How Losing My Mentor Inspired A Business

Selina Tobaccowala co-founded Evite when she was in college, and, after selling it to IAC, took on senior roles at Ticketmaster. But then she met her mentor in Dave Goldberg, the CEO of Survey- Monkey, and she became that firm’s president and CTO. His sudden death in May 2015 prompted her to get more active—and start a company to help others do the same.

- Yasmin Gagné

SELINA TOBACCOWALA/GIXO

In His Honor

Selina Tobaccowala co-founded Evite while still a student at Stanford University. Until the untimely passing of her boss, she was an unlikely founder of a fitness company.

Dave Goldberg was one of the people who recruited me to SurveyMonkey. I immediately saw that he was someone I could learn a lot from. He came out to London to meet me, and I then interviewed at the firm’s offices in Silicon Valley. When I landed back in the U.K., I had an email offer from the company. I also realized I was pregnant with my first child.

I told him I wanted more equity, I couldn’t start for another three months—and that I was pregnant. Dave replied that he wanted to build a highly profitable business that also had a very strong family culture. When I saw his response, I immediately thought, “This is the guy I want to work for.”