Andrew Paradise

Andrew Paradise (born 10 April 1982) is an American entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Skillz, an eSports company that enables tournaments in mobile games.[1][2]

Andrew Paradise
NationalityAmerican
OrganizationSkillz
TitleFounder

He previously founded AisleBuyer (sold to Intuit) and Double Picture (sold to MPA Inc.). Also, Andrew Paradise was one of the Top-Earning Game CEOs in 2020.[3]

Early life and education

Paradise has said that he learned to program at age 7 by making edits to a video game's configuration file with a hex editor, later writing his first game in Pascal.[4] Andrew's first entrepreneurial work was in selling lemonade beside a closed bridge. [5]

At the age of 12, Paradise got a work exception from his school to do his first W2 at an ice cream stand.[6]

He received a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics from the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2004 and a BA in English Literature, graduating summa cum laude, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2005.[7]

Career

Private Equity & Venture Capital

Andrew started his career in private equity working for The Watermill Group, a leveraged buyout shop focused on distribution and manufacturing businesses, based out of the Boston area. There he completed his first acquisitions including Latrobe Steel, a company purchased for $215M enterprise value and later sold for $800M. In 2006, he left Watermill to join Fort Washington Capital Partners, working in venture capital investing.[8]

Double Picture

After spending a few years working for venture capital and private equity firms,[9] Paradise left in 2008 to found his first business, Double Picture, a web 2.0 digital media and advertising company. In 2009, he sold the business to MPA Inc. a publicly traded company.[10]

AisleBuyer

Paradise founded AisleBuyer in 2009. AisleBuyer a virtual shopping assistant which enabled customers to bypass checkout lines by allowing them to pay for purchases directly through their mobile devices. The software allowed shoppers to scan product bar codes, which subsequently enabled them to read details and customer reviews directly from their smartphones.[11][12] Shoppers could then purchase the products on the spot, choosing between an in-store purchase or home delivery.[13][14] Paradise sold the company to Intuit for a reported price of $80 to $100 million in April 2012.[15][16] The technology was later renamed to Intuit GoPayment.[17]

Skillz

In 2012, Paradise and fellow AisleBuyer veteran Casey Chafkin founded Skillz under the name Lookout Gaming.[18] Skillz provides an SDK for mobile game developers that allows users to compete against each other. As of October 2018, Skillz reported hosting 2 million tournaments every day.[19] Founders Casey Chafkin and Andrew Paradise are working to democratize the industry by bringing out the best in everyone through competition.[20]

In 2017, Paradise earned No. 1 spot on the Inc 5000 list for Skillz. The company became the first gaming entity ever to top the chart.[21]

In December 2020, Skillz became the first publicly-traded mobile eSports platform.[22] Paradise owns 22% of the company.[23][24]

Andrew Paradise is often a guest speaker at such conferences as Mobile World Congress Americas,[25] Inc. Conference, SXSW,[26] CES,[27] GDC,[28] etc.

In 2020, Andrew Paradise took the third place at the Top-Earning Game CEOs who made $103,321,052 (or $51,660 per hour).[29]

Both Paradise and his company Skillz have become a party to lawsuits, two of which are Ball v Skillz[30] and a suit launched against his brother, Jeremy Paradise over a family trust in November 2021.[31]

References
  1. "Skillz brings real-money gaming to the U.S." insidemobileapps.com. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  2. "The Making of an Entrepreneur". forbes.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  3. "42 Top-Earning Game CEOs Made More Than $820 Million In 2020". GameSpot. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  4. "Startup updates: Lookout Gaming raises $1.3M; BetterLesson gets $3.5M Gates grant". bizjournals.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  5. McGlade, Alan. "The Making of an Entrepreneur". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  6. "Andrew Paradise". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  7. "Andrew Paradise, Skillz Inc: Profile and Biography". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  8. Smith, Mark (2022-06-02). "Meet United States's 101 Top CEO's in the Video Games Space". BestStartup.us. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  9. Burns, Mark J. (March 22, 2017). "Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise On Mobile eSports, Investment From Sports Figures Like Luol Deng". SportTechie. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  10. "Andrew Paradise | CEO - Skillz". Forbes Councils. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  11. Burns, Mark J. (22 March 2017). "Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise On Mobile eSports, Investment From Sports Figures Like Luol Deng". SportTechie. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
  12. McGlade, Alan (14 January 2013). "The Making of an Entrepreneur". Forbes. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  13. "Intuit Acquires Mobile Payments Company AisleBuyer, Will Integrate Into GoPayment, POS Solutions". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  14. "Intuit Acquires AisleBuyer Tech for $80 - $100 Million". bostinno.streetwise.co. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  15. Heun, David (10 April 2012). "Intuit Buys M-Payments Co. AisleBuyer". American Banker. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
  16. "Boston startup AisleBuyer acquired by Intuit". bizjournals.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  17. "Intuit Buys AisleBuyer, Self-Checkout App, for Reported $100M". PYMNTS. 10 April 2012. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  18. "Lookout Gaming Takes $1.3M Seed Round To Accelerate Indie Game Revenues". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  19. Gottsegen, Gordon (11 October 2018). "A bigger phone could help you win that esports tournament". CNET. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  20. "Ball v. Skillz Inc., Case No.: 2:20-cv-00888-JAD-BNW | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  21. "How Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise Built an Inc. 5000 Leader". Inc. 2017.
  22. "Skillz Becomes First Publicly-Traded Mobile Esports Platform". Nasdaq. 2020-12-20.
  23. "Andrew Paradise". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  24. "Andrew Paradise Net Worth, Biography, and Insider Trading". www.insidertrades.com. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  25. Magazine, Authority (2019-07-15). ""To create a fantastic work culture, respect personal time" with Andrew Paradise and Chaya Weiner". Authority Magazine. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  26. "Andrew Paradise". SXSW 2023 Schedule. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  27. "AisleBuyer CEO to Present on the Potential of Mobile Payments at the Consumer Electronics Show". www.businesswire.com. 2012-01-03. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  28. "Game Developers Conference (GDC)". Game Developers Conference. 2022-06-16. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  29. "42 Top-Earning Game CEOs Made More Than $820 Million In 2020". GameSpot. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  30. "Ball v. Skillz Inc., Case No.: 2:20-cv-00888-JAD-BNW | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
  31. "Skillz eSports Founder's Brother Advances Bid to Reform Trust". news.bloomberglaw.com. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
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