Tyler Spalding

Tyler Spalding
Born (1980-02-09) February 9, 1980
Alma mater University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tyler Spalding, (b. February 9, 1980) is an entrepreneur based out of Chicago, IL. He is currently the Chief Strategy Officer of Raise.com, previously founder and CEO of TasteBud Technologies (formerly Styleseek).[1][2][3]

Education

Spalding graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2001 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He later attended the Sloan School of Business at MIT, graduating in 2011.[3][4][5]

Career

After graduating from Urbana-Champaign, Spalding was an engineer with NASA, and also worked at Lockheed Martin on the space shuttle program for over 3 years.[6]

In that time he was also a faculty member at both the University of Miami and the University of Alabama in the engineering departments.[7][8][9]

Entrepreneurship

Spalding transferred his expertise in algorithms and engineering to the world of eCommerce when he started Styleseek with Sloan MIT colleague Chris Walti and Brian Hawkins of the Fashion Institute in 2010.[10] He speaks around his "a-ha" moment to move from NASA to business school and entreprenuerial life when he realised he could "create change" through the work he was doing and that was what a startup was to him.[11]

The goal of the service was to create personalised “StyleDNA” for menswear, an underserviced market in terms of personalization.[12] The service was positioned as the “Pandora for eCommerce.” Spalding and Styleseek raised $1.75 million in seed funding, in 2 rounds from the likes of Cedar Capital, Jumpstart Ventures, Jeff Cantalupo, Padova Investments and other parties.[13][14][15][16][17]

Styleseek then became Tastebud Technologies, a business-to-business model which focused on the predictive technologies Styleseek was based on rather than the platform itself, partnering with malls and retailers to understand consumer preferences and behavior to deliver targeted deals to mobile customers.[18]

In 2015, Tastebud was acquired by Raise.com for an undisclosed amount and Spalding took on the role of Chief Strategic Officer of Raise.com.[19][20][21][22]

Speaking

Spalding has spoken around and been interviewed on Internet privacy, entrepreneurship and eCommerce.[23][24][25][26] He defines himself as a typical "nerd" and has a "pay it forward" mentaility, with interests in helping other entreprenuers.[11] Spalding has also spoken around Tastebud specifically and case studies around that work, specifically around data and beacon technology in a physical consumer shopping environment.[27] His public stance on tracking, data collection and privacy policies is to default to opt-in processes rather than opt-out.[9]

References

  1. ↑ "Tyler Spalding -". www.tylerspalding.com. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  2. ↑ "LinkedIn - Tyler Spalding". Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Tyler Spalding - Co-Founder/CEO @ Tastebud | crunchbase". www.crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  4. ↑ "Tyler Spalding: Executive Profile & Biography - Businessweek". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  5. ↑ "Info Junkie: Tyler Spalding". Crain's Chicago Business. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  6. ↑ "Mission Success Bulletin Online" (PDF). Lockheed Martin. February 26, 2006. Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Tyler Spalding at University of Alabama - RateMyProfessors.com". www.ratemyprofessors.com. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  8. ↑ "Find your own StyleDNA with Styleseek – Northwestern Business Review". northwesternbusinessreview.org. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  9. 1 2 tastytrade (2013-03-01), Tyler Spalding of StyleSeek | Bootstrapping in America, retrieved 2016-10-18
  10. ↑ Perez, Sarah. ""Pandora For E-Commerce" StyleSeek Raises $750K More In Seed Funding". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  11. 1 2 "Tyler Spalding of StyleSeek.com from The Great Business Experiment". www.stitcher.com. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
  12. ↑ Hotchkiss, Sean (2012-07-16). "Stuff We Like: StyleSeek.com". GQ. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  13. ↑ "StyleSeek". Time Out Chicago. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  14. ↑ "Lessons in entrepreneurship: StyleSeek case study". Crain's Chicago Business. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  15. ↑ Heller, Laura. "Gender Bender: Guys Shop, Girls Get 'Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  16. ↑ "How Analytics is Giving Fashion a Makeover". MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  17. ↑ "Tyler Spalding". angel.co. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
  18. ↑ Wilhelm, Alex. "Tastebud Acquires SocialCrunch In All-Stock Deal To Further Its Mobile Push Into Physical Retail". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  19. ↑ "Raise Acquires Mobile Personalization Business, Tastebud Technologies | Business Wire". www.businesswire.com. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  20. ↑ Sky, Blue. "Raise buys Tastebud Technologies, touts engineering talent". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  21. ↑ "Raise tastes its first acquisition with Tastebud Technologies". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  22. ↑ "Tyler Spalding |". intersectretail.com. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
  23. ↑ "ecommerce Conference and Expo Returns in 2014". Power Retail. 2013-12-11. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  24. ↑ Sky, Blue. "Techweek talks: Chicago dreams and venture-funding realities". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  25. ↑ "A looming event is set to reveal success strategies from online empires such as Virgin Mobile, ABC, Qantas Group, Optus Business, YELP, and Facebook - Ragtrader". Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  26. ↑ "Tyler Spalding's schedule for Techweek 2013 Chicago". techweek2013chicago.sched.org. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  27. ↑ [email protected] (2015-08-20). "Shopping in the Heartland". National Retail Federation. Retrieved 2016-10-20.

External links


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