1980Childhood
Born in the US and moved to Nigeria when I was two years old. Watched Superman repeatedly, but wanted to be Batman. Named our pet dogs Optimus Prime and She-Ra.
Ade Olonoh
ah-DAY uh-LA-no
I like building things, playing tournament poker, and watching movies.
- 1980
late-80s
1992High School
Fell in love with programming in a QBasic class. Played MadMaze obsessively on the library’s hacked Prodigy account. Gobbled up the Internet with a 14.4 kbps modem and a SLIP/PPP account. Sold my first software app for $50 to the baseball coach. Played rugby all four years. Drove a Ford LTD.
1996College
Double-majored in computer science and math at Anderson University. Paid my way through college by writing Perl. Played a lot of Quake. Discovered Kurt Vonnegut, Wes Anderson, and Moby. Became a vegetarian. Met my future wife. Had a brief stint as a radio DJ.
2000Bottled Software
Started a software company called Bottled Software along with four friends from college. Racked up credit card debt. Learned a lot about entrepreneurship.
2000Marriage
Met in college, married soon after we graduated. 25+ years later, still going strong.
2002Indianapolis Star
Worked for Gannett at the Indianapolis Star. Wrote code, scaled high-traffic websites. Led the team that was in charge of the technology for the online, production, and editorial systems. Learned a lot about management.
2006Fatherhood
Father to three boys. Played a lot of Minecraft, Fortnite, and Overwatch. I can still beat them at Mario Kart.
2006Formstack
Quit my job the week before my eldest son was born. Started a consulting company and built Formstack on the side, a tool for building online forms. Went full-time after a small angel round. Grew to a couple hundred employees and tens of millions in ARR, then sold to private equity.
2009Formspring
Created the social Q&A app Formspring. Hit 1M registered users in 45 days, moved to the Bay Area, and raised over $16M. Peaked at over 50 million monthly users, making it one of the fastest-growing social media sites of the era. Sold it for pennies on the dollar after growth stalled.
2018Investing
Made angel investments in over a dozen tech startups. Joined Starting Line as a Venture Partner.
2021Poker
Got into poker during the Moneymaker boom. Made enough online to quit my job at the Star and start my own business. Took a 15-year break, then jumped back in during the pandemic. Started competing in high-stakes tournaments in Las Vegas.