Founder Profile: Rob Banagale, CEO/Co-Founder of Gliph, Inc.

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Name: Robert Banagale

Robert Banagale, CEO/Co-founder of Gliph, Inc.

Location: Portland, OR

Education:

• MBA, Babson College
• BS Computer Engineering and minor in Computer Science, Oregon State

Prior Experience:

• Founder of Weekly Davespeak, a music weblog for Dave Matthews Band fans.
• Co-founder and later CEO of Neutrinos LLC, an application developer for social media platforms and the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.
• Account Manager and Director of Strategy at Ubermind, Inc., a mobile application development company.

Startup:
Gliph, Inc. is a privacy-focused digital identity platform that enables communication and natural relationship growth.

Lessons Learned:

• Embrace small: use your size to do things more established competitors can not or would not do.
• Solve problems immediately: if your idea is big and ambitious, prepare to offer small parts of your idea to fix issues that exist right now.
• Release early and release often: If you are completely happy with what you released, you probably waited too long.

Staying Motivated:

• Get out of the office and do non-startup stuff.  Sit in parks, go on hikes. Maintain emotional connections with your friends and family.
• Get your sleep, eat well and don’t party too hard.
• Give love and props to your earliest users: embrace them as equals. Watch this great video to see what I mean.

Greatest Mentor:

My mentor is Don Johnson of Oregon State University’s Memorial Union.  Don created an environment for me to meet great people, his mentorship has inspired excellence in the most subtle and effective way.

Want to learn more about Gliph, Inc?  Follow their blog or @gli_ph on twitter.