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About
Saurin Shah... [Current] [Virtual
Worlds/Games] [Trax
In Space] [1993-1995]
[Current]
Currently Saurin is the Director of Product Management at Digital
Chocolate, where he focuses on web
product and monetization strategies.
Digital Chocolate produces games for mobile phones and the web,
including the recently launched AvaPeeps, and TowerBloxx, which is one Facebook’s most popular apps wth well over
100,000 daily active users.
Digital Chocolate was also founded by Trip
Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts and 3D0 as well
as one of the early employees of Apple.
[Virtual Worlds/Games]
Saurin held
Product Management positions at Gaia Online and PlayFirst. Gaia is a fast growing online
teen-hangout and virtual world with over 11 million users, a billion+
post forums, and one of the largest virtual item
economies on the web.
PlayFirst is a leading, venture funded publisher of casual games
based in San Francisco. PlayFirst is most notably known
for their hit title, Diner Dash, and is funded by top venture capital
firms, such as Trinity Ventures, Mayfield Ventures and Rustic Canyon.
Saurin has also consulted on
product strategy and investment analysis for companies such as PlaySpan and venture
firms.
Prior to PlayFirst he was a management
consultant at Infosys
Consulting and focuses on the high-tech, media &
entertainment and retail industries. At Infosys Consulting, the
business consulting arm of Infosys, Saurin is responsible for recommending and
leading visible, measurable changes to help his clients become
more competitive and profitable. He uses analytical rigor tempered with
creative, insightful thinking to help companies change they way compete
and operate.
Over his career, Saurin has consulted or worked in pursuit teams for
leading, global firms, such as Microsoft, Paramount, Nordson,
APL, The Limited Brands, Lexmark, Amazon,
Eagle Global, Landmark Graphics, TBC Corporation, JohnsonDiversey (a spin-off of Johnson & Johnson
and Unilever) and more. He has worked in small and large teams
spread out around the world for companies ranging in size from start-ups
to Fortune 100 firms. Having done work for Europe (Germany, Netherlands,
UK),
United States, Asia (Japan, China,
India) and Latin
America (Mexico, Brazil),
Saurin brings a critical global awareness to his clients.
Saurin has amassed a broad range of
experiences critical to successful business leaders. He has conducted project
management, formed ecommerce and marketing strategies, assessed product
commercialization and time-to-market capabilities, assisted start-ups
with business and marketing plan development, gathered product and
service requirements through customer interviews and research, and used
technology as an instrument to drive competitiveness.
Saurin received a MBA from the Executive
MBA program at the McCombs School of Business, University
of Texas at Austin. He is always looking
for new ideas and businesses to become a part of or to provide
consulting services.
[Trax
In Space]
An early entrant in the world of digital media, in 1993 Saurin Shah began
a movement to legally distribute music online at a time when Prodigy was
the largest ISP in the US. He
helped pioneer a digital distribution model which leveraged the
power of the Internet to cheaply deliver music to fans anywhere in the
world. His business, Trax In Space, became one
the largest Internet music properties for amateur musicians and trackers
(digital musicians).
Later at Digital Rhythms, Inc., a technology incubator which bought Trax In Space from Saurin, Saurin raised $2 million
in funding and assumed the role of Vice President of Business
Development. At Digital Rhythms, Saurin once again pioneered online
media. He grew the number of monthly unique users to over one million;
and at a time when "eyeballs" were more important than revenue,
Saurin began a successful subscription model to take advantage of the
25,000+ plus musicians at Trax In Space. The
ensuing dot-com bust and other personal reasons led Saurin to
leave Digital Rhythms and pursue other career options in 2002.
Recently Saurin launched a new Trax
In Space
website, built from scratch from the ground-up. The new site is a social network
designed around musicians and music lovers.
[1993-1995]
The roots of Saurin's passion for digital media
begins with computer drawn art. In the early 90s, the "demo
scene" emerged in Europe and parts of the US. Gifted programmers
developed short animated films known as "demos." Demos, written
in a language known as Assembly, often showcased the skills of the demo
writers and accompanying musicians and artists. Fascinated by the
talented artists, Saurin formed his own digital art group, called CyberLegion Artist's Network, or "CLAN" for
short. CLAN consisted of several top artists and musicians from around
the world, including Texas (USA), Finland,
Sweden, Germany and the UK. Quarterly Saurin would
release a digital magazine which premiered recent art and music made by
the group's members. CLAN was one of the first digital magazines to have
a fully 3D rendered, animated menu.
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