Andy Martin, Ph.D.

Programmer, E-Commerce Pioneer, Magician, Collector

For most of his life Andy has been passionate about two things: writing software and performing magic.

Software:
Andy grew up in Sussex, England, and went to college at Leeds University, where he received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science. In 1990, he moved to Austin, TX. where he has remained ever since.  He held senior development positions at IBM and Trilogy.  Then in 1995, he created the full e-commerce solution, from the ground-up, for Garden.com.  Along the way, he authored and co-authored 13 patents, 11 of which were issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

1995 was the wild-west of e-commerce, 2 years before Amazon went public, and 8 years before WordPress was even invented.  There were no frameworks or tools, and getting customers to use their credit cards over the web was like pulling teeth.  Everything had to be built from scratch which Andy excelled at, and Garden.com thrived, winning numerous awards and industry admiration. In 1999, Andy received the “Best in Retail Internet Award” at the Retail Systems Conference & Expo, and Garden.com went public.

In 2000, things changed and the dot.com crash hit hard forcing Garden.com and 100’s of other companies to close.  In 2001, Andy founded a new company, Digital Cheetah, which remains strong to this day with the American Red Cross as it’s largest client.  In 2008, with his help, his wife, Lori, started a new company, Double Fox Websites.  Over the last eleven years Double Fox Websites, and it’s sister site Quality Magic Sites, have grown to be the largest creator and maintainer of magic related websites which lead to the launch of the Premium Magic Network.

Magic:
When he was nine years old, Andy received his first Svengali deck from Ron MacMillan, and it changed his life forever.  He immediately ordered a copy of the magazine Magic Info and became immersed in learning magic.  He started performing children’s shows at the age of 12 and when he was 13 he had his first trick published in Magic Info.  On his 14th birthday he joined the Sussex Magic Circle. He was convinced he would make magic his career.

But by the age of 16 it was clear that although he loved magic his true passion was writing software. Writing software was a much better career choice than producing rabbits, so he focused on programming and making that his profession.  However, love of magic has stayed with Andy all this time, and whenever possible he performs at company events and parties.  When the web came along he jumped at the chance to blend his two passions by building magic related websites.  In 2000, he completed his first professional magic site for Viking Mfg Co. and he has been building magical websites ever since.