ABOUT SIDESTARTER

We build businesses.

Other leading firms simply advise. We build and operate.

We've spent decades identifying opportunities and turning them into businesses.

Now we've created SideStarter to help accomplished executives build something they own and established companies build the businesses that come next.

For Executives For Companies

OUR FOUNDATION

25+ Years Of Building From Zero.

SideStarter was founded by entrepreneur Jonathan Aspatore, who has spent more than 25 years starting, building and growing companies.

We've gone from:

Idea → Product → Customers → Revenue → Millions in Sales → Exit

We've started businesses without outside investment.

Built teams.

Launched products.

Built brands.

Entered new markets.

Made mistakes.

Changed direction.

Started again.

And successfully sold multiple companies to Fortune 500 companies.

We've lived the difference between having an idea and actually building a company.

Now we're putting everything we've learned to work building what comes next.

25 Years

Building companies from scratch

$0 → Millions

Creating revenue from nothing

Multiple Exits

Acquired by Fortune 500 companies

Still Building

An active portfolio today

OUR PEOPLE

The Team Behind What Comes Next.

SideStarter isn't a network of consultants handing you advice.

We're A Team Of Builders.

Entrepreneurs.

Operators.

Product leaders.

Technologists.

Marketers.

Researchers.

Designers.

Writers.

People who know how to take something from an idea to something real in the market.

Depending on what we're building, we assemble the right team around the opportunity.

For executives, that means you don't have to become the startup team.

For companies, it means you don't have to create an entirely new venture organization internally.

We bring the people required to build around you.

Leadership

Learn more about the senior leadership team at SideStarter. To connect with any of our 100+ team members, please do so through that company or project.

Jonathan Aspatore

Founder & CEO

Jonathan is the Founder and CEO of SideStarter, and for the last 25+ years has been a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about starting and scaling new businesses.

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Jonathan’s primary role at SideStarter is to conceive new business ideas, work with leaders of our in-house businesses, and collaborate with professionals we help start a business.

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Jonathan has been an advisor and board member for numerous businesses, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. He has authored seven books on entrepreneurship, and most recently authored a book on (attempting to achieve) work-life balance as a Dad (The WonderDads Way). He also mentors aspiring entrepreneurs at all levels, from high school students to professional athletes finding their way.

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He is an avid tennis player, having played at the University of Pennsylvania and later served as an Assistant Coach for five years at St. Mary’s College in the West Coast Conference.

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He is a lover of dogs and all things Italian, and is also an Italian citizen.

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Jonathan is based in Marin County California, where he lives with his wife, two sons and two dogs.

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Leo Prada

Chief Financial Officer

Leo is the Chief Financial Officer for SideStarter and manages financial matters for all our portfolio companies. He is a results-driven finance executive with extensive experience in Strategic Finance, FP&A, M&A, OpEx management, and corporate accounting at companies such as Ask Jeeves, Ask.com, Dictionary.com, and IAC. Leo is a forward-thinking finance executive and entrepreneur who enhances operations through automation, increased workflow efficiencies and ERP & BI implementation. Leo spent most of his youth in South America and is fluent in Spanish. He has his bachelor’s from Sonoma State University.

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Keri Ribardiere

Chief Growth Officer

Keri Ribardiere has led growth and helped co-found the family companies of SideStarter for the last 10+ years.

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Keri has previously worked with numerous business to consumer companies, including The Orange County Register and The Walt Disney Company.

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Keri attended Cal State Long Beach and has her Bachelor’s in Business Administration.

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Outside of the office she is a lover of dogs and all things Disney.

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Danny Schmieding

Chief Product Officer

Danny is the Chief Product Officer for SideStarter and manages the product and user experience for its portfolio companies.

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Data-driven and design-inspired, his mix of marketing testing and business sense have given him a unique perspective into how to grow from idea to launch to operations quickly, confidently, and efficiently.

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Previous roles at various small businesses, including his own in the health & fitness industry over the decades, have helped hone his ability to work with and motivate executives and entrepreneurs.

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Danny studied digital design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, as well as Historiography at Sonoma State University.

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He is currently based in central Texas with his wife, two sons, and giant dog that could pass for a small cow.

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Sara Pickett

Director of Customer Experience

Betsy Atkins

Board Member for SideStarter, Google Cloud, Wynn Resorts

One Team. Whatever The Opportunity Requires.

Every Side Venture is different.

An AI company needs a different combination of people than a consumer brand.

A media company needs something different from an acquisition platform.

A nonprofit requires something different from software.

That's why SideStarter isn't built around selling you a predetermined service.

We start with what should be built. Then put the right people around building it.

Strategy

Research

Product

AI & Technology

Brand

Design

Content

Marketing

Business Development

Operations

You Bring The Opportunity. We Bring Everything Else.

WHY WE EXIST

Why SideStarter Exists

The startup ecosystem was largely built around young founders.

Accelerators.

Incubators.

Venture capital.

Startup competitions.

Entire ecosystems designed to help people early in their careers start companies.

We believe one of the world's greatest pools of untapped entrepreneurial potential sits somewhere else:

Experienced Executives.

People who have spent 20 or 30 years understanding an industry.

Its customers.

Its economics.

Its problems.

Its technology.

Its people.

And the opportunities everyone else misses.

They already have what most founders spend years trying to acquire.

Experience.

Expertise.

Relationships.

Credibility.

Pattern recognition.

Access.

Ideas.

Yet most of it never becomes something they own.

SideStarter Exists To Turn Accumulated Experience Into Ownership.

Then We Realized The Same Idea Applies To Companies.

Experienced executives aren't the only ones sitting on enormous amounts of untapped potential.

Established Companies Are Too.

Customers.

Distribution.

Technology.

Data.

Intellectual property.

Expertise.

Capital.

Brand.

Relationships.

And hundreds—or thousands—of people who understand markets and problems extraordinarily well.

Yet most companies devote nearly all their energy to operating and protecting the businesses they already have.

We believe that's a risk.

The same accumulated advantage that can create an executive's next chapter can create a company's next business.

One Idea. Two Sides.

At first, helping executives and helping companies might sound like two different businesses.

We don't see it that way.

They're built around exactly the same insight:

Accumulated Advantage Is Being Wasted.

FOR EXECUTIVES

You've spent decades accumulating experience, expertise, relationships, reputation and ideas.

FOR COMPANIES

You've spent decades accumulating customers, people, technology, distribution, data and expertise.

Turn Them Into The Businesses That Come Next.

Take What You've Already Built And Use It To Build What's Next.

Why We're Different

You've spent decades investing in your financial future.

We're not trying to teach you entrepreneurship.

We're not an innovation consultancy.

We're not an accelerator asking you to quit your job.

And we're not simply going to hand you a strategy deck.

We're Builders.

We've built companies ourselves.

And we've created a system for accomplished executives and established companies to do the same.

We help:

Discover the opportunity.

Validate the market.

Build the business.

Launch it.

Learn from the market.

Grow what works.

You bring the experience, assets or opportunity. We Bring Everything Else.

Build What Comes Next.

We believe the people and companies most capable of creating the next generation of businesses may already have decades behind them.

They have experience.

They have advantages.

They have ideas.

What they often don't have is the time, team or machinery to turn those advantages into something new.

That's What We Bring.

FOR EXECUTIVES

Build Something You Own.

FOR COMPANIES

Build The Businesses That Come Next.

For Both: Build What Comes Next.

Request Consideration

We build businesses.

25+ Years Of Building From Zero.

We've gone from: