Sam Lawrence


Sam Lawrence is an American entrepreneur, and founder of several Internet companies, including Jive Software, where he was the founding CMO, and Crushpath, a free marketing platform, where he is currently CEO and co-founder.

Early life and education

Lawrence grew up in Syracuse, New York in a Jewish family. He moved to Austin, Texas at age 10 and attended Johnston High School where he worked summers washing dishes, stuffing envelopes, and working concessions at a movie theater in order to save for his first car, a replica of a 1932 Bugatti Roadster. He later attended Texas State University and was a bartender at the Hyatt, where he met Matthew McConaughey. Lawrence introduced McConaughey to a casting director named , who cast him in his first movie, Dazed and Confused. Lawrence attended the University of Arizona for graduate school, where he discovered Kermit and Telnet which started his addiction to the Internet. He dropped out of the program to pursue his own Internet-based company.

Career

Early career

After leaving graduate school, Lawrence worked at various start-ups and tech companies in Austin, Texas and San Francisco including SicolaMartin, Dell, CNET, 3Com, Euro RSCG, and McCann Erickson.

Professional career

Lawrence joined a small discussion forum company, Jive Software in 2005 when Web 2.0 tools were emerging in the consumer space. As CMO he led the product strategy direction for an Enterprise-class Enterprise 2.0 suite, and ultimately positioned, and relaunched the company building and leading what became known as the Social Business Software category. Jive Software was named a leader in three Gartner Magic Quadrants and had its IPO in December, 2011.
Following Jive, Lawrence co-founded San Francisco based in April 2011 with Matt Wilkinson, former VP of Product Development for and , former CEO of Jive Software. Crushpath is a free online marketing platform that allows users to create a unique pitch, share their work, and get it into the world.
Crushpath is funded by and Charles River Ventures with investments from , Aaron Levie, and has on its Advisory Board.
Lawrence runs the popular blog Go Big Always and has been a speaker at Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, LeWeb, MobileBeat, CES, and DEMO.
Lawrence was named an Invesp Top 100 Influential Marketer in 2008 and 2009.

Personal life

Sam has three sons, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, April Lawrence.