A sharing of experiences, tales and rants of the path leading up to and including my 6th startup company (the Rubicon Project). 6 startups = $1BN+ market value including 1 IPO, 2 acquisitions, 1 failure, millions in venture capital $, hundreds of employees in cities worldwide and the building of my latest venture, the Rubicon Project - one of the fastest growing advertising companies in history.
Although I try to keep this blog very focused on entrepreneurial lessons and stories, a lot of people have requested I share some of Rubicon Project's news on this blog. I've been trying to figure out how I can balance both without compromising the lesson-oriented posts. So, I'm going to label any Rubicon Project news with "Rubicon Project" first in the title for easy identification. I'm copying a blog post that I wrote on the Rubicon Project website into this post (below).
And, come visit me at ad:tech San Francisco (booth #6166), I'll be there with the whole team this week (see below). We'll be serving espresso in the morning and beer in the afternoon along with giving away cool tunes from our partner Om Records.
Oh, and the lesson for today's post: get yourself a rock star team, it makes all the difference in the world!
Greetings everyone! I'm Frank Addante, CEO and one of the founders of the Rubicon Project. Today is a very big day for us. Our whole team is excited to finally unveil a number of things we've been working diligently on the past three months. But first, I have to tell you, I am incredibly proud of what this team has accomplished in such a short period of time. For example, our engineering team has, literally, been working around the clock for weeks now. And even though we all could use a long nap the atmosphere around the office has continued to be energized -- even at 4am after multiple rounds of all-nighters. The commitment to building a world-class product is unshakeable.
We are quickly approaching out 1-year anniversary since starting the Rubicon Project (see my original blog post) which, when I think about it, is truly amazing.... On one side, I can’t believe how much we’ve accomplished in such a short period of time: we've served 11+ billion ads across 750+ certified websites, developed deep relationships with 62+ top ad networks, we've built a stellar team of 40+ people and we've forged and created a new category - Ad Network Optimization. On the other side, like they say, time sure flies when you're having fun-- And we are having a lot of fun!
The main intent of our private beta was to learn and test our theory that websites need a better solution to manage and generate revenue from ad networks. We were overwhelmed with the positive response. We originally planned to try and sign up 500 websites for the private beta over the course of 6 months. To our surprise, more than 500 signed up the very first day, with 5000 websites having signed up since. We’ve learned a ton and are now launching products and services based on those learnings as we move into phase II of our mission.
I want to bring you up to speed on all of the news from this week and last, starting with today.
This Week:
Free Ad Network Ad Server We launched a Free Ad Network Ad Server today (see press release). Ten years ago, I created one of the first ad servers (it was called adMonitor). That is where I first worked with my co-founders Craig, Julie and Duc. DoubleClick was our #1 competitor and the 800-pound gorilla at the time. adMonitor grew to be the second largest ad serving platform behind DoubleClick who later acquired it after our IPO. Back then, 100% of ad space was sold by in-house direct sales teams (or exclusive ad sales rep firms). Times have changed. Today, up to 80% of ad space goes unsold directly. And a lot of websites depend on ad networks for 100% of their revenue. Ad servers were designed for direct sales, not for managing ad networks. Websites have told us that their ad servers do not help them efficiently manage ad networks. In response, we created the industry’s first free Ad Network Ad Server - specially designed for managing ad networks. I believe this product will help ad networks and websites work together more efficiently - creating a better growth opportunity for both. Click here to check it out...
New Ad Network Optimizer Release We have made significant enhancements to our core product, our Ad Network Optimizer:
Smarter Algorithms: We have upgraded our algorithms helping to boost CPMs even further, increase fill rates and kill default ads (unpaid or very low paying ads).
Ad Quality Screener: Websites have told us that ad quality is very important to them. In addition to the ad quality preferences and filters, we have added the ability to quickly screen ads from ad networks and pause unwanted ads.
Guaranteed On-Time Payments: Ad networks have varying billing and payment terms. This is a big challenge when working with multiple networks. We now centralize the billing so websites get one simple check from us -monthly- and we guarantee the payments come on-time even if the ad networks pay late.
Reporting: The entire user interface has been upgraded and there are many new reports based on all of the great feedback we've received.
I don’t know where to begin to try and explain how much work has gone into this release. Both our engineering and market team's have been hyper-focused on delivering a high-quality product that is a direct result of customer feedback.
Last week: JT Batson, who leads our publisher team, already addressed a number of our new initiatives in last week's post, so I will keep this brief.
Q1 Ad Network Landscape, Outlook and Trends: We have assembled our learnings and produced this 21-page educational report for the industry. (download the report...)
Golden Eggs Video: A simple, fun way to tell the complex story of the changing online advertising space the past 7 years. (see the video...)
New Website: Our business is driven by technology and data. We designed a site that reflected the real-time, dynamic nature of our business.
Ad Space Certification program: We are committed to helping ad networks grow their business. Ad networks (and their advertisers) have told us that if we can provide them with better classified inventory and assure it's safety and accuracy, that they could do a better job selling and converting that inventory. As a result we launched the industry's first Ad Space Certification program-- a win-win for everyone. (learn more...).
Ad Space Finder: The more visibility we can provide ad networks into available ad inventory the more effective they can be. We now provide real-time visibility into the ad inventory of our website customers via the Ad Space Finder (check it out...).
Now in Public Beta: Also, we have officially moved from private beta to public beta. What’s significant about that is we are now letting everyone in, not just the 750 websites we accepted into the private beta. The more websites that join, the more data our technology can use to analyze to make the right matches between ad impressions and ad networks and the greater exposure all inventory gets to more ad networks and more of their advertisers.
I know this is a long post. But, just writing this all out for the first time reminds me how much work the team has put into making this a big success for our websites and ad network partners.
The momentum and excitement are what's keeping us going after many, many late nights. It’s nice to see people rooting for us and seeing what we’re doing being validated in articles in the Wall Street Journal ("Rubicon Project Goes Live") and MediaPost ("Rubicon Project Takes on Google"). The team is running on adrenaline in place of sleep and this kind of fuel keeps them pumped.
One last thing...
Come visit us at ad:tech San Francisco this week! Our entire team is going to be at ad:tech San Francisco this week for our first time exhibiting at a trade show. Yes, I did say the entire team (all 40 of us)! Why? Well, we always say our customers and partners are incredibly important to us. So we packed up the entire team and carpooled up to San Francisco (from LA.) We thought it would be great for everyone in the company to meet our customers and partners in person. So, we'll all be here! Hopefully you'll come out to see us, we'll be easy to find -- just look for people wearing black Rubicon Project shirts and a smile! Stop by our booth #6166 for some cool, free tunes from Om records or an espresso in the morning and beer in the afternoon!
(PS - don't worry websites, should you need us the team will always be available. We covered our bases with a scheduled set-up for dedicated customer service.
