Mike Constantiner
DADZ
Co-Founder & Head of Brand & Community
“I've been an entrepreneur and angel investor for 10 years focused on consumer tech and products, but I’ve also spent time on a mortgage trading desk and at a top talent agency. My passion and skill set lies in building things; whether I’m doing it myself or I’m helping others.
In 2009 I co-founded the group messaging app, Fast Society. With my partners Matthew Rosenberg and Andy Thompson, we set out to create a simple way for people to not only text in a group (yes, that wasn’t possible yet), but also allow those groups to easily share all the photos and videos they were capturing on their phones. Fast Society was one of, if not the first products that allowed group texting to work seamlessly on mobile phones. As we continued to develop Fast Society we saw an opportunity to automatically create video montages of all the media being shared in the group texts and pivoted the company to focus on what eventually became Cameo.
We spent almost 2 years developing Cameo and launched it publicly at the end of 2013. Powered by a first-of-its-kind cloud-based video rendering engine, Cameo was featured as an Editor’s Pick in the App Store and subsequently awarded one of Apple’s Best Apps of 2013. Shortly after, Cameo was acquired by Vimeo in March of 2014. At Vimeo we continued to run Cameo as an independent product and team (~14 people) within Vimeo through the launch of a 2.0 version and over 1 million users. Aside from the Cameo app itself, I spearheaded and built out the Cameo Music Program, a royalty free library of over 350 tracks of real music from over 200 artists.
At Vimeo I continued to oversee the Cameo team with my partners before moving on to a Vimeo-wide Platform Strategy role where I worked with executive management on a range of new business ventures from M&A transactions (VHX acquisition) to developing the business plan for a subscription video on demand offering.
After two years at Vimeo, I felt it was the right time to leave and work on an idea I had been sitting on in the personal care space. In the Summer of 2016 I started PRNCPLS, a set of daily essentials designed to help you achieve harmony and balance with the world around you. I teamed up with my favorite designer at the time, Jessica Humphrey, and in the Fall of 2017, we launched our first product line - a suite of oral care products totally developed, designed, and launched by just the two of us. While I’m proud of what we did accomplish, I wish I could say that PRNCPLS had a happy ending. At the end of Summer 2019 we made the decision to wind it down.
Throughout these years, I’ve also been an angel investor in a handful of companies including Parlor Coffee, Comrad Socks, Baboon, Cadence, and The Clear Cut. In Parlor Coffee, I was the first investor and have been a very active advisor to the CEO for over 8 years of continued growth.
Outside of work, I’m the father of a 2.5 year old boy, husband to Laura, and regularly practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Yoga. I believe in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and positive mental attitude and that everyday is an opportunity to improve myself and the world around me.” - Mike Constantiner