The following individuals will be lending their talents as mentors:

Jerry Alexander, Founder of Acumen Design

Bio: Learn more about Jerry in our Meet the Judges series of posts.

Natalie Barnard, DFJ Mercury

Keith Casey, Developer Evangelist, Twilio

Bio:  Keith Casey has been a developer for over a decade and helps organize various tech communities. To pay the bills, he works as a Developer Evangelist for Twilio to get good tools to good developers so they can build great things. Previously, he built large-scale PHP-based systems for organizations ranging from major news companies to small non-profits. In his spare time, he is the web2project project lead, runs amok in Austin, and blogs on the mis-application of technology at CaseySoftware.com.

Twitter:  @CaseySoftware 

Availability for Mentoring: Throughout the weekend

Areas of Expertise: Product Strategy, Software, Competitive Intelligence

Shion Deysarkar, Founder of 80 Legs, @80leggs

Nathan Eror, Free Time Studios

Bio: Nathan loves creating software and helping other developers hone their skills. He spends his days coding, teaching, writing and running his startup: Free Time Studios. An Apple and Cocoa fan since the turn of the century, Nathan has been a dedicated member of the iOS developer community since the day the SDK was released. Since founding Free Time Studios in 2009, he has helped organizations such as NASA, Thomson Reuters and the U.S. Army ship their iOS apps and train their development teams. His seminars and speaking services are also popular attractions at iOS and Mac developer conferences around the globe. Nathan is an active member of the developer and entrepreneur communities in Houston, and he is the co-organizer of the Houston iPhone Developer Meetup group and the creator of iPhoneDevCamp Houston.

Twitter: neror

Availability for Mentoring: Friday evening, most of Saturday, and maybe a little on Sunday.

Areas of Expertise: Product strategy (especially on mobile) and development advice.

Kim Evans, Emerald Economy LLC

Areas of Expertise: Business operations planning; sales, marketing, pricing and customer acquisition strategies

Chad Farrell, RecycleMatch

Bio: Chad is the Co-Founder of RecycleMatch and most recently the Founder and Managing Director of Tru-Markets. Chad has twenty years of experience in operations, technology and management of startup companies including successful B2B internet marketplaces, AssetNation (Acquired by Spire Capital) where he was SVP Strategy & Operations, and Network International (Acquired by Liquidity Services – NASDAQ: LQDT) where he was COO.

Twitter: @cfar

Availability for Mentoring: Chad plans being at SW on Friday and Sunday evening

Areas of Expertise:  Fund Raising, B2B Marketing and Sales, Online Marketplaces

Aziz Gilani, Venture Capitalist at DFJ Mercury

Glenn Gutierrez, PopScreen.com, AListPress.com, Rentalperks.com

Bio: Glenn is the guy you go to if you want actionable feedback, life advice, or someone to go to a party with so that you can let off some steam after spending 60+ hours on building your startup. Glenn is a Houston-based serial entrepreneur who serves as the Co-Founder of PopScreen.com, AListPress.com, and RentalPerks.com.

PopScreen is in the business of making videos “Go Viral” and currently helps Fortune 500 Companies and Brands to help them achieve this goal. AListPress helps people write awesome blog posts in under 5 minutes. RentalPerks helps you get lots of money back when you rent an apartment.

Twitter: @glenn_gutierrez

Availability for Mentoring: Glenn plans on being in and out each day of the event

Adil Jarfy, Chandah Space Technologies

Bio: Mr. Jafry is Chairman & CEO of Chandah Space Technologies, a Houston and Mountain View based company focused on space commercialization. He is a graduate of the International Space University (ISU) in Strasbourg, France, and prior to that attended the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Jafry’s prior work experience includes international mergers and acquisitions, entrepreneurship, and infrastructure development. Mr. Jafry currently serves as an Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR) at the Houston Technology Center (HTC), named by Forbes as one of “Ten Technology Incubators Changing The World”, and as the President of TiE Houston. He has been awarded the South Asian Chamber of Commerce and the Asian Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year awards in 2006 and 2007. Mr. Jafry is an avid TEDster and enjoys volunteering, reading, and using social media to effect positive change. He also currently serves as faculty on ISU’s prestigious Space Studies Program, and as the Chair of its Business & Management department.

Twitter: adiljafry

Availability for Mentoring: Most likely all three days

Areas of Expertise: Low-cost startup strategies; Performing competitive and industry analysis; Ramping-up revenues; Building a team and a board; Execution best-practices; Setting the venture for an exit.

Jacob Mathew, Houston Technology Center

Bio: Jacob Mathew has an broad background in high tech and entrepreneurship that includes software, electronics and market strategy.  He has over 12 years of experience at Texas Instruments in product marketing, project management and software development. As a Product Marketing Manager for U.S Wireless Infrastructure business at Texas Insruments, he managed all product marketing responsibilities for the U.S business, representing almost one-third of the global 3G Infrastructure market.  In his most recent position, he was Managing Partner at MCCA, LLC, with responsibility for financial analysis, business plans and operations management.  He is passionate about business and marketing strategy.  Jacob holds a Bachelors in Computer Engineering and an MBA from the University of Houston.

Availability for Mentoring: Friday, Saturday

Areas of Expertise: Marketing, Product Strategy and Business Strategy; Software & Electronics

John McCann, First Place Supply, Inc.

Bio: John McCann is a Houston native and 2010 alum of the University of Houston Wolf Center for Entrepreneurship. His current endeavor is First Place Supply, which he took over in late 2008 while working on his degree. He has grown the company from less than 500k  in annual revenue to a multi-million dollar operation with offices and warehouses in multiple states. He specializes in government contracting, but loves SEO, Analytics, eCommerce, and just about anything technology or business related. His latest project is www.1stplacesupply.com, an eCommerce site focused on broadening FPS’s current customer base. He is a mentor for the UH Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization, and is passionate about startups.  Due to limited time, he’s not much of a social media guy, so feel free to contact him via rotary dial, electronic mail, or facsimile.

Availability for Mentoring: Available all three days. Plan on being around as much as possible.

Areas of Expertise: Sales, Getting Paid, Working with the government, Setting up distribution

Jeff Reichman, January Advisors

Info: Learn more about January Advisors in our Sponsor Spotlight post.

Kelsey Ruger

Twitter: @Themoleskin

Aron Susman

Pat Thielke, CEO and Founder of 1spire

Bio: Pat Thielke is 1spire’s CEO and Founder. Pat is also the Co-Founder, President and CEO of Consumer Solutions, Inc., a multi-million dollar Houston-based company focused on bringing new innovations to market since 2002. Before that, he held several positions of increasing responsibility at Drypers Corporation, Procter & Gamble and the US Army. Pat holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Marquette University, and has done graduate work in operations research and business at Stanford University and the University of Southern California.

Availability for Mentoring: Pat will be available Friday evening, Saturday afternoon after 1:30 PM, and all day Sunday.

Areas of Expertise: IP issues (based on practical experience), CPG questions, idea / market testing, bootstrapping, leadership & management, building a team

Doug Vu

Stephen R. White, HTC / Qukku

Greg Wright, HTC

Bio: Learn more about Greg in our Meet the Judges series of posts.

NOTE: Mentor availability is subject to change.