That's all I have for now... I'd like to personally thank all of our website publishers and ad networks for all the support. We're committed to what we're doing and your proactive support means a lot to us. And, of utmost importance to me, I'd like to extend my deepest thanks to my team - your passion and dedication inspire me every day!
Check out this video and then read the rest of this post:
I talk about simplicity all the time. In general, I think a lot of companies focus too much on "how" they do things instead of "what" they do. It's an easy trap to fall in, particularly in startup companies that are so product focused. We get so hung up in the product and the technology and forget to describe to people why they should use it in the first place.
As an example, at the Rubicon Project, we are forging new territory. Along with this comes a very complex story to tell. We constantly struggle with trying to find simple ways to tell the complex story of how online advertising has evolved over the past 10 years.
Most people understand that the online ad market has grown significantly (to $27Bn in 2008). But most do not recognize how the landscape has changed and how it affects the challenges websites face when trying to monetize their ad space. I could tell you about the very complex technology that heavily leverages data and smart algorithms to solve this problem and all the C++, JavaScript, AJAX, blah blah blah that comes with it. And, I could talk your ear off about the 10+ billion ads that we've optimized for over 750+ websites across 62+ top ad networks and the mounds of valuable market data that we've collected as a result. But, none of that matters to you unless I can convince you "why" we need to exist in the first place and tell how this could help you achieve your business goals.
Today, we launched a number of tools for the online advertising industry. They range from simple and entertaining to in-depth and detailed. They are all geared around further educating the market:
Video (above): the Rubicon Project presents: In search of online advertising's Golden Egg (an entertaining and educational video on the changes in the online ad space)
Market Report: 2008 Online Advertising Market Report - Q1 Ad Network Landscape, Trends and Outlook (a very detailed report based on our analysis of billions of ads delivered between ad networks and website publishers) [click here to download a copy]
Ad Space Certification program: our first move toward creating an industry standard to ensure the safety, accuracy and trust for ad networks (and their advertisers) when placing ads on website [see Press Release]
New Website: our business is technology and data driven, we redesigned our website to illustrate this by providing real-time data and access [check out the new site and our new Ad Space Finder]
There is a lot of deep, complex information behind each of these. So, to keep things simple, we thought it would be best to produce a video with a fun, simple story to describe what we do. I have embedded it in this post here:
Bottom line: you need to find a balance between sharing the complex information (e.g. our Market Report) with a simple way to tell your story (e.g. our Golden Egg video above)
We, at the Rubicon Project, moved into new office today. It is a very exciting day for us. Actually, liberating would be a more appropriate word. Before, we had 40 people squeezed into a 2,000 square foot office, designed to fit 15 people, max. Today, we moved into a 20,000 square foot office, 10X the size of the previous one. Personally, I believe that work environment is a critical factor for team productivity. Especially in a startup company where people spend most of their days, and many, many nights in the office...
I did a posting on our original office 9 months ago. There was a lot of thought that went into that first space, even though it was relatively small. That extra thought paid off. People that visited the office always took notice and commented about the welcoming, energetic feeling. We were able to create a very open environment that encouraged very active communication. As the office became overly crowded, that communication grew stronger. And, while it wasn't the most convenient with the space limitations, it contributed to the strong culture that has developed here at the Rubicon Project. We knew it was a challenge, but we improvised. For example, on sunny days (much thanks to Los Angeles weather!), we pulled chairs outside into the parking lot and created make-shift conference rooms (see photo). We sure felt the space squeeze on a rainy day!
The tight space added to the charm. So, we wanted to be careful not to disrupt the culture. As with our first office space, we put a lot of thought into Office 2.0:
Style: "24" The new office is where they filmed the first season of the show "24". Jack Bauer's office is prominently displayed in the middle of the space. Yes, of course we named it the "Bauer Conference Room"! The other conference rooms were named in memory of (President) "Palmer" and "Edgar". In the middle of the office is a giant tented theater. We have learned that before filming 24, the space was used for the production of the movie, Titanic. The theater room was a screening room. We turned it into a conference and team meeting room, for our weekly all-hands team meetings. For those that watch the show 24, we named the theater conference room "CTU".
Communication & Productivity In the new space, there are over 20 walled offices with doors and a very large, open area. We could have easily put everyone in an office. Instead, we chose to put everyone in the open area. And yes, by everyone, I include myself. We wanted to keep the communication flowing. But, we also realize that it could be anti-productive. Particularly when it comes to phone calls. So, we turned all of the offices into phone rooms and conference rooms that are assigned/dedicated to each department. These phone/conference rooms can be used for team meetings or people can jump in a room for an hour or a few hours and use it as their own private office. We thought it was a nice balance. Sitting here for about 5 hours now, it was the right decision. I've learned more sitting in the middle of the office in the past 5 hours by absorbing the background conversations than I would have in 2 hours of meetings.
Fun Since we spend a lot of time here, we wanted to create an environment where the team could kick back and chill out a bit. So, you'll find a lot of huge lounge chairs, sofas and a separate bar/play area. We also installed free vending machines and expanded our Wii Lounge, added a pool table, ping-pong table, dart board and foos ball table. (Disclaimer: see bullet on "budget" below, we are not going to be one of those cliche dot-com stories...) We have a huge parking lot, so we also picked up a portable basketball hoop. We like to balance hard work and fun with healthy living and exercise. (Last week, we had a team kickball match at lunchtime, my team lost - this time!)
Urgency We are an extremely metrics driven company. We chose to mount flat-panel screens around the office with our Mad Cash Meter. It is a real-time view of how many ads we're optimizing and how much money we're generating for our website customers. We also use it to track our goals and keep the company updated on group progress. The visual screens are a constant reminder to keep us all very focused on our #1 goal of helping our customers make mad cash from the ads on their site.
Events We hold a regular event called Thursdays in the Mix. We've been doing them at local venues (bars, etc.). The event is focused on Southern California business networking and the advertising and technology industries. The events usually attract 300+ attendees and we usually have to limit the guest list due to venue size. Going forward, we are going to host the events at our office which will allow us to expand the guest list. We setup a bar area to support the event and the office has a huge courtyard which is perfect for entertaining. There's 20,000 square feet of office and probably another 20,000 square feet in the enclosed courtyard.
Location The new office is just 2 blocks away from the old one. It certainly made the move easier. It is near Santa Monica, which is quickly becoming the technology capital of Southern California near companies like Yahoo!, Shopzilla, Fandango, LowerMyBills.com and even MySpace.com started here. It's a great, central place for us to recruit new talent from many area of LA.
