Sam Lawrence

Sam Lawrence (born January 29, 1970) is an American entrepreneur recognized as an innovator in the social software industry. He has founded and led several Internet companies, including Jive Software, where he was the founding CMO, and Crushpath, a customer-facing sales platform, where he is currently CEO And Co-founder.

Early Life and Education

Sam grew up in Syracuse, New York in a Jewish family. He moved to Austin, Texas at age 10 and attended Johnston High School where he worked summers washing dishes, stuffing envelopes, and working concessions at a movie theater in order to save for his first car, a replica of a 1932 Bugatti Roadster. He later attended Texas University and was a bartender at the Hyatt, where he met Matthew McConaughey. Sam introduced McConaughey to a casting director named Don Philips, who cast him in his first movie, Dazed and Confused. Sam attended the University of Arizona for graduate school, where he discovered Kermit and Telnet which started his addiction to the Internet. He dropped out of the program to pursue his own Internet-based company.

Career

Early Career

After leaving graduate school, Sam worked at various start-ups and tech companies in Austin, Texas and San Francisco including SicolaMartin, Dell, CNET, 3Com, Euro RSCG, and McCann Erickson.

Professional Career

Sam joined a small discussion forum company, Jive Software in 2005 when Web 2.0 tools were emerging in the consumer space. As CMO he led the product strategy direction for an Enterprise-class Enterprise 2.0 suite, and ultimately positioned, and relaunched the company building and leading what became known as the Social Business Software category. Jive Software was named a leader in three Gartner Magic Quadrants and had its IPO in December, 2011 (NASDAQ: JIVE).

Following Jive, Sam co-founded San Francisco based Crushpath in April 2011 with Matt Wilkinson (SVP of Products), former VP of Product Development for Socialcast and Dave Hersh, former CEO of Jive Software. He started the company to offer anyone in sales or who sometimes plays a sales function, a customer-facing platform to get their own leads and manage deals. The company's two core products are Pitch Site and Deal Manager.

Crushpath is funded by Social + Capital and Charles River Ventures with investments from Phil Fernandez (CEO, Marketo), Aaron Levie (CEO, Box), Dave Hersh (former CEO, Jive Software) and has Phil Libin (CEO, Evernote) on its Advisory Board.

Personal Life

Sam has two sons and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, April Lawrence.

Speaking and contributed writing

Sam runs the popular blog Go Big Always and has been a speaker at Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, LeWeb, MobileBeat, CES, and DEMO.

Awards and recognition

Sam was named an Invesp Top 100 Influential Marketer in 2008 and 2009.

See also

• Jive Software