Ken Berkun

Ken Berkun is a Seattle-based serial technology entrepreneur best known as the founder, president, and inventor behind Labels That Talk and its Soundpaper technology — a patented method for printing audio directly onto paper or labels, with applications ranging from talking photographs and greeting cards to spoken prescription labels. He provides the strategic leadership and vision for the company and drives its execution. He holds a B.S. in Human-Machine Interaction from the University of California, Davis.

Earlier, Berkun was a co-founder of Singingfish, launched in Seattle in mid-1999 alongside John DeRosa, Eric Rehm, and Mike Behlke. Billed as the world's first audio/video search engine, Singingfish powered media search for Windows Media Player, RealPlayer/RealOne, AOL Search, Dogpile, and Metacrawler, using its own purpose-built crawler ("Asterias"). Berkun was responsible for the company's concept, business plan, and strategy, and served in a succession of executive roles including Director of Marketing, VP of Strategic Planning, and VP of Content (overseeing the "Streambase" and content team). Singingfish was absorbed by Thomson multimedia (2001) and ultimately acquired by AOL in October 2003 — the "one successful exit" often cited in his bio.

Prior to Singingfish, Berkun worked at Equator Technologies, a Seattle-based media-processor developer, and earlier in his career spent time at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Bellevue, WA, and Hong Kong in various technical and marketing roles. Across these ventures he has raised both angel and venture capital, giving him first-hand experience on both sides of the early-stage funding table.

Berkun is also an active educator on entrepreneurship and fundraising, having published presentation decks such as *How To Entrepreneur*, *Early Stage Funding*, *Business Plans*, and *Perfecting the Pitch* — material aimed at helping founders navigate the seed process he himself has run repeatedly.

• Invests as an individual angel at the seed / early stage, consistent with his own path of raising angel and VC rounds for his companies.
• Draws on deep operating experience in audio, media, search, and print/hardware technology — areas where his product and go-to-market judgment are strongest.
• Values a clear concept, business plan, and strategy — the exact responsibilities he owned as a founder — and has publicly taught founders how to build these (see his *Early Stage Funding* and *Perfecting the Pitch* decks).
• Rooted in the Seattle / Pacific Northwest startup ecosystem, where he has operated as founder, mentor, and connector.