Budget Here's the best part (and the lesson). Relatively speaking, we spent very little money furnishing the space and making it our own. By keeping the area open, we avoided having to buy expensive cubicles which could run $2k - $3k per person. Instead, people have desks that cost $150. We bought our phone/conference room furniture at IKEA for less than $300 per conference room. For the theater room, instead of buying 50 chairs for $100+ apiece, we opted for black and red (our company colors) cubes for $33 from Overstock.com. We painted the space and added our signs and tagline to the walls which wasn't very expensive. Everything we bought was either from IKEA, Target, Craig’s List or discount furniture stores. Overall, we spent about 25% of "normal costs" to setup our space but feel like we got 5X the value!
The team is totally jazzed about the new office. We really wanted to make it nice for them. They work extremely hard and are committed to building a great business. We're looking forward to our new "home". We strived to do something unique and stellar without a stellar price. I feel like we struck a great balance.
After announcing our $21M in funding last week, a number of reporters reached out to us for stories they were writing about the economy. We were featured in the L.A. Times, and the article did a fantastic job capturing the essence of what we do, and our culture. On the flip side, I was quoted in the N.Y. Times this past weekend in a story on the front-page of the business section that drastically misrepresented the thoughts I had shared.
During the interview, I felt that the reporter was trying to "lead" me down a path to better “fit” into his story. I felt that he was trying to get me to say that we raised the $21 million out of fear that there was going to be a recession. I strongly disagreed, noting that the funding had closed before talk of a recession became all the rage (while we announced it last week, the funding actually closed mid-December). Further, I stressed that we raised the money because we were chasing the huge influx of demand from the 3,000+ websites that signed up for our service.
But, in between the time of the interview and the story being printed, Microsoft made a bid for Yahoo! The reporter not only had to alter his original story (and focus), but he had to combine it with a story his colleague was writing about the Yahoo/Microsoft news. Unfortunately, in doing so, my comments were positioned out of context and false information was listed as fact. I can’t rightly say he “misquoted” me because I did make the exact statements I was quoted on, they are just out of context and positioned as supporting an argument I don’t actually agree with. Clever editing, some might say.
One example: he wrote that L90, one of my prior companies, filed for bankruptcy protection. Not true, never happened. In fact, he even emailed us on that point to do some fact-checking and we corrected him. He said he didn't receive the email (We are implementing StrongMail to make sure our emails get delivered. I wish we had setup StrongMail sooner! StrongMail is one of my other companies, see Startup 5.0.)
The reporter is one that I have great respect for. So, I suspect that this happened because the story had shifted last minute.
So, what do you do when a reporter you admire misrepresents you? (and you don't have a blog, like this one, that 6,000+ people read?)
Well, you need to treat your relationship with reporters just like any other relationship. Be honest. If you feel like you were misrepresented, you (or your PR team) need to call them and tell them just that. Reporters need news to do their job; you need exposure. It's a give and take relationship. So, there needs to be trust both ways. You need to trust that the reporter will accurately represent your position.
A good friend of mine, Peter Sealey (former Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-Cola, President of Columbia Pictures and professor at Stanford and Berkeley), gave me the following advice: "Before the interview starts, you state that your comments are on background only and not for attribution unless and until you approve the specific quotes. You will lose a few interviews but the ones that go out will be accurate." Peter is recognized as being one of the greatest marketers of all time and is an expert that reporters very often turn to for their articles.
Pete's advice is sound. However, startups are generally not in the position to place demands on reporters. Most startups are hungry to get press attention. But, you do have to be careful. In general, the pros outweigh the cons, but always make sure you're working with a reporter that you trust and try to build a long-term relationship with them. There is nothing wrong with asking a reporter up front what angle he’s really going for, or stopping in the middle of an interview to clarify. This way you don’t end up feeling tricked and the reporter knows you want to give him what they need and that you’re paying attention.
Bottom line: My advice is to be very careful with what you say. Be as clear as possible and treat your relationship with a reporter as you would any other business relationship. Work hard to understand exactly what they are trying to make the story say and above all, follow your instincts. If you sense that what you’re saying is falling on deaf ears, speak up, ask questions and clarify what it is the reporter is after.
So, was it worth it? The answer is yes. Having exposure in the N.Y. Times, even though it wasn't perfect, resulted in a lot of great attention for us and a lot more sign-ups for our service, adding to the 3,000+ websites that have signed up already.
What a way to start off 2008! First, we are honored with a number of awards (more on this later)... And today, we at the the Rubicon Project announced that we have raised $21 million in total financing (see press announcement). We are very excited, as this is a huge vote of a confidence for the company from investors. It's not everyday that a company that has been around for only 8 months secures this much money. It seems crazy that it's been that short of a time. If you look at the company in terms of product, customer traction and performance, it might look like a company that's been around for years. More than 3,000 websites have signed up for our service and we've optimized over 4 billion ads in the past 13 weeks following our beta launch. Our customers have seen anywhere from a 33% to a 300% lift in revenue using our service (while doing a lot less work). It's clear that the demand is strong, now we need to deliver for the 1+ million sites on the Internet that make money by selling ad space. This new funding will help us move faster and more aggressively.
So, how did it happen? Well, it all started with a trip to Hawaii...
A few months after starting the Rubicon Project, I received an invitation to a conference called The Lobby. The invitation-only conference, meant to be a meeting of the minds for the Who's Who in technology was organized by David Hornik a venture capitalist with August Capital. At the time, I was right in the the thick of the Rubicon Project's development. The company was still in "secret-ninja" mode and we weren't talking about what we were doing. In fact, we didn't have plans to talk about what we were doing until we launched the beta, which was originally expected to be January, 2008. Being that I wouldn't be able to talk about my current experiences, my first reaction was to not go to the conference. My wife, Rita and my co-founder, Craig convinced me that I should go as I had plenty of experiences and insights to share from my previous companies. Plus, Rita and I tossed around the idea of staying the weekend following the conference to turn it into a mini-vacation, seeing as how we hadn't taken one in a while and it was long overdue.
I felt guilty by the prospect of leaving the team for a whole week! Especially since the team was pulling all-nighters, sleeping in the office trying to get the product launched. I am very metrics and ROI driven and I just couldn't convince myself of how this conference was going to benefit the company, being that we were being quiet about our plans. How was I going to justify going to Hawaii while they were all working so hard?
Well, after accepting the invitation, we ended up launching our beta product far ahead of our original plan. The launch happened 2 weeks before the conference. Now, at least I was going to be able to talk about what we're doing. But, the launch brought on a massive amount of unexpected demand. 500 websites signed up for our service in the very first day, a target that we had set for April of 2008 (6 months later) and hundreds continued to sign up by the day. We were massively understaffed. I faced a decision of going to Hawaii or staying to help the company chase the incoming demand. My co-founder, Craig, who's motto is "brut force it", said "Go, Addante! We've got it covered. I know you and I know that you'll find some way to extract value from it."
So, I went to Hawaii, feverishly checking my blackberry and calling my assistant Mallory to make sure everything was OK... Everything was fine; the team, as they always do, found a way.
