“Everyone is affected by our financial markets, and a greater understanding of our markets by a larger audience should have a positive influence on the economics of our society.”

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Jennifer is the CEO and Co-Founder of Visible Market Inc., which created the popular mobile app StockTouch. She is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor. Jennifer developed and launched the first internet dating property, LavaLife, as well as several other notable startups including Live365. Prior to the internet, she spent 10 years in finance, first as an equity options floor trader and later as an investment banker in structured corporate finance at Merrill Lynch and UBS. Her angel investments include Twitter and Postini (acquired by Google). She has a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Visible Market Inc. is a data visualization software company that creates groundbreaking mobile apps for the financial markets. Their newest product StockTouch is an iPad/iPhone app that allows users to quickly understand in a very visual way the overall state of the stock market, and then instantly zoom in and out of current market data for individual stocks. StockTouch features a groundbreaking interface that combines design, animation and high performance, bringing together the power of data visualization and Xignite’s financial market data.

MO: What inspired you to create StockTouch? How did your past experience in finance contribute to the direction and development of the app?

Jennifer: I’ve always felt that finance pros had a vastly greater understanding of financial markets, allowing them to make superior investment decisions for themselves. One part of the disparity comes from how information is presented, and another part comes from the reality that financial analytics can be complicated. Our apps use a mobile-touch data visualization engine to recast live financial information with new vibrant visual formats.

MO: The design of StockTouch is elegant yet user friendly. What influenced the design process?

Jennifer: We are big fans of the leading thinkers in data visualization: Edward Tufte, Hans Rosling and David McCandless. Tufte: “The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly – to develop strategies of seeing and showing ”

MO: Do you think that StockTouch is able to make a subject that is often intimidating, more approachable and accessible to the masses?

Jennifer: Yes, I hope so. Live markets generate vast amounts of statistical data. Our apps try to capture those statistics, make them beautiful and more understandable to anyone. Everyone is affected by our financial markets, and a greater understanding of our markets by a larger audience should have a positive influence on the economics of our society. Democratized market information benefits us all, so we are happy to be contributing to this movement.

MO: StockTouch was selected by Apple as the Top iPad Finance App for 2011 via Apple’s App Store Rewind 2011! How did it feel to be recognized by Apple and how does that kind recognition influence the direction of company?

Jennifer: Very exciting. We are psyched to be developing apps for awesome products like the iPad2 and iPhone4S, and are thrilled to have this recognition from Apple.

MO: You have an immense amount of experience with both start -up companies and the IT industry. What would you say are essential components that a business needs to succeed?

Jennifer: Hard work, teamwork, inspiration, positive outlook, and the constant willingness to take risks.

MO: What new features are you adding to StockTouch for 2012?

Jennifer: New visualizations, watch lists, portfolios, new markets, international, and socialization.