Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
John Fanning
John Fanning Jr graduated from the University of Miami in 2014 with a degree in Entrepreneurship. He founded Zelgor Inc. in 2012 after graduating from Draper University, where he led his team to first place in the month-long business development competition. At Draper U, he finished top 10 in the VC pitch competition with his idea for a GPS-based mobile game that let users take over the real world. Previously, he worked as a web manager for Netgames, where he worked with Assist Software to develop a web-based chess application for their most successful game website, Chess.net.
Phil Fogerite
Phil is a veteran game developer with over 12 years of experience designing and shipping AAA console titles as well as Massive multiplayer Online games-as-a-service. He began his journey with us as a design consultant, but after meeting the Noobs he decided to take on a larger role. As Product Manager, Phil will be leading the Noob takeover of the app stores with focus tests, soft launches, and eventually spearheading the worldwide invasion by our excitable alien friends.
Joyce Zhang
Joyce’s passion for art started at a young age sketching with rocks and acorns in the park. Graduating Northeastern in 2013 and armed with more sophisticated tools like Photoshop, Joyce has taken her art career to the next level. Connecting with the Noobs from the instant they stepped on Earth, Joyce is not only our Art Director, but our Ambassador to the Noobs as well. She works with artists overseas to design Noobs, Spaceships, and all things Noob Tubez.
Christopher Potter
Chris’ lifelong appetite for gaming stems from the unique entertainment experience that it provides: allowing the user to enter a story, world, and community of the designer’s creation. During his time at Wentworth Institute of Technology, he worked for Alliance Game Studio developing the iPad game BlazBlue: Battle Cards. Graduating in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Chris now puts his skillset into creating the prototype for NoobTubez.
Tim Draper
Tim Draper is a top global venture capitalist, having founded Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network. The firms’ investments include Coinbase, Robinhood, TwitchTV, Skype, Tesla, Baidu, SpaceX and many others. He was named “Entrepreneur of the World,” by the World Entrepreneurship Forum and is listed as one of the top 100 most powerful people in finance by Worth Magazine. He created Draper University of Heroes, which has launched entrepreneurs who have built 350 companies, including NVision (sold for $275 million) and crypto leaders QTUM. In fact, John was one of his first students!
Kai Huang
Kai is a Venture Partner at Idea Bulb Ventures. He is the co-founder and ex-CEO of RedOctane and the co-creator of the Guitar Hero video game franchise, acquired by Activision in June 2006. Kai was also co-founder and CEO of Adux Software, a software company developing solutions for the server appliance market. Prior to Adux Software, he was a consultant with Accenture, where he worked with Fortune 500 clients in the area of supply chain management. Kai holds a BA in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Michael Dornbrook
Mike was recruited to Harmonix Music Systems where he served as COO and was responsible for Harmonix's Finance, Administration, Legal, HR, Business Development and Marketing. Harmonix's most famous product, Guitar Hero, became a huge hit, earning critical acclaim and breaking the record for the fastest videogame franchise to hit $1 billion in sales (it went on to sell $3 billion). Rock Band, Harmonix's next franchise, broke this record by hitting $1 billion in sales in just over one year. Mike handled the major deals for the company, including the game publishing contracts, the Chinese manufacturing of all the drums and guitars, and the sale of the company to Viacom for over $700 million, including earnouts, one of the highest prices ever paid for a game developer, yielding the investors up to 220X. Mike serves as Venture Partner & Investment Committee Member at Converge Venture Partners.
Nolan Bushnell
Nolan is a technology pioneer, entrepreneur and scientist. Often cited as the father of the video game industry, he is best known as the founder of Atari Corporation and Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theater. Mr. Bushnell is passionate about enhancing and improving the educational process by integrating the latest in brain science, and truly enjoys motivating and inspiring others with his views on entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation and education. Over the past four decades, Bushnell has been a prolific entrepreneur, founding numerous companies, including: Catalyst Technologies, the first technology incubator; Etak, the first car navigation system whose mapping is still the basis for car navigation systems today; Androbot, a personal robotics company; and ByVideo, the first online ordering system, which allowed customers to order and pay for products from kiosks.
