April Dunford

Author of Obviously Awesome

April spent the first 25 years of her career as astartup executive, running marketing, product, and sales teams. She led teams at seven successful B2B technology startups. Most of those startups were acquired (DataMirror to IBM, Janna Systems to Siebel Systems, then SAP, Watcom to Sybase via Powersoft, to name a few), and ran big teams at IBM, Siebel, Sybase, and others. The total of those acquisitions is more than two billion dollars. Across that journey, she positioned, re-positioned, and launched 16 products.

April has a deep curiosity about what makes the difference between a winning product and a loser. Developing a systematic way of positioning technology products and companies has become my life's work. As a consultant, she has had the privilege of working with more than 100 companies, allowing her to go even deeper and broaden her positioning expertise. The bulk of her work is with early and growth-stage startups. Companies where the stakes are high - and weak positioning can mean the difference between success or failure. She also works with large global companies, helping them develop deeper positioning expertise in their product and marketing teams.

April's book, Obviously Awesome, captures her ideas about positioning and a methodology for doing it that any startup can follow. It's become a best-seller and popular among entrepreneurs, product, and marketing folk. She studied Engineering in University, and if you had told her then that someday she would be an author, she would have said you were nuts. It turns out her grade 6 English teacher was wrong about the importance of grammar.

April is at the stage of my career where she's trying to give back as much as she can. She is a mentor and advisor to dozens of startups and folks that work in them. She is an enthusiastic board member at a handful of startups.

April lives in Toronto, Canada. She has kids, a small dog, and a cabin in the woods.