about

Hi, I’m Steve. I’m a Dad and entrepreneur. I’ve worked on consumer apps, online travel, food and grocery, computer games, relational databases, management consulting, and telecom.

I love to build; I’ve founded multiple companies over my career.

current projects

2026: Popsee, which lets website developers ask simple questions of their users.

2025: PollQR, a QR Code surveying and live-audience voting solution.

2025: OurSharedPlace, which simplifies shared ownership of vacation property.

2022: Seattlebrief, an AI-powered news and events aggregator for the Seattle metro area. Psst: I’m looking for an interested Seattleite to take this one over. Drop me a note, below.

past projects

In 2019, I launched Alignvote, a voter–candidate matchmaker. This tool helped Seattle voters find their best-aligned political candidates in 2019 and 2021. Alignvote indexed candidates’ own on-the-record stances from public debates and forums, allowing voters to compare their answers to those same questions. It also gave candidates the opportunity to elaborate on their positions. I generalized Alignvote into a platform to allow civic and news organizations to create their own voter-candidate matchmaking quizzes.

In the early 2000s, I founded BigOven, the first recipe app for iPhone, which grew to more than 15 million downloads before I sold it in 2018. BigOven is still live, and serves millions of home cooks. I’m a director for Aisle Ahead Inc., the Knoxville-based maker of grocery and consumer recipe software which now owns BigOven.

In the 2010’s, I served as a Director and ultimately Chairman of Escapia Inc., the leading SaaS solution for the U.S. vacation rental industry, which was acquired by HomeAway (now part of Expedia).

During the COVID pandemic, I built HipHip.app (now offline), which made it easy to create collaborative celebration videos with multiple participants from afar.

In 1997, I co-founded and served as President, CEO, and Chairman of VacationSpot, a pioneer in online vacation rentals that was acquired by Expedia in January 2000. At Expedia, I was Vice President of Vacation Packages, leading the vacation package and destination services teams. I helped create two patents on the first-ever dynamic vacation packaging system on the Internet—technology that now powers billions in annual transactions for Expedia.

I’ve keynoted several times for the Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) and taught a graduate-level course on the strategic management of innovation at the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

Earlier in my career, I worked at Microsoft from 1991 to 1997 in various marketing and executive roles. I led the creation of the Internet Games Group, helped develop several products and patents related to online multiplayer gaming, and was part of the launch of Microsoft Access and the acquisition of Fox Software in 1993. Before Microsoft, I worked with IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Bell Communications Research.

civic engagement

Politically, I’m an independent moderate; I have never been affiliated with any political party. I believe in outcome-based, trustworthy, transparent governance, guided by evidence of what works and what doesn’t—rather than ideology. If it’s a Progressive idea which works as measured by the outcomes, great! If it’s a conservative idea which works, as measured by outcomes, also great! I also believe Seattle’s municipal government must work well for all 724,000+ Seattleites.

When time allows, I volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, the University District Food Bank, the YMCA of Seattle, the Technology Access Foundation (TAF), and other Seattle-area organizations.

education

I hold an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University (concentration, Symbolic and Heuristic Computation – AI), and an MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS.) At HBS, I was named a George F. Baker Scholar. Undergrad, I earned a dual BS in Applied Mathematics/Computer Science and Industrial Management from Carnegie Mellon University, graduating with University Honors.

contact

Best way to reach me is via a Direct Message on X (@stevemur), or via LinkedIn‘s messaging system.