Needle Inc. has a bold vision to bring the personal interaction and intimacy of shopping in a store to the online shopping community. This requires unique knowledge in key areas: Distributed workforces, cloud computing, content filtering, organizational behavior, gamification and social media. If you have expertise in these areas, we hope you’ll apply to be part of our journey.
Executive Team
Morgan Lynch, CEO & Founder
Morgan was previously the founder, CEO and Chairman of Logoworks. He and co-founder Joey Dempster developed one of the earliest distributed workforces, which enabled Logoworks to provide high-quality graphic design services to thousands of small businesses worldwide. Logoworks was backed by Shasta Ventures and Benchmark Capital and was sold to HP in 2007. Prior to Logoworks, Morgan spent four years running marketing at InsurQuote, helping position it for a $320 million sale to Channelpoint in 2000. Morgan is the proud father of five children, enjoys playing soccer and basketball, and holds an International Relations degree from Brigham Young University, and an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Mikko Valimaki, CTO & Founder
Mikko Valimaki has a long history of building scalable server side solutions for commerce, communication and security. Before co-founding Needle Mikko was the Chief Scientist at Blue Coat Systems (Nasdaq: BCSI), where he architected the cloud based content filtering and malware protection solution. Additionally Mikko served as the technology spokesperson for the security and WAN optimization solutions. Mikko was the CTO of Cerberian prior to its Blue Coat acquisition and was the VP of Engineering at Novell where he directed all aspects of the development of Novell eDirectory, DirXML and other value-added security and identity management solutions. Originally from Finland, Mikko now enjoys the mountains of Utah for cross-country skiing and mountain biking. Mikko is quadrilingual and has a keen interest in natural language processing. Mikko studied at Brigham Young University, earning both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Computer Science.
Noelle Bates, VP Community
Noelle has spent 13 years in high-tech startups and is an expert communicator. Most recently Noelle handled public relations for OrangeSoda, an internet marketing company focused on local, small business. Noelle was part of the executive team at Logoworks and handled internal (community) and external corporate communications. She is a true PR expert having significantly raised visibility of every company she's been at. Some of the coverage she has garnered includes the WSJ, Forbes, INC, Entrepreneur, CBS, and more. Much to the chagrin of her husband, Noelle loves shopping online. Some of her favorite sites include Serena & Lily, Net-A-Porter, and Layla Grace.
Kristen Knight, VP Product Management
Kristen has over twenty years experience leading product management teams for the hi-tech and consumer goods industries. Kristen has successfully created and marketed products for both domestic and Global companies including Bell & Howell, Excite@Home and Nu Skin International. At Nu Skin she led the team that developed and marketed the award-wining AgeLOC skin care and Galvanic Spa products which helped increase the global personal care portfolio to double digit month-over-month growth and significantly improved share holder value. Kristen has a B.S in Merchandising and Masters in Organizational Behavior from the business school at Brigham Young University. Kristen was also named as one of the "30 Women to Watch in 2010" by Utah Business Magazine.
Andy Bown, VP Sales
Andy joins the team with 17 years of high-level sales and marketing experience. Most recently Andy was the Director of Sales at Swarmbuilder, Inc., an online company using engagement, training and product seeding tools to build sales advocates for manufacturers and retailers. Prior to Swarmbuilder, Andy successfully led the sales team for Beretta, the oldest company in the world, and was the Marketing Director at Sports, Inc. where he negotiated programs and pricing with Manufacturers on behalf of 500 + Independent Retailers across the U.S. and Canada. Andy has excelled in numerous sports and now enjoys racing endurance horses in 50 and 100-mile single day events as well as spending time exploring the outdoors with his family.
Board of Directors
Greg Butterfield
Greg Butterfield is Founder and Managing Partner of SageCreek Partners. Before SageCreek, Greg was Group President for Symantec’s enterprise Server and Storage business unit ($4B business P&L). Butterfield joined Symantec through the company’s acquisition of Altiris in April 2007. At Altiris, Greg served as Chairman, President and CEO. Butterfield has extensive executive-level experience in the software and service industry. Greg was invited to the World Economic Forum as Technology Pioneer in 2008 and was inducted into Utah’s Technology Hall of Fame in 2009. Greg is a seasoned board member having served as Chairman of Utah’s Technology Council, Omniture, Utah Valley University Board of Trustees, and several other technology and eCommerce related companies.
Sam Decker
Sam Decker is a recognized expert in eCommerce, word-of-mouth marketing, and direct marketing. A frequent speaker at marketing and eCommerce events and author of an award-winning marketing blog (www.deckermarketing.com), Sam brings more than 15 years of marketing and online retailing experience to the Needle board. Sam was most recently the Chief Marketing Officer at Bazaarvoice. Before joining Bazaarvoice, Sam spent seven years of leadership at Dell, Inc. in marketing, eBusiness, CRM, and customer-centricity. From 1999-2003, he led Dell's consumer web site, building Dell.com into the largest consumer eCommerce site at $3.5B in annual sales.
Jeff Kearl
Jeff Kearl is the CEO of Stance, an action-sports apparel company based in San Clemente, CA. Prior to Stance, Jeff was the CMO at Logoworks and led its acquisition to HP in 2007. Jeff is a seasoned VC/angel investor having made over 20 investments including Omniture, Outright, MovieClips.com, Familylink, Matuse and Ancestry.com.