Edward Aten

Edward Aten is the Founder and CEO of Merchbar, an online retailer specializing in music merchandise.13 He co-founded Merchbar with John Hecker to create a centralized platform for fans to discover and purchase merchandise from their favorite artists.24

Professional Background

Aten describes himself as a designer and entrepreneur working at the intersection of entertainment and technology.1 His experience includes:

• Founding and selling Swift.fm, a social music service used by artists like The Roots and A Tribe Called Quest15
• Running the Genentech account at an interactive agency
• Producing concerts for bands such as Stone Temple Pilots, Wyclef, and Run DMC1

Merchbar

Under Aten's leadership, Merchbar has grown to offer:

• Over 1 million items
• Merchandise from 35,000 artists
• A wide range of artists from The Beatles to Justin Bieber3

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and operates out of the Twitter building.2

Other Ventures

Aten is also involved in various other projects:

• Curator of HackingMixes.com, a newsletter featuring music for work
• Contributor to teams at Drip, Pono, GigaOm, Red Bull, and Stanford's d.school1

Education

Edward Aten attended the University of New Hampshire from 1999 to 2003.6