I am an entrepreneur stuck in a technologist's body with a passion for advancing and accelerating startups.
Build dynamic websites that are fast, easy to use, scalable, and serve their business purpose.
Identify opportunities in lead generation, search engine marketing, social media, and sustainability.
Invest in and advise early stage startups with a focus on initial idea analysis and achieving profitability.
Caution Media is a web marketing and technology company that focuses on online lead generation, web directories, SEO/SEM, and local advertising.
Founded ComputerTrainingSchools.com, a pioneer in online .edu lead generation. Built the website technology, hired a sales team of three, developed SEO/SEM/affiliate marketing campaigns, and oversaw day to day operations of the business. Grew the business to annual revenue of $3M before successful sale to Quinstreet.
Founded Sustainability Schools, an online resource to help prospective students find educational programs with a focus on sustainability. Built website and created SEO campaigns.
Conceived, implemented, and maintained brand based search engine marketing campaigns for a leading technical school that realized savings of 70% while Caution Media profits doubled. Currently offering performance based search and social media marketing consulting.
Developed initial proof of concept website, AllNursingSchools.com, for All Star Directories in less than one month. Developed technology for NaturalHealers.com that facilitated the implementation of a new pricing structure that increased annual revenue from $750k to $3.5M over two years.
Invest in and advise startups including Cooler Planet, Stik, Hello Hanna, Carpool to School, DatStat, and Owl Marketing. Continually seeking strong teams with products focused on sustainability, social media, and/or interesting data analysis.
Veskritec is a lead generation directory website incubator that assisted in the creation of four lead generation businesses (Elder Living Source, Beauty Schools Directory, Manufactured Home Source, and All Property Management). Identified and recruited business founders, provided a website technology platform and business development consulting, and assisted with the sale of three of the four websites.
Member of initial team that built a content-focused website to "help small businesses grow and prosper online." Hired technology team of seven and acted as the liaison between the technology team and the editorial and business development teams. Built a highly scalable content management system to host website, control editorial workflow, support content syndication, and facilitate ad revenue schemas.
Original employee hired to develop and maintain website for children's computer game company. Built interactive and social features as well as online store. Developed online presence for Cavedog Entertainment, a new game studio started by Humongous. Recruited by Humongous' parent company to build a company-wide ecommerce system. Assisted in the recruiting and hiring of ten additional employees for the web and ecommerce teams.
Rick Winfield — rick@rickwinfield.com