One of the days at the conference, we were grouped into teams. One of my teammates was Raj Kapoor of Mayfield Fund. Mayfield was one of the very few top venture capital firms that I didn't already have a relationship with. Raj, the founder/CEO of Snapfish, was a young guy that seemed to be very smart and had a lot of energy. We instantly hit it off and spent most of the day talking about building companies and the online advertising space. We also spent a lot of time talking about the Rubicon Project. I was trying to pick his brain and get feedback, he was trying to learn more about the space. It was a great conversation that lasted about 6 hours on and off.
The conference ended. Rita and I were going to begin the mini-vacation part of our trip. Raj had an invited us to go snorkeling before he left; along with Heather Harde (Rita's former co-worker at Fox and now the CEO of TechCrunch) and Ted Rheingold and John Vars the founders of Dogster. Raj and I spent a few more hours talking about the Rubicon Project, then he said "Are you looking to raise venture capital?" I said, "not right now, we're focused on our customers and doing a great job for them, trying to catch up with the demand." A lot of investors had been reaching out to us after our beta launch. I continued, "fund raising would be a distraction and we don't need the money." While on the snorkeling boat, Raj asked Heather and the Dogster founders about the challenges of monetizing their ad space. Their responses supported exactly the problem that we're solving at the Rubicon Project. Raj told me to give them "the pitch", so I did -- in my bright yellow swim trunks, a snorkel on my head and eating goldfish crackers. We've all heard of "elevator pitches" before, but this was taking it to a whole new level...
Raj said, "Look, I know the space. I'm aware of the problem. I just did some real-time due diligence. Come in and pitch my partners, it will only take one hour of your time." He committed to making a fast decision after the meeting and asked that, in return, I agree to an exclusive conversation with them for just a couple of days (until I returned to the mainland for the meeting). Normally, I would never agree to such an arrangement. But, Raj seemed to be a stand up guy and I liked his style. I also figured that I was going to be in Hawaii and wouldn't have much time to talk to anyone else anyway. It turned out that while I was in Hawaii, the word on the Rubicon Project was spreading fast -- and when I returned to my inbox, it was flooded with emails from investors. But, I was committed to honoring my verbal agreement with Raj.
The rest is history... We ended up agreeing to a deal with Raj and Mayfield within a week (it actually closed in December). I felt a strong connection and great energy from the entire partnership at Mayfield. It was clear that they knew the online advertising space very well, especially having invested in companies such as Revenue Science, AdKnowledge and Consorte Media. I thought that they would be a great complement to our existing investor, Clearstone Venture Partners, who had the original vision to believe in the company and the team. Clearstone, especially Sumant Mandal and David Stern (our board members), has been incredible to work with. Their support has been instrumental to the success of the company.
As part of the deal, we wanted to carve out part of the round for strategic investors. We ended up bringing in IDG Ventures Asia, Stanford, Berkeley and Matt Coffin, the former CEO and founder of LowerMyBills.com. Matt was one of the biggest advertisers on the Internet and one of DoubleClick's biggest customers. IDG will help us with international expansion. Stanford and Berkeley will be helpful with recruiting efforts.
All in all, we are very excited about this next step. We are solving a massive, massive problem for the online advertising industry. Raising $21 million is a big commitment, both to our investors and to the team. We decided to take in the additional capital because we have a big vision and the market has shown that it's very supportive of that vision. To date, more than 3,000 websites have signed up for our beta. We've grown the team to more than 40 people. The product has been performing very well for our customers, as such, all of the inbound demand has been word of mouth. And, the team is executing with fire and tenacity. Momentum is on our side and personally, a big part of our decision was driven by the need to move fast and never slow down. So, that's exactly what we're going to do!
As you know, I always like to wrap a lesson into every one of my posts. In this case, I have to tell you that if it wasn't for the confidence in my team, there would be no way I could have afforded the time to go to Hawaii at such critical time. Another lesson, I suppose, is that not everything has to be about metrics and ROI (team: if you are reading this, please feel free to forget I just said that). Sometimes it's just about taking advantage of an opportunity that presents itself to you. That's one part of the lesson... the second part is to make sure you have a good "snorkeling pitch" to go with your "elevator pitch"! =)
By the way, in case you were wondering how the mini-vacation went. Well... as luck would have it, when we got back from snorkeling 9 fires were started on the island and we had to evacuate. Serves me right for taking a day off, lesson learned!
As a side note, that video I created on building companies in Los Angeles versus Silicon Valley was made for The Lobby conference. Not sure if that factored into Raj's decision. But, it's great to see the divide between Nor. Cal and So. Cal closing. More and more venture capitalists from Silicon Valley are coming to Los Angeles to find innovation. This funding announcement is good for Los Angeles and it's great for the online advertising industry, a space that's been lacking innovation for some time now.
OK, I gotta get back to work now...
PS - And more good news to share... We have been so fortunate and are very thankful... Due to your strong support, we won the Twiistup"Best Showoff" award (the event hosted by Perez Hilton and Shira Lazaar), and we were selected as one of the top 100 private companies by AlwaysOn and finally, were also picked as a finalist for the Price Waterhouse Coopers Entretech Award. I'll be in NYC this week presenting at the AlwaysOn OnMedia conference before our press/media tour -- if you're going, I'll see you there!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? The Internet is quickly turning into a mutli-media platform, giving businesses the opportunity to express themselves in ways that were never possible before. Personality is now possible. That is, giving a personality to your business, something that is very hard to do with only text on a website. Enter video.
Recently, I did a little "spoof" video on building businesses in Los Angeles versus Silicon Valley. I have embedded the video into this post. I originally did this video for a conference that I was invited to called The Lobby, created by David Hornik. When going through the invite list, I realized that the conference was heavily loaded with people from Silicon Valley, and I was one of the very few from Los Angeles. Having spent a couple years in Silicon Valley building my last company, StrongMail Systems, I learned that there was a certain perception of how we do business here in Southern California. To sum it up, many people in Silicon Valley think we're idiots here. We've all heard of the Silicon Valley one-sided rivalry with LA. Well, I should say, people in the Silicon Valley have heard of it because most people here in Los Angeles know nothing about it.
So, I thought it would be funny to do a little spoof on the stereotypes of LA business.
In typical LA fashion, I called a friend of mine, Ryan Byrne who produces and directs movies. I originally called to ask him if he knew of anyone that could help me out with a camera/editing, etc. I envisioned something basic and simple, pretty much a handycam with an apple laptop using iMovie... Well, being the great friend that Ryan is, he said "I'll do it." Next thing you know, we had a full on production... HD cameras, a full sound and video crew... He brought in his good friend Wayland (he's the coffee shop guy in the video) to write a script. We met at Toast in LA (yes, the place you may have seen on the TV show Entourage) and they reviewed the script with me. The original script, while funny, was a bit too edgy for me (and even more so, for my wife). It involved massage parlors and topless valet girls. While I'm all in for "shock value", I realized that the video is a representation of our company and there's a certain brand image that we need to project and protect. Therefore, I asked them to modify the script.
