Overview

Inigral’s mission is to bring a simplifying, user-centered design approach to higher education.

• We want students to be people, not numbers in a system.
• We want students to learn from each other, not just from their lectures.
• We want students to have school software that they want to use, not have to use.

Inigral's flagship product, Schools on Facebook, helps students discover and engage with their school, and helps schools achieve results through the Facebook platform.

Founded in June 2007, Inigral is backed by early Facebook investor Founders Fund and Retro Venture Partners. Inigral is operated by a dedicated, industry-leading team of educators and entrepreneurs working in the heart of social media's epicenter, the San Francisco Bay Area. By virtue of our location and industry relationships, Inigral is highly involved in the Facebook ecosystem and the innovation underway in social media. Our team even shares offices with the number one Facebook application, Causes.

Schools on Facebook

Schools on Facebook is a Facebook application built for colleges and universities. The market-leading Lifecycle Engagement Platform, Schools on Facebook allows colleges and universities to engage prospective students from their first inquiry to their first day of classes, enrolled students throughout their tenure, and alumni beyond graduation.

Schools on Facebook supports the critical efforts of colleges and universities:

• Increasing retention and yield
• Improving the transition period from prospect, to student, to alumni
• Enabling new students to find a sense of belonging
• Competing for attention amongst sites including YouTube and Facebook

Our Team

History

Inigral was founded in Summer 2007 when co-founder Michael Staton was working at an Education-focused start-up in Palo Alto, CA. While there, he spent time with early Facebook employees and the Facebook Platform team. After learning that Facebook had no plans to continue building tools specifically for colleges and universities, Joseph Sofaer joined Staton to help build their first Facebook application. With a seed investment from Founders Fund, an early investor in Facebook, Inigral was born.

Michael Staton

CEO / Co-founder

After teaching high school for three years, Michael was recruited as an Educational Interaction Designer for Batiq, a San Francisco-based startup. Aware of the impending launch of Facebook platform, he started Inigral to build tools for education on Facebook. Michael graduated from Clark University, receiving his MA in International Development and Social Change.

Mark Triest

President

Mark has over 20 years of experience in the higher education technology market. Prior to joining Inigral, Mark served as Senior Vice President for Global Sales at Sungard Higher Education for six years. He holds a BS in Business Administration from Northeastern University.

Nick Punt

Vice President, Products

Nick is responsible for the product direction, design, and execution of Schools on Facebook. Nick brings to Inigral a mix of experience in design, education, online communities, and entrepreneurship, having most recently co-founded Socialfly, an innovative private addressbook for Facebook. Nick’s passion lies in educational entrepreneurship, using the power of social software to transform and enhance lives. Nick has a BA in Psychology from UC Irvine, an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and an MA in Education from Stanford School of Education.

Joseph Sofaer

Lead Developer / Co-founder

Joseph spends most of his time ensuring Inigral's products have intelligent and consistent design. Prior to starting Inigral, he spent time computationally identifying novel antibiotic sites on bacterial rRNA at NYU, and also interned at Hewlett Packard’s Information Dynamics Lab, working on the prototype for CloudPrint under the guidance of Scott Golder and Bernardo Huberman. Joseph graduated from NYU, double-majoring in Chemistry and Computer Science.

George Deglin

Lead Developer / Co-founder

George is responsible for many of the technical aspects of Inigral’s applications. His JavaScript library is the new standard for Facebook applications on Rails. George studied Computer Science at University of California at Berkeley prior to starting Inigral.

Tony Zanders

Director of Interactive Communications

Tony leads all marketing, communications, and public relations efforts at Inigral. Prior to Inigral, Tony was a member of the sales team at SimplyHired.com, focusing on the hospitality and higher education verticals. Tony graduated with honors from Washington and Jefferson College with a BA English and Philosophy.

Kyle Langdon

Client Strategist

Kyle plays an instrumental role in Inigral’s account management and implementation strategy. Prior to joining Inigral, Kyle worked in sales and customer service. Kyle studied International Business at San Francisco State University.

Minnie Fontes

Client Strategist

Minnie brings 10 years of on-campus experience to Inigral to assist in our client strategy process. She is also responsible for Inigral's HR, payroll, and office management. Prior to joining Inigral, Minnie was a member of the University Technology team at Arizona State. She is currently a marketing student at the University of Phoenix, and enjoys yoga and traveling in her free time.

Nicole Thayer

Designer

Nicole is responsible for the design and upkeep of Inigral.com, the Inigral blog, and all of our marketing collateral. She has over 10 years of web and graphic design, including stints at Trader Joes and the City of Calabasas. Nikki received her BA in Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2006.

Howard Kao

Interaction Designer

Howard is a versatile developer at Inigral, building out the Schools on Facebook user experience. Prior to Inigral, he worked at Asurion Mobile Applications, as a UX design and Java Developer. Howard studied at Stanford University, receiving both a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science, focusing on Human-Computer Interaction and Usability.

Justin Bryant

Developer

Justin uses his knowledge of Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and JavaScript to create a wide variety of engaging features for our applications. Programming since 15, he studied computer science at University of California at Santa Barbara. Justin is also a professional skater for Comet Skateboards as a downhill racer.

William Wieboldt

Developer

With over ten years of experience in web development and a high level of expertise in CSS, William focuses on the user-facing aspects of Schools on Facebook. His other areas of knowledge are numerous, and he has developed multiple Facebook applications, including BrainBone, QuizBone, 3 Word Story, and Robot Armies, which have seen millions of users worldwide. He is also studying Computer Science at Texas State University and is currently a senior.

Interns