Howard Lerman

Howard Lerman
Born February 27, 1980
Residence New York, New York
Education Duke University, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
Occupation Entrepreneur
Known for Co-Founder and CEO of Yext, Co-Founder and Chairman of Confide
Website www.yext.com

Howard Lerman (born February 27, 1980) is an entrepreneur and innovator, specializing in developing unique technology-based solutions for businesses. Presently, Lerman is the CEO of Yext, a technology startup and geomarketing company he co-founded that provides businesses with a way to update business information, including addresses and phone numbers, to multiple channels, such as landing pages, listings, and social pages, from a single source, the Yext GeoMarketing Cloud.[1][2] Lerman also launched Confide, an iOS app which allows professionals to send one another messages that are untraceable, operating similar to Snapchat, but for the business world.[3][4][5] Lerman's three previous ventures were all successful exits.[6]

Early life

Lerman grew up in Vienna, Virginia and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a magnet school with various amenities such as a $1 million supercomputer, located in Fairfax County, in 1998.[7] In the days before the Internet, Lerman rigged a phone line to his computer to allow him to chat online with others who had done the same, including fellow hacker and future entrepreneur, Sean Parker.[7]

In 2002, Lerman graduated from Duke University, where he studied history.[8]

Career

JustATip.com

In 2000, his sophomore year at Duke, Lerman and two former high school classmates, Tom Dixon and Sean Maclsaac (Yext’s current Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer respectively) launched JustATip.com, a humorous website that allowed users to e-mail friends “tips” anonymously. Jon Stewart used the site on The Daily Show, resulting in a large increase in website traffic. In 2001, Lerman and his partners sold JustATip.com to Traffix, a publicly traded online marketer, for $150,000.[7]

Intwine

Lerman, Dixon, and Maclsaac next founded Intwine, a consulting firm with a specialization in Microsoft’s .NET programming language. In 2005, after growing the company and reaching $5 million in sales, Lerman sold Intwine to Daltran Media for $7 million.[7]

GymTicket.com

After seeing a salesman trying to attract new customers to a gym with a “Wheel of Savings”, Lerman came up with the idea for GymTicket.com, a lead generation service that directed people to gyms in their area. Within a year, GymTicket.com had over 3,000 gyms across the country signed up.[7]

Lerman and his team expanded their business to include nine additional categories, including LocalVets.com and TVRepairman.com. As the group considered itself to be the "next Yellow Pages", they condensed this designation to create the company name, "Yext".[7]

Yext

Yext's early technology model focused on the lead-generation service, which recorded customer phone calls and then charged clients based on keywords used in conversations. However, while working with clients to strategize on further developing their online presence, Lerman and his colleagues recognized a consistent challenge: companies had trouble keeping tabs on all of their different online listings, and usually only noticed a problem existed when a customer complained about outdated addresses or business hours. Lerman realized that people would pay to get all of their online information updated for them, and he created a small company within Yext to focus on updating business listings. They developed cloud software known as "Powerlistings", which was launched in January 2011 and it was an immediate hit.[2][7]

Lerman decided to focus on this business listing model, and spun out the pay-per-call business as a separate company called Felix. He then sold Felix to IAC’s CityGrid Media for $30 million in April 2012. All proceeds from the sale were reinvested to fund Yext's new Powerlistings product.[1] Yext's GeoMarketing cloud now offers a suite of products, expanding the company's services beyond simply business listings.[2]

Lerman currently serves as Yext's CEO. Since the company’s founding, he has secured $66 million in venture funding. Forbes magazine featured Yext as one of America’s Top 25 Most Promising Companies of 2014.[9]

Confide

Lerman is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Confide with former AOL executive Jon Brod.[3] The Confide app, which provides corporate users with the means to deliver untraceable messages, was released on January 8, 2014.[10]

Personal life

Lerman currently lives in New York City with his wife, Wendy and daughter, Lux.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 The Yext Big Thing, Crain's New York Business. March 27, 2013. Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Yext Cloud
  3. 1 2 Confide Creators Hope to Eliminate Permanent Digital Record, Fox Business. January 9, 2014. Retrieved April 9, 2014.
  4. ↑ The App That Could've Prevented Chris Christie's Traffic Scandal, "CNN Money". January 8, 2014. Retrieved April 15, 2014.
  5. ↑ There's A New App That Lets People Send Self Destructing Messages. It Wants To Be Snapchat For Professionals, Business Insider. January 8, 2014. Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  6. ↑ CrunchBase People, Howard Lerman CrunchBase Profile. Retrieved March 19, 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Yext's Winding Seven-Year Journey Began With Al Sharpton... In Spandex, Forbes. December 16, 2013. Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  8. ↑ O'Reilly Where Conference, Howard Lerman speaker bio
  9. ↑ America's Most Promising Companies: The Top 25 Of 2014, Forbes. January 22, 2014. Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  10. ↑ Confide, a Snapchat for the Corner Office, BloombergBusinessweek. January 8, 2014. Retrieved March 18, 2004.
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