Richard FrederickRichard Frederick is an experienced C level executive and serial entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience. He spent the last fifteen years of his career building and growing early stage companies. He’s served as a mentor and coach to over 100 companies in the past 5 years.
In 2001 he co-founded Autotask, one of the nations first pure play Software-as-a-service companies. He played a major role in raising over $14mm for Autotask from Angel and Seed investors as well as A and B round Venture Funds.
In 2008 he co-founded WhatEveryBabyNeeds.com an Internet based retail and social networking site providing Organic products and content to new moms and infants from birth to age 4. The founders bootstrapped the initial funding and now rely on revenue to fuel the growth.
In 2009 he founded The Best and The Brightest.biz a virtual business incubator designed to create and accelerate the growth of early stage companies. This activity was self funded and is pre-revenue.
Mr. Frederick is also involved in teaching at the graduate college level at a number of local business schools in Upstate NY including Union Graduate College’s MBA program, RPI’s Lally School where he is also and Entrepreneur in Residence, and has recently formed relationships with Hudson Valley Community College and the undergraduate and graduate programs at Empire State College. His main area of concentration is on entrepreneurism and all aspects of developing business plans with a concentration in financial management, operations and marketing.
One of his newest interests includes identifying technology that has been developed in research labs at local colleges and businesses that can be commercialized. This is a potentially rich source of future deal flow especially in Green Tech and bio sciences. In this regard Mr. Frederick is an advisor to Promethean Revolution a 2010 finalist in the Wal-Mart Business plan competition that is developing a bimolecular disposal product that turns foods wastes to heat. In addition his experience with green companies includes directing the development of business plans for Ener-g-rotors, Green Planet Products, and Advanced Energy Conversion.
While his primary network has been NY’s Tech Valley which extends from the Berkshires to the east, to Westchester County in the south, to Glens Falls in the north to Gloversville in the west he has now expanded his business and academic connections from Boston across the entire upstate region to Buffalo. Recent associations in the Ithaca region with Cornell University and at Syracuse University in mid state have strengthened his network for funding, deal sourcing and mentors.
This focus is extremely important when considered in relation to his previous business experience as a C level executive in a telecommunications firm where as CEO directed a complete turnaround, to over 28 years in the health care industry where he served as the COO of a Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliate with over $5.5 billion in revenue and 1700 employees in addition to being the COO of a correctional medical care company that he positioned for a buy out after growing the business from $12 to $60 million. His last health care engagement ended in 1999 with a third party claims administration firm where he positioned the company for its first round of venture funding.
Over the years Mr. Frederick has demonstrated his initiative and ability as a leader, coach and mentor. It is only natural that he now focus his attention on leveraging these skills to identify early stage companies for funding and business acceleration.
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