Telesocial is a San Francisco based start-up, founded in 2008 by Bill Waytena & Eric Stone. They believe that voice remains the most expressive way to connect with others. Until now, social media was not providing a satisfactory integration of this important aspect. They therefore built a unique technology and API to enable mobile operators to integrate voice services with the web for scale, quality & reliability. Their innovation also gives developers free & easy access to the mobile voice channel.

Eric Stone CTO / Co-Founder
Eric Anderson Chief Engineer
Trish Richman Creative Director
Bill Waytena CEO / Co-Founder
Ylva Rahm Director of Marketing

Eric remembers his first 300 baud acoustic modem, rotary phones, and his only real job in telecommunications at Zoom Telephonics. Eric has been working in software development and large scale system design and operations for the last two decades. In addition to being a successful serial entrepreneur, Eric has worked at Wells Fargo and Toyota.com and designed and built systems for the US Navy, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and others. He holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a Masters of Arts in Biotechnology from Boston University and lives with his wife and son in San Francisco.

With 25 years in the field of software engineering, Eric brings a wealth of experience and insight from high-tech organizations of all sizes. Eric started his career with IBM's Cambridge Scientific Center before moving to Boston-area start-ups Data Acquisition Systems, Alloy Computer, and later Racal's Interlan division. Following a move to Seattle, Eric played key roles as a contractor and employee at companies of all sizes, including Attachmate Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, DataChannel, Aventail, Tenzing, and e-mail pioneer Connectsoft. Prior to joining Telesocial in 2011, Eric held the position of Principal Architect at Kadoink Inc. At Telesocial, Eric guides product architecture and coordinates the efforts of the development team. Eric holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Trish Richman is a leading expert in branding, user experience and design. She has over 15 years of experience as the creative director for leading brands in the consumer product space. She worked closely for several years with Starbucks to created the product assortments for over 5000 stores. She and her teams have been wholly responsible for all aspects of branding from web presence and online interactions to packaging, product development and design. Before he online immersion, Trish worked with most major US retailers, Walmart, Target, Crate and Barrel to name a few, as the art director for a wide array of their everyday consumer products. Her close relationships with consumer product brands have given her a unique POV in her information and user experience design. Clarity, ease of use and design innovation are the hallmarks of her work. Her online and consumer experience in brand messaging & communications led her to Telesocial where she is responsible for the look/feel/design of the company and its applications.

For the last five years, Bill has spent his time building web-based telephony solutions for social networks. With an engineering background, Bill began his telephony-social networking experience by cofounding Kadoink.com in 2006. At the company, he designed the many product user interfaces. Before telephony and social networks, Bill was an active investor across a number of industries and sits on the board of an engineering company in the steel industry. He started his first company in 1993, a software company for handheld platforms that he ran until 1998. Bill has an engineering degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Bill has a wife and 2 kids and lives in San Francisco.

Ylva has fifteen years of marketing and branding experience as an independent marketing consultant in Europe and the US since 2006, with focus on telecoms, mobile media and new technology. Before that she spent several years in Rome, managing marketing, branding and advertising campaigns for Telecom Italia Mobile. She led the communications team building the brand for the FreeMovealliance, a collaboration between Orange, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Telia-Sonera and TIM, building a joint roaming offer targeting multi national corporations. She has set up the marketing organization for US companies in Europe and worked for European companies expanding into the US market. She is an advisor to a couple of start-ups, supporting building their mobile and social strategies. Ylva has studied Business Economics at Stockholm University and holds a Masters Degree in Business Communications from IHM Business school. She speaks fluent Swedish, English and Italian.

  • Gordon Tucker
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  • Advisor

Gordon Tucker is a San Francisco-based advisor to early and mid-stage technology and internet-focused companies. Across a 30+ year career, he has served in corporate management and advisory roles including CEO roles for two publicly traded software and internet companies (including one he built into a $500MM IPO), and in interim management roles on behalf of VC firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield& Byers in both internet search (Excite, Inc) and wireless communications (SkyTel Corp). Tucker began his career in brand management with The Proctor and Gamble Company, later providing advisory services for major multinational corps that included 3M, Digital Equipment Corp., Sara Lee Corp. and others, before returning to executive operational management for LoJack Corp., pioneering developer of the worldwide market for a proprietary wireless network that enables mobile asset tracking by law enforcement agencies (now also applied to missing-child location).

  • Kieron O’Brien
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  • Advisor

Kieron O’Brien is the CEO of ExpertMarkets. In this capacity, Kieron plays a vital role in company's strategy, direction and development. Over the past 12 years, Kieron has been active as a C-level excutive, advisor or board member of multiple early & middle stage tech companies covering the Internet, VoIP, & Corporate Services industries. Most recently, he was the Founder & CEO of PacketExchange, Ltd, which he grew into a leading Global Internet Infrastructure & Content Delivery Network provider winning numerous awards including “Deloitte Technology Fast50”, Red Herring’s “Europe 100” & recognized by the Sunday Times (London) “Tech Track 100” as the 14th fastest growing technology company in the UK. Kieron was responsible for raising multiple rounds of capital in addition to leading PacketExchange’s expansion into Europe, Asia & the US. Prior to starting PacketExchange, Ltd, Kieron was CTO for Level 3 Communications in Europe where he directed a multi-billion dollar capital expenditure &operating budget. Before this, he followed a successful R&D career with a successful business development role at Alcatel where he brought in more than $500 million of contracts. Kieron received an education in Electronics & Software Engineering in the British Army.

  • David Grohol
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  • Advisor

David Grohol serves in an advisory/executive capacity for several venture and private equity firms. David has 18 years of management experience in sales, marketing and operations. He has built successful businesses from pre-revenue/pre-IPO to public companies and has raised over $150 million in private capital. David has held executive management positions during an IPO & 2 Fortune 100 acquisitions. Formally, David was the General Manager of the Americas for Roamware, Inc. - a global leader in mobile value added solutions. David was responsible for growing Roamware's operations in North, Central, & South America and forged partnerships with some of the largest mobile operators in the world. Previously, he was an executive in the Global Accounts group of the Cognos Corporation - now part of the IBM Corporation. Prior to that, David was VP of Sales for httprint, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise procurement solutions to the Global 2000. During his tenure, httprint was named to the 2002 and 2003 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America. David also held various sales and management roles with Vignette, Visix Software and Verifone/Hewlett Packard. Dave holds a B.S. in Marketing from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Our team of experienced web & telco pros is growing !

Contact us and we’ll see if we are a fit
We are also always looking for innovative developers
to integrate voice into their apps and games.