Nathaniel Stevens

Nathaniel Vincent Stevens is an American media and advertising entrepreneur based in New York. Nathaniel is the Founder of Yodle, Inc., Inc. an online provider of small business marketing services and lead generation.

Education & Early Life

Born in Connecticut on July 27th 1983, Nathaniel grew up in the rural town of Bethany. He attended Bethany Elementary School and later Amity Regional High School in Woodbridge, Connecticut. At Amity, Stevens was a varsity lacrosse athlete and was named All Area, All State, and voted Most Valuable Player. In his senior season he broke the school record for highest face-off winning percentage and total points scored. That season, he was named to the All Connecticut Post and All New Haven Register teams. In his senior year he also served as team captain for the varsity soccer team.

Nathaniel was also an avid artist and musician as a teenager. He received the Connecticut Congressional Art Award for his expressionist paintings in 2001. Stevens has also received the Creativity Legacy Award, established by Benjamin Franklin Kahn’s Foundation at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Stevens started college at the University of Miami, in Coral Gables Florida. In 2003, he transferred to The Wharton School in Philadelphia. While pursuing degrees in Finance and Entrepreneurship, he was accepted into Wharton’s Venture Initiation Program, a Small Business Administration sponsored scholarship for Undergraduates and MBAs to incubate and launch new entrepreneurial ventures. Later that year, as his company, Yodle (FNA: Natpal.com), began to gain momentum, Stevens took a leave of absence from Wharton to focus on building the company full-time.

Business

Stevens started in the business world working at his family’s car business, Stevens Ford of Milford, Connecticut. From 2001 to 2003 Stevens served as the Internet Sales Manager and was responsible for transitioning the firm's advertising budget to new media outlets. With this experience, he decided to start a business that would help similar locally based businesses advertise more effectively on the internet. He believed that data, accumulated from consumer’s interactions with online advertisements, could make online advertising more efficient for small businesses and less obtrusive for consumers. After convincing his father to loan him $30,000, Stevens founded Yodle and began developing the technology needed to bring this product to market. By the summer of 2005, Stevens was piloting this technology and began receiving interest from local businesses across the Philadelphia area. Within a year, the business had contracted with hundreds of small businesses and was producing over $1mm in annual sales volume.

Having proven the business model in Philadelphia, Stevens partnered with Bessemer Venture Partners to provide expansion capital for Yodle. With this investment, Yodle was able to vastly expand its network of small businesses and improve the reach and targeting of their ads. Today, the company is headquartered in New York City and has major operation centers in Charlotte, NC and Phoenix, AZ. Today, Yodle continues to expand its product offering and serves thousands of small and medium sized businesses across the country.

Press & Awards

  • ExecDigital, “Web Wonderkids: Turn Passion in to Profits"
  • DM News, "2008 Top 30 Under 30"
  • BusinessWeek “Best Entrepreneurs Under 25, 2008"
  • New York Times “Small Companies Are Finding a Home on the Web"
  • Invesp "100 Most Influential Online Marketers of 2008"
  • InformationWeek, “Yodle Gets Google Seal of Approval"
  • Small Biz Pod, "Business Case Study - Yodle"
  • BusinessWeek, “Best Entrepreneurs Under 25, 2007"
  • The Daily Pennsylvanian, “Wharton Student Tries to Help the Little Guy"
  • BIA Advisory Services - Kelsey Group, “Yodle, Ambassador Rev Up Local Online Sales"
  • Creativity Foundation "2006 The Creativity Legacy Prize"
  • Wharton School Entrepreneurial Newsletter, “Meet the VC"
  • Wharton School Entrepreneurial Newsletter, “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Learned"
  • The Daily Pennsylvanian, “Senior Named top Young Businessman"
  • BusinessWeek, “Best Entrepreneurs Under 25, 2005"