Naveen Jain: Entrepreneur Mentor
Naveen Jain is the CEO and co-founder of Intelius, Inc., a company that delivers information online in order to empower individuals and businesses to make intelligent decisions. With a prolific career spanning almost two decades, spending seven years as project manager for Microsoft Corporation, six years as founder and CEO of InfoSpace, and heading Intelius from 2003 to present, he has reaped the rewards of his hard work financially. At his peak, became one of America’s Richest Men and among the country’s 400 most affluent individuals as proven by Forbes Magazine. Jain also received accolades for his inspiring work in innovation and technology. He received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, was one of Red Herring’s Top 20 Entrepreneurs, one of Information Week’s “6 People Who Will Change the Net”, and received an Albert Einstein Technology Medal.
Because of his financial and professional stability, Naveen Jain has ventured into mentoring, networking, and education as a way of giving back and promoting entrepreneurship globally. He is a member of the board for Seattle’s Chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a non-profit organization founded by entrepreneurs of Indus origins that promote networking and entrepreneurship, and engage in philanthropic work. TiE dedicates itself to cultivating the spirit of entrepreneurship for the next generation by launching programs, meetings and conferences where a mixture of startup businesses and large companies can exchange ideas and strategies in order to make their respective businesses thrive.
Naveen Jain has actively participated in TiE-Seattle’s networking meetings, often acting as panelist and keynote speaker for several networking discussions. He served as panelist for a meeting with the theme, “I have a terrific business idea, now what?”, which was a discussion on how to exploit the opportunities in transforming ideas into successful businesses. Alongside venture capitalists, successful entrepreneurs, and attorneys, Jain answered questions on various aspects of entrepreneurship such as evaluating market opportunity, starting and getting funding, avoiding business mistakes, and networking.
