Martin is a founder of forkly, a food and restaurant discovery startup in Denver, CO. Prior to forkly, Martin co-founded Brightkite, a location-based social networking company participating in the 2007 TechStars program, and acquired in 2009. His primary areas of interest are geospatial services and mobile location technology. Previously, Martin founded loopnote.com and held R&D and engineering positions at various high-profile technology companies.
In 2009, Martin was named one of BusinessWeek’s Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs. His work has appeared in Wired Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine and G4 TV.
Martin holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Specialties: location-based services, mobile, semantic web, iOS app development, Ruby, Rails, product development, social networking, sensor networks
Forkly, a food/restaurant startup, launched in late August 2011, and has since been featured in the iOS App Store and covered by the Washington Post, Forbes, the New York Times, and the UK Guardian.
I was responsible for Forkly's development from initial concept, developing the user experience, all the way through implementation (backend, API, web, iOS app).
As part of TechStars 2007, we built Brightkite from the ground up, and got acquired by Limbo Inc. in April 2009.
Prior to the acquisition, I was in charge of all development, built the product that we launched, and assembled a team to help Brightkite grow to a multitude of mobile platforms.
After the acquisition, I worked on special projects and helped shape the overall company strategy.
Loopnote allows people to stay in the loop on any given topic by subscribing to one-way information updates. See TechCrunch's coverage here: http://techcrunch.com/2006/12/10/new-service-keeps-you-in-the-loop/
Conducted R&D on new search engine, mapping and mobile technologies as a key member of Local Matter’s research lab. Developed several innovative local search technologies (route- based geospatial search, geospatial clustering) and implemented a location-based services platform that works with existing telecommunications infrastructure and devices. Led development team and reported directly to the VP of product strategy.
Aptas changed their name to Local Matters.
Provided knowledge management consulting services to improve internal workflow and implemented product lifecycle methodologies. Built several websites for Wi-Fi providers, consulting firms, and financial services companies. Built an extensive tri-lingual site with several financial calculation and projection tools for one of Luxembourg's largest banks.
Worked for Sun's Global Knowledge Engineering group, Content Structure Services. Helped implement Sun's knowledge management strategy, covering areas such as DAML+OIL, RDF, Web Services, XSLT, DocBook, etc. Filed several technology patent applications, received certification as a Java programmer and got exposure to Six Sigma methodology.
Integrated Visual Online's FTP system with their account database (middleware development, mostly Perl), did research towards a suitable high-traffic and scalable mail server solution and partly implemented it.
Developed a VPN solution for a major international food distribution company, building an infrastructure allowing communication between office locations (Cisco products). Worked on streaming technologies for Internet live broadcasts, an online payment solution, and a platform for Internet-SMS services for a major cellular phone company.