Chris Maresca

Helping companies make money since 2001. Clients range from startups to F500 companies.

Advised venture clients on potential partners, technology focus and ecosystem development.

Helped create an industry-wide paradigm shift, one company at a time. Built 7 of top 10 open-source centric business models, helped move core systems in dozens of G1000 companies to open source and brought a better understanding of the power of open source to mainstream business. I envisioned Olliance as a strategy consultancy helping move open source from the fringes to the mainstream.

MusicFans was a venture-backed startup which owned the top 300 music fan sites. In aggregate, MusicFans was one of the top 10 web destinations at the time. I was responsible for designing and building a highly scalable Linux-based web platform to support the large traffic generated. This platform eventually became the basis for Voxel.net's Rails infrastructure offering. MusicFans closed before reaching profitability, largely because the .com crash left it unable to raise needed funds.

Organic Online was one of the pioneers in the webspace. The company was started to specifically service HotBot clients needing web banner ads, and, at one point, controlled about 60% of the web ad market. The company grew from 300 to 1700 and IPO'd in early 2000 for over $100 million. I was recruited as a lead project manager to help re-engineer the development process and position it for high-growth in the pre-IPO period. I also worked on high profile sites such as Starbucks, HP and AutoZone.

Ellsworth was an early pioneer in introducing web-based systems to the US Government. In the mid-'90s, Ellsworth built web-based portals for large Federal Government agencies such as Dept. of Health & Human Services, US Customs and the Dept. of Education. Ellsworth was also responsible for setting up the first department wide email system for the Dept. of Commerce. I was a lead developer responsible for the first DHHS intranet, inventory control systems for the NIH and the first e-commerce systems.

Kingsbury was an import-export company originally setup to take advantage of the fall of iron curtain. It specialized in exporting Western consumer products to the former Soviet states. Kingsbury was the first company I started and was an enormous learning experience. As managing director starting with two others, we eventually built the company up to a fairly decent size before large commercial operators entered the market.