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Peter Sisson
CoFounder, CEO – Yaza
Peter is the founder of Yaza, a new type of messenger that uses maps and AI to make your videos easier to find and share.
Peter’s audience on social media is greater than 100,000 and he is happy to promote the episode to his fans!
read more
Peter is an accomplished LGBTQ entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.
This is a story about the life as it happens.
I am a product-focused entrepreneur who has started four companies, all of which were acquired. I closed the first round of funding for my fifth startup, Yaza, in September 2018.
My expertise covers all aspects of designing, building, launching, growing and monetizing great products, designing and scaling organizations to support those products, and making them profitable.
I volunteer my time mentoring startup founders at the European Innovation Academy and StartOut Growth Lab, where as of summer 2019 we've graduated 24 companies that together have closed more than $43M in funding and created more than 170 new jobs.
I studied computer science at Cornell, have a masters degree in CSAI (Computer Science Artificial Intelligence) from Stanford, and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Outside of work, I am a passionate world traveler. I've flown more than 4 million miles and visited over 30 countries. My terrestrial adventures have taken me from 150 feet below sea level in Palau to 18,000 feet above in the Nepal Himalaya.
I believe that entrepreneurship provides a path to economic self-empowerment that doesn't require people to "fit in" with the traditional corporate grind. It offers a path to success and fulfillment for dreamers, big thinkers, innovators and creative people who want to have an impact on the world.
BOOK NOW FOR your podcast
Peter Sisson
CO-FOUNDER & CEO – YAZA.IO
Peter is the founder of Yaza,
A new type of messenger that uses maps and AI to make your videos easier to find and share.
Peter’s audience on social media is greater than 100,000 and he is happy to promote the episode to his fans!
read more
Peter is an accomplished LGBTQ entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.
This is a story about the life as it happens.
Peter is the founder of Yaza, the world's first app for secure, authenticated videos on maps.
Peter's audience on social media is greater than 100,000 and he is happy to promote the episode to his fans!
I am a product-focused entrepreneur who has started four companies, all of which were acquired. I closed the first round of funding for my fifth startup, Yaza, in September 2018.
My expertise covers all aspects of designing, building, launching, growing and monetizing great products, designing and scaling organizations to support those products, and making them profitable.
I volunteer my time mentoring startup founders at the European Innovation Academy and StartOut Growth Lab, where as of summer 2019 we've graduated 24 companies that together have closed more than $43M in funding and created more than 170 new jobs.
I studied computer science at Cornell, have a masters degree in CSAI (Computer Science Artificial Intelligence) from Stanford, and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Outside of work, I am a passionate world traveler. I've flown more than 4 million miles and visited over 30 countries. My terrestrial adventures have taken me from 150 feet below sea level in Palau to 18,000 feet above in the Nepal Himalaya.
I believe that entrepreneurship provides a path to economic self-empowerment that doesn't require people to "fit in" with the traditional corporate grind. It offers a path to success and fulfillment for dreamers, big thinkers, innovators and creative people who want to have an impact on the world.
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Timeline
April 2001
🍷 WineShopper – Founder
- The company was acquired by Wine.com in 2000.
- Raised $46 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins and Amazon.
June 2004
📝 Mixonic – Founder & CEO
- On demand media creation and distribution company targeting entertainment and general corporate customers.
- The company was acquired by AtoZ Media in 2017.
- Negotiated key partnerships with Sony Pictures Television, WeddingChannel, and Disc Makers.
July 2005
👆Teleo – Founder & CEO
- Teleo was the first company to offer click-to-call by integrating softphone functionality into browsers, email clients, and search results.
- The company was acquired by Microsoft in 2005
May 2012
📱Line2 – Founder & CEO
- Line2 became the first company to get a full-service phone app approved by Apple, and the first to offer a 100% smartphone-based business phone system.
- The Line2 app still ranks among the top grossing productivity apps on iTunes.
June 2017
🧪 StartOut Growth Lab – Entrepreneur in Residence
- Built Growth Lab from scratch into a successful accelerator with support from StartOut and Nixon Peabody.
- During my tenure, 24 graduating companies across 4 cohorts have collectively raised more than $45M in funding and created more than 200 new jobs.
August 2018 - present
🚀 Yaza – CEO & Co-Founder
- Yaza.io is an app for sharing videos about places. No filters, no uploads… just life as it happens.
- $150K raised to date
Podcast Preview
Ask me
You and many others say that the internet is broken. What do you mean by that? |
Five things every tech founder should know (covers curiosity, failure, trust, timing, and persistence). |
You claim that everything on yaza is guaranteed authentic and happened when and where shown. With deepfake videos proliferating, that seems impossible. How do you back that up? |
What happened with AR and mixed reality? After Pokemon Go there was a surge of investor interest, but nothing big has broken through since. What is going on? |
"Artificial Intelligence is going more mainstream. There have been a slew of good SciFi movies about it in the last few years. Elon Musk says it will be the end of us. Every startup seems to be claiming some kind of AI component to their product. Help us cut through the hype and the BS to get to the bottom of what AI really is and what startups are using it for. |
What is the most important predictor of a startups success? (the relative importance of the Idea, Team, Business Model, Funding, and Timing) |
How do investors in Silicon Valley react to failure? Do they really value it as much as they claim? Talk about your failures and their impact on your career. |
You started your first company more than 20 years ago, in your early 30s. You are starting yaza in your 50s. Has being an older founder changed anything? |
- Growth modeling
- Cohort analysis
- Retention curves
- Churn
- Product design
- Iteration
- MVP
- Product market fit
- App business models
- Types of funding
- Finding the right investor
- Growth vs valuation
- Leadership
- Tech
- Entrepreneurship tools
- SaaS
- Stages of funding
- Types of funding
- Finding the right investor
- Growth vs valuation
- Recruiting
- Retaining people
- Hire vs contract
- Hiring remote