Committed to Growing Your Business

RapidBuyr saves you time and money by offering all the things your business needs in one place, and at prices well below retail. Whether you own a business, or work in someone else’s, you’ll find discounted pricing on business equipment, cloud applications, software, business services, office supplies and more; everything you need to keep your business growing.

Our Philosophy

We’re one of the 27 million small and mid-sized businesses in the United States today. We work hard, and we play hard, and we pour our hearts into our business. And we know that running a business is a twenty-four hour job. Founded by serial entrepreneurs with a passion for starting and building businesses, we know the challenges that you face, and the goals that you strive for; they’re our challenges and goals too.

Our philosophy is simple. We help small and mid-sized businesses grow, and save time and money, by offering unparalleled deals on business equipment, software, services, cloud applications such as data storage and virtual meeting tools, office supplies, and, really, everything a business needs; the critical stuff that you probably pay too much for now.

We take the hard work out of buying for your business so you can focus on the issue at hand, closing that next sale and building your customer base. So whether you’re an entrepreneur just getting started, or a medium sized business reaching for the next level, we’ve got the stuff you need, and at prices you can afford, that will help your business soar.

Executive Team

Darr Aley, Chairman

Prior to co-founding RapidBuyr, Darr co-founded Generate with Tom and was its CMO. Prior to Generate, Darr was head of corporate development and M&A at Amazon. He was responsible for leading and managing negotiations for several of the first acquisitions that expanded Amazon’s presence into China, in retail, and in technology. Prior to this he was hired out of Accenture by Amazon to help build their E-Commerce ASP Services business, focused on selling Amazon’s best in breed retail solutions to F500 global retailers. This grew to become a $700M business unit for Amazon between 2001 and 2005. Prior to that Darr was VP of Business Development at Lycos. Additionally, as an entrepreneur he has started or joined in the early stages with several companies in business development/marketing positions whose successful exits have totaled over $700M (Zip2/Compaq, WhoWhere/Lycos, Epylon/Accenture).

Tom Aley, President & CEO

Prior to co-founding RapidBuyr, Tom was an SVP at Dow Jones/News Corp. Tom came to Dow Jones in 2008 after it had acquired Generate, Inc., a software/analytics firm that he and his brother Darr had founded in 2004, where he had been the company’s president and CEO. Generate delivered a 4x return to its investors four years after launching. Prior to that, Tom was a founding partner at Reed Elsevier Ventures, the investment arm of the $8 billion media company. Tom co-lead investments in early stage technology companies including Siperian (exited to Informatica), Inxight Software (exited to SAP), Netli (exited to Akamai), Nextpage (exited to FAST) and iPhrase Technologies (exited to IBM). Prior to that, Tom launched and managed Computershopper.com (NetBuyer), Ziff Davis’ e-commerce business unit on ZDNet. This unit, one of the first PC online buying services, accounted for more than 40 percent of the advertising revenue of ZDNet, one of the largest and most profitable Internet properties at the time. He spent his early sales career at Shiva Corporation.

Robert Ball, CFO & EVP Corporate Development

Robert Ball brings 30 years of financial, legal and entrepreneurial experience to the RapidBuyr team.Prior to joining RapidBuyr, Robert co-founded and was CEO of OfficeArrow, a 350,000-plus member online community and business-to-business destination designed to help small business owners, entrepreneurs and office professionals.  Before OfficeArrow, Robert was a Managing Director of LiveOak Equity Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm.  From 1999-2004, Robert served in a variety of executive management roles at Akamai Technologies, the leading provider of cloud optimization services.  Robert led Akamai’s international operations, where he grew the company’s international revenues four-fold in less than two years, served as General Counsel and managed Akamai’s record setting IPO and, as Vice President of Business Development, directed Akamai’s corporate strategy, new product development, strategic partnerships and international expansion.  Prior to Akamai, Robert co-founded and managed the Internet and e-commerce practice of Alston+Bird, LLP, one of the nation’s top corporate and technology law firms.  He began his career as a CPA with PriceWaterhouse.  A recognized expert in online commerce, startup strategies and social media marketing, Ball has been a contributor to The Huffington Post since January, 2011.

Kevin Wells, EVP Market Development

Prior to co-founding RapidBuyr, Kevin was VP Business Development for in8 Mobile a leading player in mobile recognition delivering more than 400 million audio IDs for Verizon and other carriers throughout the world. Prior to in8, Kevin was a VP and co-founder at Mobot leveraging visual recognition technology. He led worldwide business development and created global client relationships with Starbucks, Warner Electra, Tower Records, Acura, Hearst, General Foods, Conde Nast, Hachette Filipacchi, Elle Magazine, Vibe, A&E, and others. Mobot was acquired by NeoMedia in 2006. Prior to Mobot, Kevin led business development at BzzAgent, a leading agency funded by General Catalyst, activating word of mouth across social and offline media. Created key client relationships and grew revenues 300% in one year with brands such as Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Ralph Lauren, Estee Lauder, DuPont, Kellogg’s, Broadcom, Monster.com and others. Prior to that Kevin was a founding Director at ZDNet working with clients such as HP, Gateway, IBM and created NetBuyer with Tom Aley which became Computershopper.com, a multi-billion dollar sales channel for ZD advertisers.

Rob White, CTO

Rob has more than 20 years of experience developing product strategy for successful start-up companies in the information technology and enterprise software industry. Prior to  joining RapidBuyr, Rob was executive vice president of products for Generate Inc., which was acquired by Dow Jones & Co. in 2008. Rob spent two years as executive director of products for the new division at Dow Jones created from the acquisition. Prior to that, Rob was a director of products for Siebel Systems, where he ran partner content integration and launched multiple product lines, including Siebel’s ERM business, which he founded. Siebel ERM was recognized as Siebel’s fastest-growing product line and named Product Line of the Year, growing to more than $30 million a year in license revenue. Prior to Siebel, Rob worked in a variety of product marketing and consulting roles for the Thomson Corporation, Lotus Development and Sandpoint. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business.

PJ Scalzi, SVP Business Development

PJ brings almost 20 years of experience in the high tech industry. He had several roles at EMC Corporation over 11 years. PJ led business development initiatives for various groups within EMC focused on developing and adapting selling models for distribution and reseller channels. These models were widely accepted and adopted within the partner community. He also coordinated with EMC technology acquisitions to establish a channel strategy to bring these solutions through the appropriate selling channel. Prior to joining EMC he worked for venture backed startup companies Software Emancipation, Inc., Medical Foods, Inc. (merged with Amerifit later sold to Charterhouse Group), and MediaMap.com (acquired by Bacon’s Information, Inc.).