Andrew Paradise

Andrew Paradise
Born 1982
Nationality US
Organization Skillz
Title Founder

Andrew Paradise (born April 10, 1982) is an American entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Skillz, a company that enables cash tournaments in mobile games.[1][2]

Early life and education

Paradise was born on April 10, 1982 in Acton, Massachusetts. He learned to program at age 7 by hacking a video game with a hex editor and later wrote his first game in Pascal.[3] He received his Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, summa cum laude, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his Bachelor of Commerce in Economics from University of Auckland in New Zealand.[4]

Career

In 2008, Paradise founded Photrade, a web 2.0 digital media and advertising company. While at Photrade, Paradise created patent-pending advertising technologies, forged business development partnerships with companies such as Apple, and led the eventual sale of Photrade to publicly traded, MPA, Inc.[5]

In 2010, Paradise founded AisleBuyer, a virtual shopping assistant that lets retail customers bypass checkout lines by paying on their mobile phone. He invented a technology which allows shoppers to scan a bar code, allowing them to read product details and customer reviews and then make a purchase on the spot – either in-store by skipping the line or online by opting for home delivery. Shoppers could also browse a retailer’s entire product catalog from within the app.[6][7] Paradise sold the company to Intuit, the maker of Quickbooks and GoPayment, for a reported price of up to $100 Million in April 2012.[8]

In 2012, Paradise, along with fellow AisleBuyer veteran Casey Chafkin, founded Skillz in stealth mode under the name Lookout Gaming.[9] Skillz provides an SDK for mobile games developers that allows users to compete against each other for real money or virtual currency. In May 2014, Skillz reported hosting 50,000 micro-tournaments everyday across 150 different games. Founders Casey Chafkin and Andrew Paradise are trying to democratize eSports by enabling eSport competitions for all players.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Skillz brings real-money gaming to the U.S.". insidemobileapps.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "The Making of an Entrepreneur". forbes.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  3. ↑ "Startup updates: Lookout Gaming raises $1.3M; BetterLesson gets $3.5M Gates grant". bizjournals.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  4. ↑ "The impact of mobile on commerce and the ewallet with Andrew Paradise, founder of AisleBuyer". untether.tv. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  5. ↑ "Andrew Paradise". bima.org. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  6. ↑ "Intuit Acquires Mobile Payments Company AisleBuyer, Will Integrate Into GoPayment, POS Solutions". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  7. ↑ "Intuit Acquires AisleBuyer Tech for $80 - $100 Million". bostinno.streetwise.co. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  8. ↑ "Boston startup AisleBuyer acquired by Intuit". bizjournals.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  9. ↑ "Lookout Gaming Takes $1.3M Seed Round To Accelerate Indie Game Revenues". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  10. ↑ "Skillz lets game players win real money". sfgate.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
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