Dana Stalder

General Partner, Matrix Partners

Dana Stalder is a Silicon Valley based general partner at Matrix Partners, where he invests in early stage software and internet companies. Dana’s experience cuts across multiple disciplines including sales, marketing, finance, technology and product management at companies such as eBay, Netscape, PayPal and Respond.com. He has managed nimble ventures as well as 2,500-person teams. Dana joined Matrix in 2008 from PayPal, where he was a senior vice president and managed all business operations, including product, sales, marketing and technology. He is a board member at iRise, minuteKEY, QuinStreet, GOGII, Polyvore and Zendesk. Dana also invested in Zong, the leading mobile payment service used by online gaming and social networking websites (acquired by PayPal in 2011). Dana studied business and economics at Santa Clara University. After college he worked at Ernst & Young advising technology companies such as Quantum, Sun Microsystems, Remedy, Netscape, and Intuit.

Articles by Dana Stalder

The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out

A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...

Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends

Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....

Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations

In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...

2025 New York Tech Week Recap Of Mucker Sessions

Last week during New York Tech Week 2025, we joined more than 1,000 events hosted by founders, investors, and VCs. This post is a full Mucker recap of the three...

How to Build a Customer Support Function for Startups Using AI Tools with Alex Velinov

Delivering high-quality customer support can be one of the most resource-draining parts of a startup. The good news: we’re at a turning point where founders can use AI tools to...