James D. Price
Founding Partner
|
Jim Price is a serial entrepreneur and business educator
with over two decades of broad-ranging business management and technology
startup experience. In 2000, following a string of entrepreneurial
adventures that included a successful company sale, an IPO, and
multiple angel investments, he founded CompanyCrafters with the
vision of applying his “useful scar tissue” to help
others launch and grow successful businesses.
As an entrepreneur, Jim has served as a principle founder
and either CEO or Chairman of the following tech startups:
Transom Technologies Inc. (a simulation
software company founded in 1996, sold to Engineering Animation,
now UGS, in 1998); MAXfunds.com Inc.
(an online financial services venture founded
in 1999); and Cielo MedSolutions LLC
(a healthcare IT firm founded in
2005). From 1988 to 1996, as VP of marketing with Mechanical
Dynamics, Inc., Jim was a member of the management team that
guided the engineering software vendor from $3 million to
$25 million in annual revenue and through a successful IPO
in 1996. Prior to that, he worked for several years in the
Boston/128 area serving in senior business development and
marketing management positions for Fortune 500 technology
companies. At the outset of his career, Jim spent five years
in management consulting.
Jim currently serves on the boards of Cielo MedSolutions,
Soar Technology (www.soartech.com), and the Zell-Lurie Institute
for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan's
Ross School of Business. He also teaches
entrepreneurial studies as an adjunct lecturer at UM's Ross
School. He is a frequent public speaker and has authored numerous
papers and articles on various entrepreneurship and business
management topics. Jim holds a BA degree in government, environmental
sciences and jazz from Oberlin College, and an MBA degree
from Stanford University.
|
Mike Klein
Managing Partner
|
Mike Klein is a highly accomplished, passionate and energetic
executive with a unique blend of vision, motivation and execution
skills. In 2005, he joined CompanyCrafters to develop a new focus
area helping mature organizations think and operate more entrepreneurially.
By leveraging a venture mind set developed through years of starting
and leading successful technology businesses, Mike advises established
businesses that are looking to “get entrepreneurial”
in their approach to evaluating and exploiting new business opportunities.
Mike has over twenty years of business leadership, technology,
and startup experience. He founded Steeplechase Software,
Inc. in 1993 and lead the company as CEO and Chairman
to quickly became the undisputed market leader in PC-based factory
automation, joining the list of Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies.
While at Steeplechase’s helm, Mike raised over $10 million
in private investment capital, built a base of dozens of Fortune
500 customers. After successfully selling the company in 2000 to
Schneider Automation, Mike was asked to lead the turnaround of Interlink
Networks, Inc. a leading RADIUS server software security firm, by the company’s
board of Directors. As CEO of Interlink, he quickly stemmed the
losses, hired a new management team, raised additional financing,
and successfully repositioned the company expanding its Fortune
500 customer base. In 2005, Mike lead the management buy-out of
the company from the investors and remains the CEO and majority
owner of the company.
Mike spent the first decade of his career in sales, strategic marketing,
product development and management roles at Motorola Semiconductor
and Rockwell International. An engineer by training and an innovator
at heart, he has over a half dozen patents to his name with several
more pending. Mike is also an accomplished speaker who captivates
his audiences with his passion and informative speaking style and
receives consistent acclaim for his speaking engagements. He has
made hundreds of public presentations on topics ranging from entrepreneurship
to sales, marketing, business planning and technology. Mike holds
a BS in Computer Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology
and a MS in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University.
|
