Jay Gould (born April 1, 1979) is an American tech

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

and the founder & CEO of Yashi. Gould is also an active

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

, and has backed web-based startups including

DogVacay Rover.com is an American company which operates an online marketplace for people to buy and sell pet care services including pet sitting, dog boarding, and dog walking. Rover.com was founded in 2011 in Seattle, Washington ...

Tout A tout is any person who solicits business or employment in a persistent and annoying manner (generally equivalent to a ''solicitor'' or '' barker'' in American English, or a ''spruiker'' in Australian English). An example would be a person who ...

Buffer Buffer may refer to: Science * Buffer gas, an inert or nonflammable gas * Buffer solution, a solution used to prevent changes in pH * Buffering agent, the weak acid or base in a buffer solution * Lysis buffer, in cell biology * Metal ion buffer * ...

, and Fitocracy.

Education

Gould graduated from

Rowan University Rowan University is a public research university in Glassboro, New Jersey, with a medical campus in Stratford and medical and academic campuses in Camden. It was founded in 1923 as Glassboro Normal School on a site donated by 107 residents. ...

in 2001, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Law & Justice.

Career

In December 2005, Gould sold his first business to Bolt Media for an undisclosed amount and joined Bolt as its President. At the time of the sale, Gould's websites had 3.3 million U.S. unique visitors, according to comScore Media Metrics. While under Gould's management, Bolt's revenue grew to $7 million annually, 5.3 million U.S. visitors to their website monthly, culminating in signing a definitive agreement to sell the company for up to $30 million. Just prior to signing the $30 million definitive agreement,

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

filed a lawsuit against Bolt, MySpace and others for alleged copyright infringement. Bolt was ultimately unable to reach a settlement with Universal Music, which resulted in the termination of Bolt's $30 million acquisition, eventually leading Bolt to file an assignment for the benefit of creditors. During Gould's tenure at Bolt, he co-founded WikiYou, which raised $500,000 from investors, including

Mayfield Fund Mayfield, also known as Mayfield Fund, is a US-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage to growth-stage investments in enterprise and consumer technology companies. Founded in 1969 and based in Menlo Park, California, it is one of S ...

, First Round Capital, and

Reid Hoffman Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for prof ...

. Gould later founded GamersMedia, the first vertical-advertising network to bring brand advertisers to casual-gaming websites, which at its launch had over 20 million unique visitors across 40 sites. On February 2, 2015, the company was acquired by

Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...

for $33 million.

Yashi

Jay Gould and Caitlin Gould founded Yashi in 2007. Yashi became a location-focused advertising platform that targeted mobile and web video advertising. The company was named to

Inc. Magazine ''Inc.'' is an American business magazine founded in 1979 and based in New York City. The magazine publishes six issues per year, along with surrounding online and social media content. The magazine also produces several live and virtual events y ...

's Inc. 5000 list of the Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America for four consecutive years from 2012–2015. Yashi was acquired by Nexstar Broadcasting Group on February 2, 2015, for $33 million.

Foundville

In October 2011, Gould launched foundville.com, a video podcast site featuring interviews with successful Internet entrepreneurs. Gould has interviewed founders of companies such as HotOrNot,

RockYou RockYou was a company that developed widgets for MySpace and implemented applications for various social networks and Facebook. Since 2014, it has engaged primarily in the purchases of rights to classic video games; it incorporates in-game ads an ...

Adify CMG Media Corporation (doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company pri ...

Mochi Media Mochi Media was a browser-based games network, with more than 140 million monthly active users and 15,000 games on nearly 40,000 publisher websites. Mochi Media's products included tools for Flash-based web developers to display in-game advertis ...

CapLinked CapLinked is an online business transaction and project management application developed in the United States. The company's SaaS platform includes tools for document management, similar to a Virtual Data Room, messaging, updates, and business int ...

, The Receivables Exchange,

Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, ...

SitePoint SitePoint is a Melbourne-based website, and publisher of books, courses and articles for web developers. History SitePoint was founded by Matt Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle in 1999. The company had its origins in Webmaster-Resources.com, an in ...

, and others.

Investments

Gould is an angel investor, with sizable contributions to companies such as Buffer, CapLinked, Tout, iDoneThis, Fitocracy, and Cadee, among others. In March 2012, Gould was part of a $1 million funding initiative for DogVacay, an online marketplace for residential dog boarding. In addition to startup capital, Gould also contributes his knowledge and expertise to entrepreneurs. He is a member of the Rowan University Entrepreneurship Program Advisor Council (ENTAC).

Awards and recognition

* On September 20, 2010, Gould was honored as a recipient of the NJBIZ Forty under 40 Award. The award recognizes up-and-coming businesspersons based in the New Jersey-New York area. * In 2014, Gould was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award finalist in New Jersey."Congratulations to the 2014 finalists for the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in New Jersey."
,

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

, 22 May 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gould, Jay 1979 births 21st-century American businesspeople Angel investors Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Rowan University alumni