Brian Nickerson '96 visits Upper School for PolyConnect
Brian Nickerson ’96 visited campus today to talk with a group of enthusiastic Upper School students, ranging from sophomores to seniors, about his experience since leaving Poly, including his most recent venture—starting his own company, Chippmunk.com. The site is a savings search engine and just closed its seed funding round earlier this month. During the PolyConnect lunch, Brian shared how he has gotten where he is, even in the face of personal trials and not going to his dream school, Stanford. Instead, Brian played baseball at Dartmouth, which, at 40 hours a week, was like a fulltime job, he said, and taught him valuable life lessons.
After college, he returned to Pasadena and worked for Avery Dennison for a while, but soon realized he wanted to be an entrepreneur; he had started several internet companies in college and had enjoyed the work. After receiving an MBA from Harvard, he began working at Yahoo!, where he learned about search advertising. He left the company to work at Internet Brands for several years. After some time, Brian was ready to venture out on his own.
With the help of two colleagues, Brian started Chippmunk.com, which is off to a terrific start, but has a way to go, he shared. Tracing his Poly connections in his family (his grandmother, father, siblings, and wife, Amy Pomerantz Nickerson ’02, are all alums), as well as the connections he has kept since graduating from Poly, he encouraged students to surround themselves with great people and to immerse themselves in what they do, which Brian has found to help him as he charts his territory online. Read more about PolyConnect here. If you are interested in being a PolyConnect speaker, please email the Alumni Office.
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After college, he returned to Pasadena and worked for Avery Dennison for a while, but soon realized he wanted to be an entrepreneur; he had started several internet companies in college and had enjoyed the work. After receiving an MBA from Harvard, he began working at Yahoo!, where he learned about search advertising. He left the company to work at Internet Brands for several years. After some time, Brian was ready to venture out on his own.
With the help of two colleagues, Brian started Chippmunk.com, which is off to a terrific start, but has a way to go, he shared. Tracing his Poly connections in his family (his grandmother, father, siblings, and wife, Amy Pomerantz Nickerson ’02, are all alums), as well as the connections he has kept since graduating from Poly, he encouraged students to surround themselves with great people and to immerse themselves in what they do, which Brian has found to help him as he charts his territory online. Read more about PolyConnect here. If you are interested in being a PolyConnect speaker, please email the Alumni Office.
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