adam sheppard
co-founder & ceo
As an individual with an insatiable curiosity and a knack for truly creative problem solving, Sheppard has spent most of his life using software and technology as a tool to explore the world and shape it the way he’d like it to be. His name is synonymous with innovation at Microsoft where his ‘Shep Report’ was one of the most eagerly anticipated sources of online trend analysis and blue sky thinking at the company, with a readership extending to the senior leadership team.
Sheppard began his career as a developer at IBM’s Hursley Park Research Laboratory in his native homeland of the United Kingdom. He initiated and drove IBM’s first web log analysis project for the 1994 Olympics, subsequently writing his dissertation on the ‘Business Opportunities offered by the analysis of World Wide Web Server Logs’ pre-dating most online advertising and successfully articulating the evolution of the most established form of revenue generation on the internet today.
His expertise in this emerging field of data mining led to several job offers in the USA and Sheppard joined a small Silicon Valley based start-up named Intersé Corporation in 1995. Surviving this legendary era of hype and hope he was excited to find himself one of ten people who became Microsoft’s 16th acquisition following Hotmail. Sheppard spent two years soaking up the ‘old school’ Microsoft practices of large scale software development getting his first taste of writing code that would end up on millions of desktops around the world as part of Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Site Server.
With a passion to shape the emerging internet, Sheppard joined the newly formed MSN as a program manager and was responsible for the team that architected, developed and deployed the first centralized international data center monitoring tools for the network. In addition he served as Operations PM for early versions of Hotmail, MSN Messenger, MSN Mobile, Newsletters and the first User Profile Store.
As an intrapreneur at MSN he conceived, pitched and delivered some of their first innovative web services, receiving patents for Real-time Traffic Alerts, Real-time Gas Prices, and MSN Auto’s “My Car” attracting tens of millions of users and enhancing Microsoft’s overall suite of services.
As technical consultant for the MSN Branded Entertainment and Experiences Team (BEET), Sheppard was charged with finding the ‘secret sauce’ that would exceed an advertisers expectations, delight consumers and show what could be done on the web to meet a brand objectives. He actively participated in pitches to Fortune 500 CMO’s and CTO’s gaining unique insights into their businesses and customers.
Moving back into product development as Lead PM for the v1.0 of MSN Spaces, Sheppard was responsible for driving the Social Networking and Community strategy as well as shaping the overall positioning against the competitive landscape. Windows Live Spaces has gone onto become one of the largest blogging services on the web with over 17 Million unique users per month visiting and authoring content.
Sheppard’s internal e-mail and blog, ‘The Shep Report’ served as a creative outlet to share his observations of startups, technologies and social trends evolving on the internet and their relevance to Microsoft. The readership quickly saw organic growth and was often read and commented upon by Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, and many SVP’s around the company. This lead to his appointment to the Cross Network Strategy team, focusing on Community, Mergers & Acquisitions for MSN. He has correctly predicted well over 15 major acquisitions often more than a year before announcement.
Until September 2008 Sheppard worked in Microsoft CTO, Ray Ozzies' team as Director of Strategic Business Development for Microsoft Live Labs building external partnerships and driving revenue through licensing programs.
As a founding member of the Lab, he was responsible for establishing the Live Labs brand, identifying, evaluating, and proposing new concepts and opportunities, strategic and tactical product planning, and formulating innovative Go-To-Market strategies for the most cutting edge technology at Microsoft.
His work in shaping the revolutionary ‘Photosynth’ has resulted in press that heralded it as ‘Demo of the year’ , and is changing perceptions of Microsoft amongst the online community with the potential to be one of the greatest disruptive technologies the web has yet to see.
In September 2008, Sheppard left Microsoft to co-found '8ninths' with long time colleague and friend, William Lai. Focused on incubating new consumer technology businesses, the duo concieve, fund and build innovative web and mobile services.