Joe Riehl, President and CEO
Joe Riehl attended the University of California at San Diego pursuing a double major in Computer Science and Economics. He was recruited late in his senior year to join Electric Pencil Inc., a graphic design and advertising company whose clients included Paramount, Warner Bros, and Sony studios, as a new media specialist. Within one year he was appointed to the position of Vice President of Operations for that company’s Hollywood and LA offices which had over sixty combined employees. Projects he managed during this time included the marketing and design of many movie ads and artists albums, including several Disney movies, Aliens 3, Guns n Roses’ Use Your Illusion 1 and 2, and other topselling favorites. Yearly revenue for Electric Pencil during Mr. Riehl’s tenure rose from under $1 million to over $10 million within two years.
Mr. Riehl then formed RS International Inc., a web-design and online marketing company whose clients included Disney, MP3.com, Buzzlink.com, Car and Driver, and FashionMall.com. During this time Joe managed online marketing campaigns and traffic development programs that focused on maximizing revenue. For the first time in advertising history the Internet offered a way to precisely track ad spending vs. ad revenue and RSI capitalized on this for their clients. RSI was also one of the first companies to market cell-phones on-line with an exclusive contract from AT&T, and one of the first to offer search engine optimization.
Mr. Riehl then focused on the opportunities in the search engine advertising market (SEM) in 1999 by creating RComm Inc. with the intention to offer clients a systematic way to track ad spending and the ability to ramp up marketing budgets with predictable results. Since that time, RComm has acted as a consulting firm for a wide-variety of companies seeking to develop and capitalize on their online presence.
During this time, Mr. Riehl also produced a television series pilot for the Sci-fi channel, The Chronicles, which became that channel’s top-rated show for three seasons. He also consulted and marketed music artists and seminar leaders selling their audio and videos online. One of his artists, Emote, was the number one downloaded alternative band on mp3.com.
Seeing the future of online commerce being highly dependent on information management, Mr. Riehl was instrumental in the development of PB Magic, Inc. (“PBM”) with online database and e-commerce expert, and company COO, Denis Sluka. During this time, Mr. Riehl managed the development of PBM web-sites and managed the on-line sales and credit-card processing for numerous companies. During his engagement, PBM generated $3 million in revenue during its second year and seven figures for the next seven years – with a 45% profit margin.
Denis Sluka, Chief Operating Officer (COO)
A self-taught entrepreneur and with over 15 years of development, database and ecommerce expertise, Mr. Sluka is co-founder of Company subsidiaries PB Magic and CupidsDevil, as well has heading up development for i-Mobilize. Prior to co-founding the companies, he served as inventory database programmer and manager for high-end mens’ clothing designer and manufacturer, Mario Valente. Prior to that, he served with NY-based Croman Real Estate as its listings database developer. Under his company, Spidermade, Inc., he also designed and developed the websites of clothing designer, Sigrid Olsen, FashionMall.com, Car and Driver, and Smashbox Cosmetics. His deep design and programming experience are crucial to the Company’s ongoing success.