I bootstrapped my last company, WiredReach, in 2002 which I sold in late 2010. Throughout that time, I launched many products with varying degrees of success and was constantly in search for a better way to build products. I’ve tried everything from building in stealth, release-early-release-often, less is more, and even more is more…

In late 2009, I ran into into Steve Blank’s lectures on “Customer Development” from where I followed the trail to Eric Ries’ early ideas of the Lean Startup. That started my own rigorous testing and adaptation of these ideas which I first shared on this blog (http://www.ashmaurya.com) and have turned into a book: Running Lean. I’ve sold over 10,000 copies of Running Lean as a self-published e-book. A second edition is in the works which will be published by O’Reilly in early 2012.

Current Job: Founder, CEO of Spark59
I sold my last company to start Spark59 – with a mission of helping other startups raise their odds of success.

By way of writing my book and teaching workshops, I got the unique opportunity to work with hundreds of startups which helped refine the Running Lean methodology and identify several problems worth solving that we are turning into products.

I hold several mentor roles with startup accelerators around the world including: Mozilla Foundation (San Francisco), Year One Labs (Montreal), MARs (Toronto), Ideally (Brussels), and Capital Factory (Austin).

Prior Positions
Before Spark59, I was Founder and CEO of WiredReach. We built simple file and media sharing products used by businesses to share and collaborate around large files.

Prior to WiredReach, I was the Director of Software Development at telecom technologies where I led the development team responsible for their distributed Voice over IP Softswitch product. Telecom Technologies was subsequently acquired by Sonus Networks in 2001.

I hold a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Speaking/Interviews
- Oct 2011, Startup Weekend Brussels
- April 2010, Startup Success Podcast
- March 2011, SXSWi, Austin
- June 2011, Montreal Startup Festival
- April 2010, Startup Lessons Learned Conference
- Sept 2010, Startup Success Podcast
- Sept 2010, Capital Factory Demo Day

On average, I also teach a workshop a month and am motivated by traveling out to interesting and new places. I have run these workshops so far in Austin, Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Mexico City, Brussels, Amsterdam, London, and Dublin.

Selected Guest Posts
- At VentureHacks: Experiments in Pricing
- At Startup Lessons Learned: A Case-Study in Continuous Deployment
- At Startup Flavor: How To Vet New Product Ideas and Save Time, Money, and Effort

I love to work. When I’m not working I love being a foodie, dad, husband, and yogi. I keep only a few interests at a time because I believe in doing things well – otherwise it’s not worth doing at all…

I live in Austin, TX with my wife, 2 kids and 2 dogs.

You reach me at ash@usercycle.com