Key Deal Facts
Taste’s organic user base grew by ~76% YoY, and return-on-ad-spend reached 289%.
Taste’s movie and TV platform has gained over 500K registered users, receives about 5.8M screen views per month, and has more than 3,500 five-star reviews.
The review and recommendation industry is mature and growing; in 2019, Yelp saw $1.01B in revenue and TripAdvisor saw $1.56B in revenue.
Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
John Lin
CEO
John is a data-nerd with over 15 years of experience in analytical and marketing tech. Early in his career, John ran marketing programs for brands including Xbox, Starbucks, Neimen Marcus, and Essentia Water. During that time, he oversaw analytics for CRM programs that combined for +10MM customers. John also consulted for a long list of tech startups including MadeClose, Drawbridge Networks, Cue, LINK3D, Upflex, and Rocean.
Justin Messina
CTO
Justin is a seasoned engineer with 12 years of experience as a full-stack developer. Earlier in his carerr as the Head of Technology at Square Tomato, he managed the tech team and designed CRM automation processes for brands such as Starbucks and Corbis. He has also created a wide range of technologies including UGC-ready databases, merchant portals, e-commerce management, and social media platforms.
David Shilane
Chief Data Scientist
With 15 years of experience as a data scientist, Dave has developed a wide range of recommendation systems across social media, online dating, and educational tech. Along with heading data science for Taste Labs, he serves on the faculty of Columbia University's Applied Analytics master's program, teaching courses in machine learning, data science, and statistical methods.
Dave holds undergraduate and master's degrees from Stanford University, along with a PhD from the University of California Berkeley. Dave contributes 5-15 hours a week to oversee algorithm refinement and R&D of additional data features within our technology.
Aaron Hoffman
Head of Data Products
Aaron joins Taste Labs after 2 years working as EVP, Analytics and Statistics at Solstice Studios—a Hollywood film studio with $400 million in capitalization. Aaron has extensive experience in television, media planning, and digital technologies, with a specialty in creating research methodologies—he was the founding architect of Magid’s proprietary syndicated EmotionalDNA® research product. Aaron contributes up to 10-20 hours a week to oversees B2B business and data product development for our digital media apps.
Adam Weiss
Advisor
Adam was the former General Manager & SVP of Rakuten Marketing (fka LinkShare), the world's largest affiliate marketing network.
In the past 20 years, Adam has helped thousands of advertisers & publishers succeed from the basics of getting started with performance marketing to strategy & optimization of mature programs. He has also been a routined keynote speaker at advertising and marketing conferences around the country.
Adam advises Taste Labs on its monetization strategy and lead-gen business development.
Ricky Solomon
Advisor
With more than 30 years of experience in finance, Ricky works with emerging companies on capital acquisition and allocation. He has structured many financings, both public and private, with a concentration in tech. He currently serves on the board of Aspen Group (ASPU) and Ipsidy Inc (IDTY,) and is also an active angel investor. Ricky advises Taste on financial strategies and capital acquisition.
