Mr. Taub
Dang, looks like we missed a couple prime candidate from our spring Poachables list.
Alex Taub, head of business development and partnerships at Aviary--and a familiar face to anyone in the New York startup scene--just announced that he will be starting a new post in a similar role at Dwolla, the online payments company that has investors swooning for its ability to reduce costly credit card interchange fees. After much speculation, Dwolla finally announced a $5 million round in February led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Thrive Capital* and Marc Ecko of Artists & Instigators.
The fact that Mr. Taub will be setting up a Dwolla outpost right here in New York City should settle any feathers ruffled over Silicon Prairie poaching etiquette.
"You are probably asking yourself, isn’t Dwolla based in Iowa?" says Mr. Taub. "Well, yes it is. To that regard, I will be establishing Dwolla’s NY satellite (location TBD) with my good friend Michael Schonfeld, as he is joining Dwolla as their developer evangelist." Mr. Schonfeld was a former web developer at Onvi Media and most recently cofounded Obesh, a company that lets users try out their makeup obsession online.
As Dwolla's Biz Dev Leader, Mr. Taub says, "I will be tasked with growing out the API platform- similar to what I did at Aviary with their photo API, except now with a payment API."
He's wasted no time rallying New York natives (or updating his Twitter/LinkedIn/About.me/Tumblr), adding, "If your business is creating revenue and you are paying a percentage of that revenue in credit card fees, you should consider adding the ability to accept Dwolla as a payment option." We'll update the post with comment from Mr. Taub as soon as we hear back. In the meantime, check out his prolific contributions to Forbes.com under "Alex's Tech Thoughts."
Checkin in on 4sq? NYC cred in effect.