Breaking the Norm: Maxine Manafy, CEO of Bunndle (Part 1)

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Maxine Manafy is the founder and CEO of Bunndle, an app distribution network. Prior to founding Bunndle she held various sales and executive positions with companies such as Viximo, Mochi Media, Yahoo, KLA-Tencor and Intel. She is a graduate of San Jose State University and Stanford.

Sramana: Maxine, where does your story begin? Where are you from?

Maxine Manafy: I was born here in the Bay Area, in San Francisco. I was raised in East Oakland. Both my parents are immigrants and entrepreneurs as well. My father is from Iran and my mother is from Samoa. My father built his own furniture business, so he had a furniture factory. My mother worked in the family business, and we all were raised around that environment. My interest in starting my own company has always been there.

Over time I have been in the technology sector. I studied at San Jose State for my undergrad and studied manufacturing engineering. I worked at companies like Intel and KLA-Tencor. I then went to graduate school at Stanford and got an MBA. I then went off and worked at Yahoo and a couple of startups like Mochi Media and Viximo before starting this company.

Sramana: What kind of positions were you working in when you worked for Yahoo and KLA-Tencor?

Maxine Manafy: At Intel and KLA-Tencor I was a manufacturing engineer. I was helping them build fabs, and I really focused on a few functional areas in the semiconductor fabrication area. After I received my MBA and I went to Yahoo, I worked in the Search Group and did business development. I went from being a manufacturing engineer to being in sales where I got in front of people and made pitches. Getting in front of customers is a very scary experience.

I was not outgoing, almost shy if you can believe that. I was not comfortable in my skin, but it was good and a learning experience. In life you need to face the things you are afraid of, and it turns out that I was good at sales.

Sramana: What was the time that you were at Yahoo and the subsequent startups?

Maxine Manafy: I was at Yahoo from 2005 through 2007. I worked at Mochi Media from late 2007 through late 2008. I then went to Viximo, in Boston, and was there from late 2008 to late 2009. I was with Xobni from late 2009 until I founded Bunndle. In June of 2010 I founded Bunndle.

Sramana: What was the genesis of Bunndle?

Maxine Manafy: After working at Yahoo for many years and doing distribution for their products, I got a lot of visibility into how distribution is done. When I went to the startups who didn’t have the same brand reputation, I found that it was hard to get the same kind of deals and acquisition. It was very difficult for them to enter that ecosystem. Startups would hire me to come in and penetrate that market so they could get the scale, but it was very manual.

My dream was to not have to do all of that manual work. I asked myself what I could build to accomplish that and the idea of a platform that built an ecosystem where partners could connect with each other, big or small, is what emerged.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Breaking the Norm: Maxine Manafy, CEO of Bunndle
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