Michael Deal
New Product Development at Orange Honey, Inc.
Portland, Oregon
Michael Deal grew up in a small cabin surrounded by hundreds of acres in the Pacific Northwest. Living in a small cabin without electricity gave him the time to daydream about a life enriched by technology. During visits at his grandparents he discovered his passion for computers, in the form of video games. Later, Michael channeled his obsession with Sim City and Civilization into developing websites.
In the past decade, Michael has established himself as an entrepreneur specializing in creating online-startups that focus on communication and education. He found success in creating popular educational memes, such as Piano Theory and Sphere, establishing a not-for-profit collaborative independent music website, and developing an online drawing application.
As part of Seattle-based Orange Honey, Inc., Michael headed new product development, including Mugtug’s suite of illustration and photo-editing software. Sketchpad combines vector and paint software into a lightweight drawing app that makes sharing images easy and engaging. Darkroom is compatible with all major browsers and enables users to edit, save, and share photographs from anywhere in the world. These two apps combined, the MugTug Suite, provide users with desktop application quality from the convenience of a web browser or mobile device.
During his free-time, Michael enjoys studying color-science, exploring nature (from skydiving to scrambling, spelunking to scuba diving), creating music, and making and eating food with friends and family.
Charles Pritchard
Chief Executive Officer at Orange Honey, Inc.
Seattle, Washington
Charles Pritchard is a technology entrepreneur and web standards advocate who has spent his career working on the cutting edge of B2B and consumer applications. With over ten years of programming and several successful ventures to his credit, Charles continues to innovate and provide value for clients and consumers.
His early years were spent in Orange County and Hawaii before moving to Oregon to receive an education in Speech Communication and Cultural Anthropology. These two disciplines still guide his work and thinking today, as he remains enrolled (online) with Oregon State University. Charles moved to Seattle in 2007 and has since been involved in a number of start-ups.
Charles has a track record of early adoption of successful web platforms, standards, and languages. He was an early advocate of PHP in the late 1990s and HTML5 in the mid-2000s. His focus has steadily shifted away from the B2B world toward consumer-oriented products and services. Charles continues testing new technologies for how they can better serve developers and users alike.
Charles is currently putting his business and programming experience towards growing Seattle-based Orange Honey, Inc, which developed and now maintains the Mugtug suite of image- and photo-editing software. Darkroom, the web’s premier photo sharing site, is compatible with all major browsers and enables users to edit, save and share photographs from anywhere in the world. Sketchpad, a web standards-compliant sketching application, combines the best of vector and paint software into a lightweight drawing app the makes sharing images easy and engaging. Combined, the MugTug Suite provides users with desktop application quality from the convenience of their web browser or mobile device.