analysis.
-Managed editorial team of 50+ bloggers to create compelling daily content.
-Invented new recurring B2B content including 'Annual Internship Report' to monthly "College Hiring Webinars" and more that drove thousands of net new leads.

Data​:
-Queried SQL database to develop monthly cohort graphs used to analyze business KPIs.
-Queried Salesforce and Marketo to pull reports and graphs and analyze marketing / sales operation.

Branding and PR
-Developed relationships with top industry journalists and received press mentions in publications including: the WSJ, TechCrunch, WashingtonPost, Mashable and more.
-Managed brand transition from established brand to a parent brand including a number of technically challenging changes.

Founder

Founder -> CMO -> Exec Coach

I coach founders and co-founders from Series B - D. I specialize in co-founder dynamics--helping co-founders build more effective and fulfilling partnerships. 

I believe in a world where leaders have done the work to know themselves, in order to build lasting businesses and a more interesting future.

Nathan Parcells

Acolyte Health

Re-inventing the learning and engagement experience

Chief Product and Technology Officer

Gradient Cyber

Advisor - AI Strategy

Head of Product and Technology

Sidebar

Sidebar is a private, highly vetted leadership program that accelerates your career. We have the people, the process, and the technology to drive your impact and growth.

Learning Member

Connect America

Advisor - AI Strategy and Innovation

VP, Product Management 

VaultData

Advisory Board Member

VitalTech®

Co-Founded VitalTech and led product and technology teams to deliver industry-leading virtual care platforms. Scaled the teams, product and architecture to directly impact numerous lives before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic while helping health care organizations adopt a virtual care strategy.

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Brightlife Services

Director of Product Management

AllSpark Technologies

Developed and licensed lab-on-a chip systems for biomedical system simulation and analysis. 
Areas of Application: Molecular Diagnostics, Neurophysiology, Pre-symptomatic diagnosis

Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Ansh Labs

Led the design and development of remote point of care devices for at home monitoring of bio analytes

Senior Research Development Scientist

University of Texas at Dallas

Specialization: Point-of-care monitoring, Flexible electronics, ML methods for wearable biosensors

Adjunct Professor

Co-Lead research team towards development of next generation flexible biosensors for noninvasive detection of biomarkers from direct body fluids

Research Scientist II

Doctoral dissertation work on "Design and Prototyping of a label-free impedance spectroscopy system for clinical diagnostics"

Graduate Research Assistant

I’m a technology leader and product strategist with a passion for developing innovative solutions that drive business growth and operational efficiency. With a background spanning multiple industries, I excel at leading teams to build scalable, resilient products that solve complex problems.

As a CPTO, I focus on bridging the gap between vision and execution, working with teams to develop not only great technology but also the processes and frameworks that ensure success. Whether it’s architecting robust systems, fostering agile development practices, or leveraging emerging technologies like AI, my approach is centered on delivering high-quality products that meet both user and business needs.

I have led initiatives across diverse areas, from designing AI-powered tools that enhance user experiences to overseeing infrastructure projects that streamline operations. My leadership style emphasizes collaboration, continuous learning, and aligning technical capabilities with business objectives, ensuring that teams are set up for long-term success.

Key areas of focus:

       •	Innovation in AI and emerging technologies
	•	Product strategy and Technology leadership
	•	Process improvement and operational scaling
	

Outside of work, I’m passionate about woodworking and spending time with my family. I’m always excited to connect with professionals who are driven to create impactful solutions through technology.

taplio

The Battle

Nathan Parcells

Anjan Panneer Selvam

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