Companies are the sum total of the people who dreamed them up and execute the daily happenings. Unique composites of personalities, pasts, and skill sets, this blog will periodically highlight and introduce you to the distinct team members who bring Loopd to life.
This week we pull back the veritable “Wizard of Oz” curtain to reveal the man behind the proximity-marketing machine. His inspired idea gave birth to the Loopd we know today, meet CEO, Brian Friedman.
Brian’s restless energy drives his persistent passion. Discontent for anything resembling inertia or stagnation, Brian’s life, both personally and professionally, is always running toward excellence.
The son of an Irish mother from Yonkers, NY and a free-spirited father hailing from Berkeley, CA, Brian grew up just outside the busy hubbub of Boston, MA. As an only child, perhaps it is a combination of both irony and destiny that his work at Loopd focuses on bringing people together with proximity marketing.
Brian’s tenacity was evident from an early age. At only 5 years old, he learned to ski quickly and was soon bored and ready for a new challenge. He saw his dad with a snowboard and despite an instructor’s dismissal that he was too young, defiantly joined the class. A new passion was born. As a teenager, that drive launched him to a US snowboarding ranking, but he didn’t leave all his intensity on the slopes.
By the age of 17, Brian had started his first company. While on an 8-week summer program during college, he went on to win a business plan contest atDraper University. A constant innovator and entrepreneur, Brian looked at the market, saw a problem, and crafted a solution with his winning proposal. His idea, now known as Loopd, addressed the need to fix the outdated and inefficient technologies and practices of failed return on investment for event interactions. Brian cherry-picked the best and brightest of his classmates, and a company was born.
As the CEO of Loopd, Brian now starts his days at 6:45AM at his home in San Francisco. He has traded his childhood breakfasts of Ben and Jerry’s for a more health-conscious fruit and protein smoothie as he scrolls through his Twitter feed and catches up on the daily news. Prepped for the day, he hops on his bike and cruises down Nob Hill to his office in SOMA. The artful dodging of cars and dosage of fresh air prove the perfect catalysts for a productive day of work. When asked what he would bring if stranded on a desert island, Brian offers a combination of practicality and adventure that you would expect from a thriving CEO: a kite board for entertainment, water filter for hydration, and fishing rod for food.
Looking back, Brian revels in the fact that Loopd has come a long way from its initial inception as a simple wristband, but loves that the mission has remained constant. By focusing on the most natural ways to collect passive information, Loopd creates valuable and useful serendipity for people. As Loopd has grown, Brian has done similarly. Immersing himself in the world of entrepreneurship across the country, he is determined to help progress the physical product market by enhancing it with the power of computing technology.
Brian Friedman refuses to stop evolving, and he is taking Loopd along for the ride.
