Team

Josh Hannah has been fortunate to make a career of founding and building companies and helping other entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of start-up life. Whether re-thinking wagering or buying a bankrupt digital media asset, Josh has demonstrated an ability to recognize unmet, even unpopular, needs in the marketplace and build strong businesses to address them.

Josh’s career as an entrepreneur began with the unconventional idea of turning sports wagering into an efficient financial transaction by using an online exchange to execute bets. In 1999, he co-founded Betfair.com and revolutionized the gaming industry by building the world’s first online marketplace for sports betting.

Today, privately held Betfair manages more than $50 billion in transactions each year, is licensed in the UK and Australia, and operates legally in dozens of countries around the globe. Josh played a myriad of roles in the evolution of the company, from CEO during the start-up and chaotic early years, to hiring the right chief executive for the company’s growth phase, which included building a team of more than 1,000 employees around the globe.

Josh returned to the States in 2004. Josh served as an EIR at Benchmark Capital.  Soon after, he and a partner purchased eHow, an ailing, Web 1.0, how-to directory. “When I told people what I was doing, they thought I was crazy. Conventional wisdom said content was dead, and there was no way to make money on it. We had a different view. In my experience, the foundation of a great business depends on having a different idea from conventional wisdom and pursuing it in spite of a skeptical market.” says Josh.

Josh and his partner restructured eHow by outsourcing content creation to the community and employing then-new advertising and search engine optimization techniques. In six weeks, they had earned enough from advertising to pay off the cost of the purchase. They increased revenue and traffic 30-fold before selling the company to Demand Media in 2006 for a 400X return.

Over the years, Josh has advised and invested in a number of promising, young Internet companies, including Aardvark, Blingo (sold to Publisher’s Clearing House), Friendster, Huddle, Inflection, Minted.com, Ning, uShip and Wetpaint. Josh joined Matrix Partners as a general partner in early 2009. He is looking to invest in entrepreneurs who are product and usability-obsessed and driven to create a magical customer experience. He is most excited about working with companies that make bold flanking attacks on big markets through vulnerable niches, and empower their customers.

When he’s not working with entrepreneurs or spending time with his young family, Josh can be found snowboarding at Sugar Bowl, cycling in the Oakland hills or playing basketball. Though he’s an alumnus of both Stanford and Cal, Josh proudly bleeds blue and gold.

Josh has successfully built leading Web businesses and has pulled all the levers himself, so he understands the limitations and the challenges of SEO, SEM and other online tools, as well as how to prioritize your time as CEO. He understands the tradeoffs an entrepreneur makes every day in a resource-constrained and competitive environment. It's impossible to overstate the value of having someone on your board who has walked in your shoes.

Mariam Naficy, Founder and CEO, Minted.com