Me I'm a startup operator, advisor, and investor in the advertising technology space. As an operator, I have 15+ years of experience scaling and exit...
I’ve been lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a front row seat as an early employee at four different AdTech startups. I lived through two exits and one to later go public, several near-death experiences, and many ups and downs. Through my experiences, I’ve learned some things about the activities and actions that can make or break a startup. Advice should always be taken in context and applied to…
Looking back at notable M&A transactions that involved a DSP, SSP/exchange, ad network, or publisher monetization technology on at least one side of the transaction, two dominant themes have emerged. Explore the Data Visualization Two Dominant M&A Themes 58 of the 65 notable transactions can be categorized by two dominant themes: Scale/Channel Consolidation : Reaching scale through significant…
If you've looked closely at the programmatic ecosystem over the past couple of years, you've probably noticed that traditional SSPs have evolved from publisher-centric technologies to demand aggregation businesses, often competing with their biggest customers: buy-side platforms or DSPs. Published on AdExchanger Read the full article →
If you look at current public market valuations, the recent IPO’s and SPAC’s, funding rounds, and the flurry of M&A activity in the space today, you can say AdTech is having a moment. At the time of writing this, publicly-traded AdTech companies have a combined market cap of over $160B compared to $5B just four years ago. This would be surprising to you if you had read the headlines of AdTech’s…
The Startup Employee's Perspective There is a tremendous amount of valuable content around the web on company building from the perspective of founders and VC's, but little from the perspective of the startup employee. Specifically from the startup employee that was early on in the company's lifecycle and had the opportunity to have an outsized impact on its business and growth. Sahil Lavingia,…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past year, you have been exposed to the Direct-to-Consumer Brand movement (DTC), in some form or another. Maybe you receive a monthly delivery from the Dollar Shave Club or have spotted ads for Casper Mattress while riding the New York City Subway. Let’s be clear, communicating directly with consumers, which is at the center of the Direct-to-Consumer…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past year, you have been exposed to the Direct-to-Consumer Brand movement (DTC), in some form or another. Maybe you receive a monthly delivery from the Dollar Shave Club or have spotted ads for Casper Mattress while riding the New York City Subway. Let’s be clear, communicating directly with consumers, which is at the center of the Direct-to-Consumer…
"We have the ability to very easily adjust those assets from social, like Facebook, and are able to amplify an ad and distribute it on our platform easily—we're seeing a lot of that,” said Craig Aron, senior vice president of strategic business development at buy-side native platform Bidtellect. “We have brands that are heavy up in social; they find native to be a nice bridge to extend their…
"Facing a lot of personal and professional adversity this year, I have learned to 'stay in the game.' If you have a broader vision or purpose and you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, trust in the process and focus on small activities to help you put one foot in front of the other. There will be point in time when you step back and realize that just staying in the game has enabled you…
Over the last few years, there’s been a steady shift towards more consumer-friendly ad formats and experiences. The technology has been there to support this for some time, and has been something of a talking point in the Ad Tech space over the last 10+ years. During the emergence of the digital pre-roll video ad format a decade ago, we coined the term “Polite Pre-Roll” at AdoTube (where I was an…