I put the video up on YouTube for some friends to see. Next thing you know, thousands of people were viewing it... I even got an email from my cousin in Chicago (who I did not send the video too) saying that she saw it on Defamer.com. I showed up at a business meeting with a customer and someone walking by in the hallway said "funny video!". And, I was literally walking down the street one day and was stopped by someone who said that she really enjoyed the video and it seemed like we were a fun and innovative company to work for. She asked if she could send me her resume.
Yes, these are isolated incidents in my small, little world... However, I learned that I didn't just put together a funny little spoof video. What I had done, without knowing, was set a tone and a personality for our company. I also learned how quickly things can get around the Internet, so be careful!
I'm going to experiment a bit more with video (even though I hate being on camera). Recently, we decided to do a video press release(announcing our beta results thus far, we went from Zero to a Billion ads served in the first 6 weeks), versus the old school boring text press releases that read "ABC company announces Q4 results...". We published the release last week, we're still getting feedback on how it was received (versus the old text format) but initially, it seems as though people appreciate the fresh approach.
I'll let you know how it goes... gotta run to my acting lessons now... =)
(photos from the video filming)
PS - if anyone needs to do an Internet video, let me know and I would be more than happy to introduce you to Ryan and Wayland...
People always ask me what I mean when I say hire "great athletes" versus "great resumes". I'm not a big fan of cliches. So, when I say it, I mean it. Let me explain...
My team: what they were doing before the Rubicon Project... Casey: Talent production Christen*: Liberian refugee camp volunteer, opiate treatment center research assistant Jeannette: Movie producer, commercial real estate acquisition analyst Lisa*: College student (Duke University) Mallory*: Teacher with "Teach for America" Matt: Wine sommelier Mel: Graduate school teacher Steve*: Physical therapist * never worked in a corporate office environment
(from left to right: Matt, Mallory, Christen, Casey, Jeannette, Mel, Steve and Lisa)
They represent one quarter of our entire team. They complement the rest of the group, who have deep experience in the online advertising space (they are also amazing, by the way). None of these people had any online advertising experience. In fact, some have never worked in an office before.
However, they ALL:
1. Have PASSION 2. Are QUICK LEARNERS 3. Have EXTREME PRIDE in their work and CARE 4. Are highly COMPETITIVE - they refuse to lose 5. Have FIRE IN THE BELLY
These people inspire me. They were brave enough to switch professions and join our fast-growing, demanding, hair-on-fire startup company. They might feel like we took a chance on them, but I feel that they took a chance on us.
Within their first few days/weeks, not only did they come in and seize the opportunity to learn, but now you would think that they have years of experience in the online advertising space. Some had to learn how to use Outlook, some had to learn what ad-serving and tracking was, some had to learn what terms such as CPM and CPC mean... but, they all learned. And, they learned fast.
They are some of the most talented, motivated and productive individuals that I've ever had the pleasure of working with.
As I tell our team... There is no business school book on "How to build the Rubicon Project". WE are writing that book. People like Casey, Christen, Jeanette, Lisa, Mallory, Matt, Mel and Steve bring us a new approach and fresh ideas.
Our original plan was to launch our beta in January of 2008. We hoped to get 500 websites signed up between January and April of next year. We launched early, on October 8, and in the very first day over 500 website publishers signed up. In the first month, we had over 1100 sign ups, representing over 5 billion ad impressions. We had sites ranging from small blogs to the world's largest sites. In the first three weeks, we delivered over 500,000,000 ads on behalf of our beta sites, and increased their revenue anywhere from 33% to 300%. We continue to get hundreds and hundreds of sign-ups.
So, needless to say, as I have referred to in earlier posts, we were absolutely overwhelmed (with both excitement and work). We immediately kicked into high gear and needed to ramp up the team. We've hired over 10 people in the past 30 days and are looking to hire 10 more as soon as possible (new office space coming soon). It seems like someone new shows up at the office everyday. Somehow we found a way to fit 30 people in a space that should only fit 15 (hopefully the fire marshal doesn't show up). The momentum has been very exciting. Though, it is definitely getting a little crowded in here! As I write this, I'm sharing an office with my assistant Mallory and one of my co-founders, Craig. Someone walks in every 5 minutes to meet with one of us, and it seems like someone is always on the phone. The information flow is overwhelming, but the energy is very motivating.
While growing fast is exciting, we're also aware of the dangers. We're trying to keep the culture strong. We're trying to maintain the A++ level quality of the team. We're trying to keep everyone productive, motivated and focused. So far, so good - we have only moved faster and gotten stronger with each new hire.
The company is growing so fast, we're needing to develop the structure in which the organization needs to operate at the same time. Over the past few days, I've been focused on what I call "organizational organization." We're transitioning from people wearing many hats to people needing to really focus on scaling out specific pieces of the company. I was speaking with a potential investor last night. He asked me what my top priorities were and I could not pick out which ones were at the top of the list (everything is). That doesn't work.
So, first thing I did was take a step back away from everything. I took a fresh look at the organization and realized that I needed to take everyone in the company and make sure that they each had one primary focus. I told them that I needed to be able to go to and hold one person accountable for each major functional area of the business. I'm about 75% of the way there, but I made a lot of progress today in getting everyone focused. It felt like untying knots from a rope.
Parallel processing is critical to a fast growing company and the only way to have that is if there is clear ownership over the major functions of the business. The hard part is doing it in such a way where people don't feel like you are "taking something away" from them, but that they understand that the business is growing, it requires focus and that you are simply trying to leverage their strengths.
It's always good to go through the exercise of organizational organization -- I definitely know that this will not be the last time I'll need to do this.
I know it's been a couple of weeks since my last post. Things have been going absolutely crazy for us over here at the Rubicon Project. We've been bringing more and more users live onto our system daily and trying to grow the team to keep up with the increasing demand (more on that later).
We just got back from ad:tech NY. As I mentioned before, we launched our beta much earlier than we expected. So, we didn't have any plans to attend ad:tech. With all of the much appreciated attention we have been getting, we felt that we needed to be at the show to connect with our beta publishers and ad network partners. We couldn't get a booth together in time, so we had to get creative. We had only two weeks to plan something.
We had a one hour brainstorming session. Our objectives were: a) reach as many people as possible b) convey the personality of our company culture and c) keep it simple.
So, we came up with two things. First, pass out Rubicon Project-branded water bottles and second, throw a great party. That's exactly what we did.
