SEA SHOWCASE 2009 KEYNOTE SPEAKER: ANDY BEAL

Andy Beal is the Founder of MaxPreps.com America’s Source for High School Sports.  and President of CBS MaxPreps Inc, Since April 2007, when MaxPreps was acquired by CBS Corporation, Andy also serves as a Senior Vice President for CBS Sports.

Andy was raised in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angles, attended Canoga Park High School and later graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from CSU Northridge.

Andy and Kim have raised three sons in Cameron Park.  Two of their sons, Russell and Rhett are in college, and their eldest son Ryan, is a software developer for MaxPreps.

Andy’s business life is inextricably connected to his personal life long interest in high school sports.  His dad, Frank Beal was a teacher and coach, and some of Andy’s earliest childhood memories involve being a water boy for the local high school football team.

Later, Andy played high school basketball, and was named “most spirited” student at Canoga High.

As Andy’s sons because interested in sports, Andy dove into coaching, both soccer and basketball.  He has been a coach at Ponderosa High School, in Shingle Springs for the past ten years.

Andy spent the early part of his career in technology sales and marketing.  He caught the entrepreneurial bug in 1993 when he founded a small business that eventually morphed into MaxPreps.

MaxPreps was not an over-night success, nor did it spring from a fully developed business plan.  Rather, the company Andy founded went through several business plans, before it got serious national traction.

Andy’s idea for a national high school sports website was not a new idea.  Several entrepreneurs had previously attempted to “roll-up” the high school sports market, but none had succeeded.  Where many had failed, Andy and the team at MaxPreps succeeded.  As one MaxPreps board member said, “Andy had the perfect blend of experience a feel for the high school space and technical competence to pull this off.”

MaxPreps was formally launched in the fall of 2003.  MaxPreps grew rapidly to be the grand-daddy of high school sports websites and was acquired by CBS only eight months after the company successfully raised it Series B financing round from DFJ Frontier and other New York-based venture capital funds.

As an entrepreneur, Andy developed business plans, hired and managed staff, bought and sold companies and assets, and financed his company’s growth through both creative and traditional funding sources, including angel, strategic, and venture capital rounds.

With clients like Nike, Adidas, the US Army, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Burger King, MaxPreps is not only the largest high school sports website, but it is the most financially successful high school sports media company in the country.

While Andy most often gets the credit for founding MaxPreps and navigating to success, he is careful to advise entrepreneurs that success is rarely achieved by one person alone.  Andy credits Lee Rees for having the vision to finance MaxPreps early growth, and Scott Lenet, of DFJ Frontier, for identifying MaxPreps strengths and becoming the company’s first professional investor.

As CBS Sports’ high school brand, MaxPreps continues to grow.  Still headquartered in Cameron Park, MaxPreps employs sixty full time staffers.  MaxPreps has grown beyond being a popular website.  The MaxPreps Holiday Classic Basketball Tournament in San Diego is one of the largest and most respected boys basketball invitational tournaments in the nation.  The company also produces television programming aired on CBS, CBS College Sports Network and Comcast Regional SportsNets.

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