Greg Bear

I run Bear Ideas, a web marketing and development firm based in Seattle. Bear Ideas is a 100% drupal shop, specialized in online marketing for small businesses and building niche community sites. I have been working in Drupal for the past two years, and formed Bear Ideas just over a year ago.

This latest entrepreneurial venture builds on a number of experiences with technology service companies over the last 15 years, three of them venture backed startups.

In 2006, I was on the founding team at RealSelf.com, an advertising-based web business built on Drupal in the beauty and anti-aging sector with business school colleague Tom Seery. This is a great showcase site for what Drupal can do in a niche community.

Prior I was Director of Program Strategy and Services (biz dev) at Catalysis, a high-tech marketing and consulting firm serving Microsoft and global marketing agencies.

Prior to Catalysis, I co-founded World2Market, a Seattle-based e-commerce company selling socially responsible products sourced via microfinance, fair trade practices and non-governmental organizations. World2Market raised $8M in venture financing from a prestigious group of investors, was featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and on CNN, and had the unique claim to fame in 1999 of being the first e-commerce shopping experience for then-president Bill Clinton.

Before World2Market, I spent four years working in the interactive media group at Microsoft creating version one CD-ROM titles.

I have two wonderful little boys, Jack and Sam and am married to Molly Kertzer who is the marketing director for the Bloom product line at Cranium Games (now Hasbro).

Before my technology life… I wanted to be a professional jazz pianist. Played professionally during college, attended Berklee Music School, and studied piano with the great Andrew Hill while in Portland.

I studied computer science and music composition as an undergraduate, and have an MBA from University of Washington, focused on finance and entrepreneurship.