Executive Overview
Brian Norton is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Chameleon, a San Francisco-based SaaS company specializing in user onboarding and product adoption solutions. Norton's professional reputation is characterized by a strong blend of technical acumen, product vision, and leadership, marking him as one of the most well-rounded professionals in the technology arena. He is based in Encinitas, California and maintains an active professional presence on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannort) with a substantial network.
Current Role and Company Context
Position and Responsibilities
- Title: Co-Founder & CTO, Chameleon
- Location: Encinitas, CA, United States
- Tenure: Founding team member, with ongoing CTO responsibilities
As CTO, Norton drives the technical vision for Chameleon, overseeing the development and scaling of the product's core architecture. His public-facing leadership includes:
- Strategic direction and execution of technical initiatives,
- Building and maintaining internal and external APIs,
- Ensuring robustness and scalability in backend logic for Chameleon's codebases,
- Supporting cross-functional collaboration with product, design, and engineering,
- Championing software usability, error prevention, and customer onboarding flows.
Chameleon’s mission is to enable software teams to personalize and adapt user experiences seamlessly across the customer journey, making user-centricity and customization central tenets of product design and execution.
Product and Company Focus
Chameleon is known for its:
- User onboarding toolkits, enabling SaaS businesses to create in-product guides, tooltips, and surveys without engineering dependency,
- Commitment to agile product development practices,
- Focus on empowering non-technical stakeholders to drive adoption and engagement within digital products.
Professional History
Previous Experience
- Shoto: Norton's work history includes time at Shoto, a startup focused on sentiment analysis and media. While his exact position there is not specified, experience gained contributed to his product and technical expertise.
- Involver (acquired by Oracle): Served as a Software Engineer, building onboarding experiences and front-end engagement tools. His contributions at Involver included the development of user engagement frameworks that were absorbed into Oracle post-acquisition.
- Salesforce: Participated in technical roles, further deepening expertise in scalable SaaS infrastructure and enterprise-grade software solutions.
Educational Background
- University of California, Berkeley
- Degree: Bachelor’s in Computer Science (2007–2011)
- His academic credentials provide a strong foundation in computer science theory and practice, informing both technical leadership and decision-making in his later roles.
Technical and Leadership Skills
Key Skills:
- Backend Engineering: MySQL, APIs, Ruby on Rails, and scalable system design.
- Product Management: Deep understanding of user onboarding, product-led growth, and customer success metrics.
- Leadership: Well-regarded for combining technical depth with strategic, cross-functional leadership—noted for fostering high-performance engineering and product teams.
- Process Improvement: Advocates for error prevention, usability, and robust software design practices.
Norton’s peers describe him as combining technical, product, and leadership qualities, distinguishing him from pure technologists or managers.
Public Presence & Professional Engagement
- LinkedIn: [linkedin.com/in/briannort](https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannort)
- Public Speaking/Thought Leadership: Has participated in webinars and instructional sessions, particularly around onboarding email sequence design and best practices for SaaS user engagement.
- Social Media: Presence on platforms such as X (@nort), where he contributes to discussions around SaaS onboarding and product development.
- Industry Reputation: Routinely recognized for his rounded executive skill set and influence on digital product best practices.
Strategic Insights
Alignment for Engagement:
- Norton's background reveals an executive deeply invested in innovative SaaS, scalable technical architectures, and user-driven product design.
- His leadership in the user onboarding and SaaS adoption domain positions him as a decision-maker for technology partnerships, integrations, and tools that support growth, retention, and customer success initiatives.
- His prior engineering and product leadership roles at high-growth and acquired companies (Involver, Salesforce) suggest openness to new technology, rapid scaling challenges, and a data-driven approach to product improvement.
Summary:
Brian Norton is a highly networked, technically skilled executive at the intersection of software engineering and product leadership. As Co-Founder and CTO at Chameleon, he is responsible for spearheading platform architecture and building agile, user-focused onboarding solutions to enable customer-centric adoption for SaaS businesses. Norton's pedigree and hands-on technical expertise position him as a key decision-maker and strategic partner for initiatives targeting digital product growth, scalability, and market differentiation.
