Brant Cooper helps organizations big and small move the needle. His startup career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, inCode, and many others. He has experienced IPO, acquisition, rapid growth, and miserable failure. Brant previously authored The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss lean startup and customer development concepts, earning a distribution of over 50,000 copies. Brant has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs across the globe and is a sought-after speaker, having presented at leading companies such as Qualcomm, Intuit, Capital One, and Hewlett-Packard. Brant is reachable @brantcooper. He lives with (and continuously learns from) his two daughters, Riva and Eliza, near Swami's in Encinitas, California.
Patrick Vlaskovits is an entrepreneur, author, and consultant, and more than anything wishes he were a polymath. His writing has been featured on the Harvard Business Review blog, the Wall Street Journal blog, and The Browser. Patrick routinely speaks at technology conferences nationally and internationally, including SXSW, GROW Conference, the Turing Festival, and the Lean Startup Conference. He co-founded two startups, currently advises multiple technology startups, and serves as a mentor for 500 Startups, a seed fund and startup accelerator. As a principal at Moves the Needle, he counts Fortune 100 companies in his client list. The Lean Entrepreneur is his second book. The first, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, is a required course text for MBA and undergrad at universities such as the University of Chicago Booth School and Berkeley. He has also guest-lectured at Stanford and UCLA. For some unknown reason, Patrick holds a master's in economics from UC Santa Barbara. When he has spare time, he can be found on Orange County beaches with his family. Tweet at him @Pv and read his blog at vlaskovits.com.