We took a crew of 10 people out to ad:tech and hand delivered 3,000 water bottles to people entering the hotel for the show. Initially, some suggested that we should hire people to pass out the bottles. We decided that we should do it ourselves. I am so glad that we did. It was great -- we connected with so many people. And, those people carried around our water bottles around the entire show for hours. Our team was so excited to personally meet so many of our website publishers/users and ad network partners. Communication is so important to us, the only way to do it in our mind was for all of us to do it personally. People loved it (especially those who were hung-over from the ad:tech parties!).
It was practical, it was simple. We wanted to cut through all the clutter. We dressed up in Rubicon Project gear (black hooded sweatshirts and shirts) that had a simple message on the back, which matched the message on the bottle: "Make Mad Cash From Ads on Your Website". It mirrored our philosophy of keeping things simple.
On Tuesday night, we threw a big party at one of the hottest spots in Chelsea called Room Service. We kept that simple as well. It was an invite-only event: high quality people and high quality fun. We had an open bar and one of the best DJ's I've ever heard, his name is DJ Reach [website | MySpace page], a celebrity DJ. (I loved the name by the way given the reference to advertising "reach") The party was so much fun, for our team and for all of our guests. We had over 600 RSVPs, so we were a little worried about it getting too crowded, but it worked out great. Again, we kept it simple: great people, great music, drinks and we even had food passed around at midnight for those with the munchies.
All in all, I couldn't have expected any better. I was skeptical that our team could pull off all of this planning (from branded water bottles, to invitations, to the Rubicon Project clothing to the party itself) in only 2 weeks time, and do it with top-notch quality. But they did it, the team's ability to execute continues to amaze me!
The show itself was fantastic, I heard rumor that there were 19,000 people there. I think it's a sign of all of the excitement and growth in the industry. I love the online advertising business, it's so much fun!
I learned a great lesson about guerrilla marketing, do it yourself --- there is no substitute for connecting with people, personally.
I've gotta run into a board meeting. But, I wanted to write a quick post about our announcement this morning. As I mentioned in my previous post (What to do when hit by a tidal wave?), we were swamped with beta sign-ups from our site launch last week. We weren't prepared for such an overwhelming response. So, we were trying to figure out how to manage all of the sign-ups. We wanted to respond to our users quickly, but we couldn't come up with a fair solution for how to select beta users. Rather than trying to hide this fact, the team said "Why don't we just put up a forum, invite our users to join it and ask them for their feedback?" Of course, there is risk in exposing all of this information. What if people say bad things about us? What if people ask questions that we don't have the answers to? What if people see our plans and try to copy what we're doing? (see my personal thoughts on this in a post from a long time ago: "Tear Down Your Firewalls") Funny thing is that these issues came up only once and very briefly; our team was very quick to dismiss these as concerns. Our company culture is built on a strong foundation of very open, active communication. And everyone agreed that we should extend the same to our users. Let's be open and honest with them, let's let them know exactly what we're thinking and when.
So, that's what we did! We opened a forum for beta users, websites, ad networks and the curious. We're going to use the forum to communicate with them, get their feedback and encourage them to communicate with each other on issues they're facing with online advertising. Our team rocks! They went from idea to launch in a week. They constantly amaze me on how agile they are and how fast they execute. The forum is open to the public, you're more than welcome to check it out: http://www.rubiconproject.com/forum
PS - we also put up a forum topic called "Culture" for our entire team to communicate with everyone. The team asked me to write the first post. My immediate reaction was that there was no one better in the company to write the first post than my assistant (Mallory), who's also our office manager (and our first employee). Mallory is the perfect example of an A++ teammate (see my post on "The DNA of an A++ Team"). She didn't have any office experience before joining our team. She was a teacher. At breakneck speed, she mastered "office life". Now, she's the backbone of our culture. (click here to read her post)
We've all heard the term "we wear many hats," especially in startup companies. That's exactly how our team at the Rubicon Project has been operating. To date, our focus has been on developing a great product. After our beta invitation site launched last week, as I mentioned in my previous post, we received an absolutely overwhelming number of sign-ups.
Developing a product, getting feedback and refining the product based on that feedback is what I call the "Find Out" stage. Given the validation that we have received, it's now time for us to move into the next stage of the business, or as I like to say, we've moving from "Find Out" to "Roll Out".
The first step to prepare for roll out is to align and focus the team. To date, everyone has been "wearing many hats." The team is strong and made up of "good athletes"; everyone jumps in to lend a hand wherever and whenever needed. I talked to everyone about the concept of "full-time jobs" versus "part-time" jobs. Their full-time job is what they wake up every morning thinking about and fall asleep worrying about. Their part time jobs are where they jump in to assist in someone else's full-time job. I told everyone that we needed to assign "full-time" jobs to everyone for all the current major objectives of the business.
So, that's exactly what we did. We took every major function of the business from product to ad operations to optimization to our beta program rollout and assigned a name to each. Each person in the company was assigned a "full-time job".
The problem with "full-time" jobs is that people often get bored with them long-term. To mitigate that, we encourage people to take on part-time jobs that interest them. And, they are encouraged to take on new full-time jobs in the future, so no one is ever locked into one position permanently. But, the only rule is that in order for them to take on a new full-time job, they need to find someone else to take on their current one! =)
It's a way of keeping focus and accountability in the organization while keeping things interesting for the team.
My blackberry broke. Salesforce.com maxed out. 1500 emails flooded my inbox. On Monday, we announced our private beta invitation site. We spent the entire weekend putting the finishing touches on the site. We tried to anticipate everything that could go wrong with the launch. We expected positive results, however, we had no idea that we would get slammed with the number of sign-ups that we did.
Our original plan was to launch our beta on January 22, 2008. That clearly happened way ahead of schedule. We launched the private beta site on October 8. Our target was to sign-up 500 beta sites over the course of 3 months. Well... more than 500 signed up on the very first day! And, they keep on coming. Traffic on our website went through the roof from all the buzz (see Alexa chart below).
I get an email for every sign-up. We received so many emails so fast (an average of 1 every minute) that my blackberry crashed! We also learned that salesforce.com has a default limit of 500 leads per day.
So, when this all happened... The team was super pumped up and very appreciative of all of the interest and support. There have been a lot of people saying a lot of great things about the company and the product and it makes the team feel really good about all of their hard work and sleepless nights. But, the excitement quickly turned into anxiety. The question then became "what are we going to do now?"
It's a great problem to have, but not for too long. It's important to keep the momentum going. It's important to us to keep a very active, open dialogue with the community. The important thing is that no one panicked. We decided to continue to let beta invitation sign-ups come into the site until we came up with a new plan. We're working on that now.
The lesson I learned is that when hit with a tidal wave... Don't panic, stay focused and communicate. I think it's important to proactively communicate internally, and even more importantly externally. More on the external communication part later...
PS - By the way, since I may be posting more often, and I don't want to flood your inbox, I'm going to set the email feed on this blog to send updates only once a week (which means you may get a group of posts in one email). If you want to get updates more often, I recommend setting up an RSS feed or changing your delivery frequency settings in Feedblitz.
