Douglas Merrill

Founder & CEO, ZestFinance

Douglas Merrill is the CEO and founder of ZestFinance, a financial services technology company that provides credit alternatives for the underbanked. ZestFinance announced a $19 million round of Series A funding in July 2011 and was one of Forbes’ Names You Need to Know in 2011. Merrill is the former CIO and Vice President of Engineering at Google, where he helped bring the company to its IPO and with related regulatory activities. Google’s current CIO, Ben Fried, took over in April 2008 upon Merrill’s departure. After Google, Merrill served as president of EMI Music’s digital unit. In March 2010, Merrill published the book, “Getting Organized in the Google Era: How to Get Stuff Out of Your Head, Find It When You Need It, and Get It Done Right”. Merrill is also a former researcher with the RAND Corporation and is listed among the organization’s most notable participants. He is a graduate of the University of Tulsa with a major in social and political organization. Merrill attended Princeton where he received Masters and Doctoral degrees in psychology. His academic publications include articles in The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Cognition and Instruction, Reliable Distributed Systems, and a paper in the book series Lecture Notes in Computer Science (1992; 608:103-110). He currently sits on the board of The Filter

Articles by Douglas Merrill

How to Keep Your Emails Landing in the Inbox with Google’s Updated Spam Policies with Daniel-wise Ojaide

In this Mucker Growth session, Daniel-wise Ojaide from Warmbox.ai delves into the changes to Google and Yahoo’s updated spam policies and how to ensure your emails and outbound campaigns are...

Best Customers, Best Results: Unlocking Retention-Driven B2C Growth with Julius Lai

In this Mucker Growth session, Julius Lai from ArtShare discusses customer retention, which is often overlooked but essential for startups facing growth challenges. The following content will provide practical recaps...

Leveraging a Financial Model for Fundraising Success with Steven Plappert

In this Mucker Growth Session, Steven Plappert, CEO and co-founder of Forecastr, tackles how to use your financial model to the best capacity when fundraising. Your financial model can be...

How to Nail Your Pitch Deck (and Avoid Mistakes Founders Make) with Matt Gore

Have you ever thought of the average attention span per slide when an investor is going through your pitch deck? What kind of pitch deck are investors expecting? Our recent...

How Startups Can Develop a Positioning Strategy To Create a Lasting Brand with Rosabel Tao

In this Mucker Growth session, Rosabel Tao from Fire & Bridge delves into the critical field of startup positioning strategy and its crucial role in shaping enduring brands. Rosabel also...

SaaS Startup Pricing Mistakes (and How to Fix Them) with Kyle Poyar

In this Mucker Growth session, Kyle Poyar from OpenView delves into the critical topic of pricing for SaaS startups, aiming to rectify prevailing mistakes in your pricing strategies. Optimizing SaaS...