Gart is past president of Lulu.com, the largest independent self-publishing platform on 
the Internet, which he launched with Red Hat co-founder Bob Young in 2002. Prior to 
Lulu, he co-founded Avista Solutions, the dominant mortgage technology SAAS 
provider to small and medium-sized banks and credit unions. Gart began his career as 
a technology consultant and trainer in the United States and Europe. His startups have 
been listed among the Fast 500 and North Carolina Companies to Watch, won a Web 
2.0 award, received an NC Idea Grant and won the Facebook Big Break for Small 
Business. He is committed to entrepreneurship in North Carolina, and donates 10% of 
his time to the Triangle region’s CED venture mentoring service.
Spoonflower was founded in May 2008 by two Internet geeks — Gart and Stephen — 
who had crafty wives but who knew nothing about textiles. Nine years later, the 
Spoonflower community now numbers millions of individuals who use their own fabric to 
make curtains, quilts, clothes, bags, furniture, dolls, pillows, framed artwork, costumes, 
banners and much, much more. The Spoonflower marketplace offers the largest 
collection of independent fabric designers in the world.