About Pete
Creator / Founder / ex-CEO Trapster, co-inventor/developer of Cisco’s PIX Firewall, the 1st server load balancer, the 1st content router. Founder / key employee in 6 startup companies, 4 exits. Angel investor and advisor. Surfing and sportbike fanatic. I spend my better days in Cardiff by the Sea, California.
I sold Trapster® to Nokia in 2010. I personally developed the original app and server software, long before Apple had the iPhone or Google had Android. But it was the launch of the iPhone App Store that put Trapster on the “map”. Over time I outsourced development. It was a huge project, spanning 10 mobile platforms, hosted on multiple (large) server farms. For more than 2 years following the Trapster iPhone app release, past when I sold (and no longer ran) the company, Trapster was the #1 or 2 most popular (by downloads) Navigation app on iPhone, BlackBerry and most other smartphones, with only MapQuest as viable competition. Downloads (reported on the site homepage) were as high as 50,000 per day and rarely less than 15,000. Usage was equally impressive, with millions of active users, critical mass (blue lines on all major roads showing actual users driving around with the app open) in most major metropolitan areas around Earth (from Los Angeles to Lebanon, New York to Sydney, St Louis to Abu Dhabi), and 8,000-10,000 User Generated Inputs every day. Trapster was featured on the front page of most every major publication (WSJ, NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today) and covered on national news (Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC) and local channels in most every city in the United States.
It was a great run, by far the most fun I’ve ever had (and the most work I’ve ever done).
I sincerely appreciate all of the support and patience from the users!
Pete.