Allen Graber is the ATDC’s newest Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR).

This begs the question what exactly is an EIR? It means different things at different places but at ATDC we bring on EIRs to strengthen the ATDC community by adding experienced, successful, former executives of technology start-up companies to the team on a short-term basis. These are usually folks that are looking for their next opportunity and are the types of people that can run early stage ATDC companies (three of the last four are doing just that). The EIR makes a commitment to work at least a day a week with ATDC companies. They essentially serve as a free consultants for companies that can benefit from their experience.

It also begs the question on how Allen fits into this mold? I have known Allen for many years. Way back in the day we interviewed him to become a Territory Manager at MindSpring. We wanted to hire him. He wanted lots of money. We did not have it. He went and started HyperMart instead. Sold it to Go2Net. Go2Net goes public, gets bought by InfoSpace. Allen makes a lot of money.

After all that Allen became a founding member of the Atlanta Technology Angels, played CEO of SPI Dynamics, and was an SVP at SearchIgnite. In a nutshell he has a wealth of entreprenurial and Internet business experience that can benefit ATDC companies (for that matter non-ATDC companies).

We are pleased to have him as part of the team.