PPS - Thank you to everyone for all of your support! I feel very lucky to have such a strong support group, it's much appreciated!!!
Things have been a little crazy (good crazy) since last Monday’s funding announcement.I wasn’t prepared for all the activity that followed.We had thousands of visitors hit our website in anticipation of our beta and received tons of calls from potential partners, press and investors.I still can’t believe the overwhelming response!Lesson learned: always stay on your toes because you never know what’s going to happen.The team and I have been working overtime to make sure everything is all set for our private-beta invitation site launch that goes live today (see announcement).
As promised, I’m going to give you more information and insight into the Rubicon Project.To avoid this blog turning into a shameless plug for my company, I want to give you some insight into the thoughts behind the decisions we’re making as we move forward.
Validating our hunch about the massive problem
I talked to 100 websites before we started this business.They all complained that their ad networks don’t generate enough money for their ad inventory.So, I went to talk to the ad networks.The ad networks told me that website publishers don’t give them the “right” inventory, and if they did, they could make them more money.So, I went back to the websites and said “why don’t you give ad networks the right inventory?”They said that they have no insight into what the “right inventory” is, nor did they have the technology to do it.
From this, two trends emerged to illustrate the industry problem:first, there is a lack of technology available for websites to monetize their ad space; second, is a rapid growth in the number of advertising networks.
The Internet advertising industry is a huge, yet highly inefficient market.Most business today is transacted via Excel spreadsheets.As I mentioned in my previous post, the current industry is operating like the stock market without a NASDAQ system.Today, 80% of online ad inventory goes unsold (by a website directly) with that 80% being sent to ad networks (e.g. Google AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher Network, 24/7 Media, HispanoClick, etc.).The relationship between websites and ad networks is inefficient, somewhat blind and complicated.Given that $27 billion was spent advertising online last year, growing to $65 billion by 2011, it will be difficult for the industry to scale without an automated system.
How do you go about solving that massive problem?
The short answer is:first, recognize that massive problems usually require simple (to use) solutions; second, you solve it one step at a time.It’s easy to lose focus and try to boil the ocean.
The first step for us was to create an automated system for websites and ad networks to work more efficiently and effectively together.The trick is to create a solution that takes all of the complexity and simplifies it to the point where a small blog can use it, yet is feature-rich enough for a very large site.
Trust me, it’s easier said than done.There is some pretty sophisticated technology required to make it work.It is important to me to build a business that is driven by technology and fully automated so that it can scale.
Our goals with the product were:a) simplicity and ease of useb)“whiz-bang” (our favorite words) andc)full automation.Our engineering team rocks, I think they nailed it (you can check out a demo here by clicking on "Watch a 3 minute demo").
Deciding on a strategy
We’re playing in a space where there are lots of players on both sides.On one side, there are hundreds of thousands of websites that make money from advertising.On the other side, we have hundreds of ad networks that work with thousands of advertisers.So, we’re putting ourselves in the middle and helping them work better and more efficiently.Ad networks are our channels and we want to be very good channel managers.In order to be successful, we need to provide our channel partners with information and technology to make them more efficient and effective.We don’t work directly with advertisers because that would put us in conflict with our channel partners.
We want to be the “Visa” of online advertising.Essentially, we’re creating the backend transactional system to automate buying, selling and billing for the online advertising industry.Websites are like our retailers.Ad networks are like banks who manage the relationships with the end customers (or in our world, the advertisers). Our job is to help them work efficiently together.
To Beta or not to Beta?
Originally, we planned 5 stages before launch: prototype, working prototype, alpha, private beta, public beta and then launch.Because we have a team of rock stars we’ve already blown through the first 3 stages way ahead of schedule.We’re feeling aggressive and ready to hit the market based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback from websites and ad networks and the promising results with our initial alpha customers (more on that later.)
But, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and get ahead of ourselves, so we’re staying focused and disciplined. For example, take our private beta invitation site. There are hundreds of thousands of websites that could use our service to make more money from ads on their site but we’re opening up our service to only a limited set of 500 sites. Why only 500? We want to make sure to walk before we run and focus on those first 500 and turn them into great success stories and happy users that we leverage to launch the service to the public.
Helping the websites
The value proposition for websites is pretty simple: make more money, do less work.
We have created a free to join, self-serve solution for websites to optimize their ad space with over 300 ad networks.We do this by learning the strengths of each of the ad networks and then our smart matching technology deciphers a website’s ad inventory and matches each ad impression with the network that is best able to monetize it.How do we do that?
First, we break down a website’s inventory into about 9,000 micro-segments using demographic, geographic and contextual information. For example, we might create a micro-segment for “female, sports enthusiasts in New York.”Then, we take these impressions and match them up to ad networks that are qualified for this kind of ad inventory.We test and optimize the ads with the networks and then allocate ad impressions accordingly.The inventory from any micro-segment can be spread across anywhere from 1 to 100’s of ad networks.The service does all the work and all the website needs to do is set some preferences on the kinds of ads they want to run, check out some reports and collect checks.We consolidate all the reporting into one place and aggregate billing so we can provide one check for the websites.
Helping the ad networks
Today, ad networks have a big problem with churn.Working with ad networks for a lot of websites is often an “all or nothing” decision because they don’t have the technology to automate and manage multiple networks and slice and dice their ad inventory to send the right traffic to the right networks.Therefore, websites are constantly flipping ad networks, creating a somewhat unpredictable business for the networks.We help reduce that churn.
The ad networks have been incredibly receptive to our solution.We’re able to provide them with more intelligent inventory.Since we pre-qualify and label ad impressions for them, we’re able to give them richer information about each ad impression.We’re essentially serving up ad inventory to them on a silver platter.It gives them more of the inventory that they’ll be successful with, providing them with greater reach and high quality inventory.
It’s all about the beta steps
We’ve been very fortunate to receive an enormous amount of interest in the solution.Now, we need to prioritize which websites make the most sense for our private beta.We want a good mix of sites ranging from small blogs to large sites, different types of content, various user bases and in diverse geographies.We want to learn where the service is most effective and where it is least effective so we can either improve the service or focus in areas where we know we’ll succeed.We’ve got a lot work to do and a lot to learn.
As promised, I’ll give you insight into the day to day progress, decisions that need to be made and the thoughts behind those decisions…Hopefully I’ll be able to share some “in the moment” learning and lessons that you might find interesting…
This should be fun, I’ll post again when I reach an interesting decision point or learn another lesson!
OK, I know I haven't posted in a while but, I'm hoping I can make it up to you with a change that I am making in the style of this blog.(By the way, thank you to all of you that I have sent emails letting me know that you miss my regular posts, it keeps me motivated to keep writing.)
The reason that I haven't posted in a while is because we're preparing to finally start talking about what we do here at the Rubicon Project.It’s been really hard to keep quiet about something I love doing, so I’m really excited to tell you all about it!
