Eric Koester

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”

― Oprah Winfrey

Eric is living his adventure -- creating businesses that help people do what they love. His latest business will help business owners and entrepreneurs find and manage capital to grow their businesses, create jobs and grow the economy.

He co-founded his last company, the online peer marketplace Zaarly, at a 2011 Startup Weekend — taking it all the way from prototype to seed funding in a cool 54 hours.

At Zaarly, the team raised money from some of the world’s most renowned investors. Think Kleiner Perkins, Ashton Kutcher, Meg Whitman, SV Angel and Marc Ecko. Zaarly nabbed a spot on Fast Company’s “50 Most Innovative Companies” list just last year by facilitating millions of dollars in peer-to-peer transactions.

Eric just can’t resist the startup bug — and as his baby, Zaarly, has started to mature, he has turned his sights on disrupting the world of small business financing. As a “reformed” lawyer, a professor at Georgetown, a prolific writer/blogger/author (he penned the Green Entrepreneur Handbook and What Every Engineer Should Know About Starting a High-Tech Business Venture), an active angel investor, mentor and volunteer, Eric’s journey is just getting underway.

Eric's wife Allison is a professor at Georgetown and they love to travel and spend time outdoors with their two pugs. They love to try and cross off their bucket list by visiting all 100 of the Hillman Wonders of the World. 46 down... 54 to go. If you want someone to jump on a flight and cross an adventure off that list, call him.