Michael Clauss

Summary

Fun facts/people may not know: Mike is sometimes referred to as a polymath, but dislikes all math. He is finishing a book on wisdom, after being mostly unwise for 50 years.. Michael Clauss has spent the past three plus decades building product, marketing and business development groups for many of the world’s best companies. He specializes in highly focused consumer-oriented technology programs. Early on Mr. Clauss co-founded Ostream, a Remedy help desk/CRM reseller in Seattle, where he served as COO in the Seattle area. Ostream also focused on software for remote ticketing and sales force automation and as part of that work developed some of the industry’s earliest and most sophisticated remote wireless applications. After Remedy bought the company, Mr. Clauss joined Microsoft as a consultant, working on early marketing strategies for wireless and mobile devices within Windows CE. He also managed Microsoft’s three largest retail accounts (Best Buy, Comp USA and Circuit City). Combined with negotiations for Windows, at the time these were the largest retail software contracts in the business. Mr. Clauss was ultimately recruited by Internet start-up Amazon.com in 1998 where he was category manager for “All Product Search”. Search accounts for 70%+ of Amazon's revenue. He also acquired a company, and then built and led “Amazon Anywhere” wireless/mobile shopping- which evolved into Amazon's mobile offering and Web Services (AWS). After Amazon, he became one of the Strategy Partners as a consultant and part of the management restructuring at Saltmine as VP of Business Development. In 2005 -2007 Mr. Clauss served as VP of marketing for Xiptel. Xiptel is a SME VOIP company that was purchased by the publicly held New Market Technologies. After that he Co-founded SplashLife- an AARP type concept for young people. Mr. Clauss also runs his own company advising numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as many startups in strategy, product, and marketing. Mr. Clauss recently co-founded The Plotworks and is now the CEO of Clauss ventures. Mr. Clauss guest lectures and is the former entrepreneur in residence at Lyon College.