Parallel Entrepreneur

Parallel
Entrepreneur

Co-founder and CEO of CanaryTags, and builder of several more companies at the same time, on purpose. AI now makes that possible: agents carry the research, drafting and follow-up, so my hours go to the decisions that matter. Each company runs on its own track with its own team, customers and numbers. What carries across is the method: measure everything, ship small, and let the data decide.

Building now

Supply chain · since 2025Co-founder & CEO

CanaryTags

Connected shipment visibility powered by LarkNet™. Small, low-cost tags ride inside freight and send location pings, so shippers, 3PLs and carriers can see who had a shipment and when.

canarytags.com

Go-to-market AI · since 2026Co-founder

Cheetah GTM

An applied GTM lab. Cheetah connects a revenue team's systems, builds agents that work every account daily with human approval, and proves the lift with evals. Best for established sales and success teams entering a new market.

becheetah.com

AI training data · 2026Founder

Codicilla

Buys and licenses the working archives of software companies that have closed (code, docs and support history), cleans them, documents clean title, and licenses them for AI training. Proceeds go to the company's creditors and shareholders.

Media · since 2025Co-founder

WiseGuyGaming

An editorial platform for game reviews and culture, built for syndication partners and the readers who find it there.

wiseguygaming.com

Research · since 2026Founder

Germinal Center Research

Independent research on the biology of the germinal center, where B cells mature, using public genomic data and the same data science methods.

Advising, teaching and research

2026 to now

Strategic Advisor, TVon.ai

Verified, privacy-preserving audience signals for connected TV, so publishers can open restricted ad categories without passing personal data.

2026 to now

Adjunct Professor, Indiana University Bloomington

The Media School. Teaching Media Industry Measurement and Analytics: how audiences are counted, how those counts become money, and where the counts go wrong.

2025 to now

Postdoctoral Researcher, NJIT

Data science research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where the PhD was earned.

Published research

Measurement, privacy and advertising technology, mostly with colleagues at NJIT. Cited 300 times on Google Scholar. The two books are listed under Writing.

Three decades in media, technology and data

2013 to 2024

Hearst Magazines

Chief Operating Officer and SVP Revenue Platforms and Operations (2013 to 2018), then Chief Data Officer (2018 to 2022) and SVP Data and Analytics (2023 to 2024).

2000 to 2013

Forbes

President and Chief Digital Officer, building Forbes.com through the move to programmatic advertising and contributor publishing.

1999 to 2000

TheStreet

Chief Information Officer.

1991 to 1999

HBO

Director.

1989 to 1991

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital

Telecommunications engineer. Where it started.

Books

Author

Targeted (2014), on how data changed advertising, and The Native Advertising Advantage (2017).

Books, columns and posts

2014

Targeted: how technology is revolutionizing advertising and the way companies reach consumers. With Steven Flax. Amazon

AMACOM

2017

The Native Advertising Advantage: building content that earns attention instead of interrupting it. Also on audiobook. Amazon

McGraw-Hill Education

Column

Ad Impressions, a contributor column on advertising technology. forbes.com/sites/mikesmith

Oct 2026

Most shipment tracking answers where a shipment is. When something goes wrong, the question that matters is who had it, and when.

LinkedIn · CanaryTags

Sep 2026

CanaryTags joins the Neutral Air Partner ecosystem.

Rules for running in parallel

Separate the tracks

Every venture keeps its own brand, inbox, CRM and books. Nothing leaks between them, including contacts.

Share the method, not the work

The same playbook for research, outreach and measurement runs everywhere. The people and the products stay distinct.

Let software carry the load

AI agents handle research, drafting and logging across every track. People make the calls that matter.

Count it, then decide

A track that cannot show progress in its own numbers gets cut or reshaped, however much I like it.

Slower tracks

Silver medal

Mojo Vineyards. Winemaking in Mendham since October 2025. The Sangiovese took silver at the 2026 WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition, among 25 entries in its class.

30 seconds a week

Railroad Grade. Restoring American pocket watches, mostly South Bend and Waltham movements from the railroad era, when a conductor's watch had to hold time to within 30 seconds a week. Small parts, long timelines, no shortcuts.