I’m 26 years old. I dropped out of Princeton University in 2006 to start Zinch.com. I am ‘Top 40 Professionals Under 40′ by a major magazine in Utah; member of vSpring’s 2010 v100 class (Top 100 Venture Entrepreneurs). Crazy about technology, sports, design and start ups. All my nuggets of randomness can be found at dweebist.com.
Zinch.com
Zinch.com connects high school students with colleges and universities all over the world. We have over 2 million student users and over 800 colleges (more than 50 of the top 100). It’s a portal where interaction, communication and engagement take place. Zinch is an online community where both sides come together. Better transparency. Better information. Better choices on all ends. So far, results for colleges have been astounding and success stories for students have been many.
Zinch consumes most of my life right now. It’s growing and doing extremely well. We’ve won multiple awards, competitions and honors. Here are a few:
» Winner of 2008 Utah Innovation Award
» Top 10 Startups to Watch – Utah Valley Magazine
» “Most Valuable Company” at Keiretsu Angel Exp (Bay Area)
» Winner of 2007 Utah Entrepreneur Challenge
» Winner of 2007 Brigham Young University E-Business Competition
» Winner at Princeton Entrepreneurs Network Business Plan Competition
We’ve been featured everywhere. New York Times, Boston Globe, NBC Today Show, Fox News, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Yale Daily News, Washington Examiner, Education Week, Salt Lake Tribune, Palo Alto Daily News, etc….
Me and Zinch
As a result of Zinch, i’ve been featured all over the place. I’ve spoken at events, been quoted plenty of times in radio & tv interviews, magazine & newspaper articles, and podcast & blog posts. I’m recognized as a thought-leader in education and an expert on how social media has made(and continues to make) an impact on Academia. Zinch is completely revolutionizing recruitment, marketing and outreach in college admissions offices all over America. And for the first time in history, students can be seen for what they really are — not numbers, but people.
As for the roles I play, I wear a lot of hats (as do many people there). I work mainly with product development and working with our engineers. I do a lot with overall company strategy, vision and direction. I do all the front-end design. I spend time on business development and partnership deals. I spend time on a lot of the creative brainstorming with user experience, tools and features.
My Passions
I love technology and the internet. I love business and entrepreneurship. I love design and innovation. I love my wife and Pixi (our dog). I love the church I belong to. I love my family. I love sports (to play and watch). I love to travel, explore and experience new things. I love to dance. I love Zinch. I love my friends. I love Princeton. I love Brazil. I love America. I love life. :)
See my design passion in action. I blog at Dweebist.com and sometimes at my wife’s design blog: Elegance Redefined.
High School
I know no one cares what I did in high school but I don’t have anything else in my background/experience because it’s really just been Princeton and Zinch since high school (besides a 2 year mission to Brazil). So here are a few achievements I had in high school…
I won the Utah State Sterling Scholar Award in Computer Science (awarded to only one individual in the state) and also the Overall Award (given to only one of the state category winners). I captained the varsity basketball and chess teams (all-state in both); soccer team (all-state); editor-in-chief of my school newspaper; President/Founder of the Computer Club; VP of NHS; Governor’s Youth Council; Halloween Costume Champion. :)
Me and Rachel.
I spent two years in Brazil on a volunteer two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was an amazing two years. I love the people and I love the country.
I like to dance. A few videos the wife and I did.
(This Jai Ho video has more than 1.5 Million views)
