Chatbox, the Seattle-based startup founded last year by professional poker veteran Phil Gordon, has hired Doug Miller, formerly chief revenue officer of LivingSocial, as its CEO.
Gordon, the startup veteran and computer scientist known by many as the former commentator on Bravo’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown,” is the company’s president and chief product officer.
Miller’s appointment comes as Chatbox gears up for a broader rollout of its platform, which aims to help companies communicate more seamlessly with their customers across social networks, texting and chat.
In a post about his decision to join Chatbox, Miller explained that he had been talking with Gordon for more than a year about the company’s plans. Miller says he sees a big need for the Chatbox service based on his experience at LivingSocial, and Expedia and Ticketmaster prior to that.
“This is a big idea, and I can’t resist big ideas that have great market potential,” Miller said via phone this week.
One of the goals is to eliminate the need for companies to ask customers to direct-message them and follow them back on Twitter to communicate about a problem they’re experiencing. Instead, companies using Chatbox can send customers a link to a secure chat or messaging experience.
An early feature called “Chatbox Interactives” also lets companies create custom communication tools for sales and support scenarios specific to their product or service.
The Chatbox team includes engineering co-founders Aaron Davidson, Scott Fortin, and Jason Spencer, veterans of the engineering team that built Full Tilt Poker, the world’s second largest online poker site.
Chatbox has raised more than $2.3 million from investors including former Yahoo president Sue Decker, PayPal veteran Scott Banister, Gotham Capital principal Robert Goldstein and others.
