Fresh Grease Announces Advisory Team Members
I'm excited to announce Aaron Kerson and Benn Bollay as Fresh Grease advisory team members. Aaron, CEO of PNW Components, brings to the team his cycling industry experience and success as an entrepreneur in the space. Benn, CTO of Fusebit, an integration platform SaaS product, complements the team with outside eyes, early-stage startup expertise, and deep technical knowledge.
Aaron Kerson
Aaron is a veteran of the cycling industry and a successful entrepreneur in the space. Together with his wife Emily, Aaron Co-founded and grew PNW Components to be a recognizable component brand of quality and affordable mountain and gravel bike components. In 2020, PNW Components was featured by Inc. as #114 on their list of 5,000 Fastest-Growing Companies with a whopping 3,167% in 3-Year Growth.
Previously, Aaron was a Product Developer for Specialized Bicycles, Product Manager of Mountain Bikes for Marin Bikes, and held both Software Product Manager and Global Business Development roles for Amazon's Global Sales team.
From his experience with PNW Components and as a rider himself, Aaron understands our target customer and knows firsthand that helping riders with product recommendations is a sound business decision. His support of our vision has been invaluable in guiding our business since well before day-1, and the team and I are stoked to have him with us in an official capacity.
Benn Bollay
Benn brings his entrepreneurial background and wealth of startup experience to the Fresh Grease team. Benn is currently CTO of Fusebit, an early-stage startup company that recently raised $3.3M to simplify software integrations for developers.
Before Fusebit, Benn was the CTO of Seattle-startup Union Bay Networks, which Apple acquired in 2014 and continued on with them as an Engineering Manager. Most recently, he was a CEO-in-Residence at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence where he cofounded CONTUI in a bid to bring computer vision to improve manufacturing and assembly operations in industrial settings.
Benn joins our team to bring new insights and perspectives into Fresh Grease that we wouldn't receive otherwise. He has a way of asking tough questions and challenging assumptions that invoke thought and action from myself and the team. In doing so, Benn helps us learn at an accelerated pace which is critical for companies at our stage.
As with Aaron, Benn has been a personal mentor and role model in the Seattle startup ecosystem since before launching Fresh Grease. The team and I are all incredibly excited to have them both as advisors to the company.