A New Vision for This Blog:
Before I get into that, as I alluded to in a previous post, I want to tell you about my new vision for the blog.To date, I have been posting more “lesson-oriented articles”.I don’t post as often as I’d like given the demanding lifestyle that comes along with building a new company.It doesn’t allow me to dedicate much time to the blog.So, I decided that I’m going to change the blog to be more “in the moment” versus “article style”.As I set out to build this new company I am going to give you a peek into my daily life, the lessons I learn and insight into the decision-making process as it happens.I will post more frequently, but less formally.I may post something before a meeting, after a meeting, perhaps even during a meeting or even while boarding a plane…I don’t know how it will work out, I’m just going to go with it and see how you like it.
the Rubicon Project Funding Announcement:
So…about the Rubicon Project...First off, I have a confession to make.Five months ago, we raised a round of venture capital. We’ve raised a total of $6 million, $4 million in equity funding from Clearstone Venture Partners and $2 million in venture debt from Square1 bank.Clearstone’s capital was used to incubate the company and develop the product.They are one of the best investors I’ve worked with.They have a strong entrepreneurial spirit and are very supportive. Square1 bank is a newer bank with a fresh approach and are entrepreneurs at heart.I didn’t want to announce the funding earlier because I’m not a big fan of talking about what we’re “going to do”, I prefer to talk about what we “have done”.
When we started the company in May, our original plan was to launch the product in April of 2008.We didn’t plan on talking about what we’re up to until later this year.But, things have moved much faster than we expected.In fact, we’re going to be launching our private beta invitation site next week on October 8.
Today, I’m going to tell you a bit about the problem that we’re solving.Next week, I’ll dive more into the solution.Then, I’ll move along into more frequent postings to give you the play by play.
The Problem with Internet Advertising:
My founding team is a group of industry-experienced, aggressive and passionate renegades that are dedicated to bringing a new level of efficiency to the fragmented internet advertising space. We shook up the online advertising industry in 1998 when we created L90/adMonitor, one of the most successful internet advertising platforms that served over 3,000 of the web’s most recognized sites, reaching 65% of the internet population before DoubleClick acquired it.
Before starting the Rubicon Project, I talked to about 100 websites about their challenges with internet advertising.I learned that even though $27 Billion was spent advertising online in 2007, it’s still too hard for websites to sell their ad space online.While internet advertising is an explosive market, it is an incredibly inefficient one with advertisers spending money with 300+ disparate advertising networks worldwide (e.g. Google AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher Network, Tacoda, HispanoClick and Adtegrity).
From my conversations, I discovered two trends:first, there is a lack of advertising technology solutions for website publishers; second, there has been a rapid growth of advertising networks.Seven years ago, when I was in this business, there were 15 ad networks.Two years ago, there were roughly 150 and today there are over 300!
There are small and large networks; CPA, CPC and CPM networks; text, display and video networks; local networks and international networks, broad networks and very niche networks.The point is that there are a lot of ad networks, all with different strengths. Advertisers are spending money with all of them.Some more, some less, but if websites want to maximize the revenue potential of their ad space, they need to be able to tap into and access all of them.
Case in point, between 30-50% of U.S. based websites’ traffic is coming from international visitors.If a site isn’t sending that (international) traffic to an ad network that has international advertisers, it’s like they’re throwing those ad impressions in the trash.
It is absolutely shocking to me how inefficient and manual this market is. The best way for me to describe it is that it’s like the stock market without a NASDAQ system.Surprisingly, most business in the advertising world today is transacted via Excel spreadsheets.It needs to be automated.
In order for web sites to make the most money from ads on their site, they need a simple solution to access and manage all of the places that advertisers are spending money (these 300+ ad networks). To make that management effortless, they need smart technology that understands the strengths of all these networks and automatically deciphers every ad impression (using demographic, geographic and contextual information) to match each impression with the best money-making opportunity. Guess what we’ve built?
Startups are emotional roller coasters.It is very, very hard to remain positive 100% of the time.It takes effort, it takes commitment.It is unnatural to be positive 100% of the time.But, being positive is powerful.I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true.
It is easy to let fear overcome you.It’s easy to worry.It’s easy to focus on inefficiencies.It’s easy to let mistakes discourage you.It’s hard to overcome all of that and stay positive.
You may hire someone that doesn’t perform 100% to your expectations.You might make a decision that wastes money.You might delete a file that costs you time.You might accidentally say the wrong thing to the wrong person.You might have people trying to discourage you.These things will always exist.They will only drag you down.Let them bounce off of you and keep moving forward.Looking back will only slow you down.Try running one block looking behind you the entire way.Do that same run looking straight at the finish line the whole time – I guarantee you you’ll reach the finish line faster.
I used to focus on all of the inefficiencies.If I hired someone that didn’t quite fit, I’d focus on trying to improve their weaknesses.Now, instead, I focus on leveraging and exploiting their strengths.Funny thing, the weaknesses end up working themselves out.It builds confidence in the employee, it builds up your confidence and your team’s confidence in that employee and their strengths help correct the weakness.Focusing on the weakness has the opposite effect.
I used to over-analyze every spending decision trying to maximize a dollar.What I saved in dollars, I lost in opportunity and almost every time that opportunity was far more costly than the dollar itself.I would delay buying necessary equipment or over-extend a vendor or new hire negotiation to save money.There’s a balance that needs to be found.You should always be smart about spending.But, if you are confident in your plan, then execute against it full force.If you are not confident in it, change it so that you are. Focus on the efficiencies and the positive, and the negative will usually take care of itself.
Being positive is contagious.It can be a very strong part of a culture.It is the foundation of our culture at the Rubicon Project.Everyone is positive, everyone believes in themselves, they believe in the company and our team.Everyone has a “can-do” attitude.Because of it, they have been very successful.I’ve seen the effects of a positive culture first hand.We had this same culture at L90/adMonitor.There, we took on the impossible.We were the 7th horse in a 7 horse race and the race had started 2 years before we came along.Our competition was well funded with many millions of dollars, well armed with hundreds of employees and far down the path.We had a few wooden desks and a desktop computer that served as my personal workstation, our web server and our ad server.We ultimately grew to be the #2 advertising technology solution on the Internet until DoubleClick acquired adMonitor in 2001.By that time, we had 3,000+ customers, delivered 8 billion ads a month and reached 65% of the Internet.All that powered by positivity.I see the same culture developing here.
But be careful.It could take only one moment of negativity to ruin months or years of positive equity.Negativity will erode an organization at a speed you have never seen before and is hard to reverse.
The longer you keep a positive energy culture, the more everyone tries to keep it that way.Sure, it’s hard work.You may have to bite your tongue, you may have to hold back, you may have to look the other way and refocus on the positive.But, do it.It’s worth it, I promise.
