Nationality American Name Dan Rodrigues | Occupation CEO of Kareo | |
Born November 16, 1975 Anaheim, CA Known for CEO and founder of Kareo; former President and co-founder of Scour Alma mater University of California, Los Angeles | ||
Selling to Doctors - Dan Rodrigues // Startup Elements
Dan Rodrigues (born November 16, 1975) is an American technology entrepreneur. He is the CEO and founder of Irvine, CA-based medical practice management software vendor Kareo, and is the former co-founder and President of multimedia search engine and file sharing service Scour.
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Life and career
Rodrigues was born in Anaheim, California in 1975. His father was a pilot and flight instructor who became a computer programmer and business consultant. His mother held a variety of positions including administrative work, and also had an interest in computers. Rodrigues credits his parents' entrepreneurial nature and involvement in computers for his success. His father introduced him to computer hardware and programming. His mother managed a copy shop and did desktop publishing at night. She was also an early employee of Upper Deck, the sports trading card company, and Gateway Educational Products, maker of the Hooked on Phonics line of reading education tools. Rodrigues also credits watching her work with the companies as inspiring him to be an entrepreneur.
In high school, Rodrigues was involved in academics and sports, and was also editor of the high school newspaper and yearbook, another experience he credits with teaching him organization and project management skills.
In 1995-96, he attended the University of Washington to study computer science. During this time he took part-time jobs as a software developer for Visio, the diagramming and vector graphics application now owned by Microsoft, and streaming media company RealNetworks, at a time the company was preparing for its IPO.
Scour.com
He transferred to UCLA in the Fall of 1996, where he met fellow students Vince Busam, Michael Todd, Jason Droege and Kevin Smilak from the Computer Science Department. In December 1997, the group founded Scour.com, a project that started as a search engine to find music online, and soon became an entertainment hub. The team was joined in 1998 by fellow UCLA computer science students Travis Kalanick and Ilya Haykinson. The company's first offices were in Rodrigues' high rise apartment, which at one point housed 13 Scour employees.
The company caught the attention of Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz, who along with grocery store billionaire Ronald Burkle purchased 51% of the company in 1999.
At one point Scour.com was being used by more than 10 million consumers, and it played an important role as music and entertainment companies began to distribute their content digitally over the Internet. Rodrigues raised $12.5 million in venture capital financing, and managed 70 people at the height of the company's fortunes. He also designed the Scour Exchange peer-to-peer software while developing other patented technologies.
In July 2000, after appearing to be willingly negotiating with Scour for music distribution rights, the record companies through the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America sued Scour, claiming that Scour Exchange contributed to copyright infringement. In August 2000, in a profile in Salon Magazine, Rodrigues was featured discussing the lawsuit and the company's efforts to continue to negotiate with the record companies.
The lawsuit limited funding options, and the company was forced to lay off staff. Rodrigues issued a public statement "We remain hopeful that our dispute will come out the same way that the original David-and-Goliath battle did", but the pending legal issues proved to be too difficult to fight. The lawsuit was settled, and the company was sold in 2000 to Centerspan Communications, a provider of Internet delivery services.
2000-2003
Rodrigues took the funds from the Scour sale and started to develop an online gaming hub for networked gameplay. After 9/11 occurred, he shelved the idea and instead formed Skematix, a computer consulting firm. One of their clients hired them to help create medical billing software, a project which grew to become Kareo.
Kareo
Rodrigues left Skematix to found Kareo in 2004. His goal was to use web-based medical billing software to replace the expensive and complex medical-billing and practice-management systems that were being used by doctors. In 2010, Rodrigues secured a $9.5 million investment from OpenView Venture Partners, and in October 2011, Greenspring Associates closed a $10 million equity investment with participation from OpenView Venture Partners, Western Technology Investment and former classmate turned angel investor Travis Kalanick, who had just launched the Uber ride sharing service. By 2013, the company reported their software was being used by 17,000 providers and the Kareo was ranked 58th on Forbes' list of most promising companies.
Awards and recognition
In May 2013, Rodrigues was named to OC Metro Magazine's "40 under 40" list highlighting notable entrepreneurs in Orange County, CA. He was also a finalist for Ernst & Young's 2015 Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Personal life
Rodrigues lives in Newport Beach, CA with his wife Kate, and children Mia and Jack. He also plays tennis recreationally with the Newport Beach Tennis Club.