The Exchanges

Q And then Taj, let's get more of the backstory here. I mean, it sounds like you have your, two of your own books. You've got your, your own agency on the side. Uh, when did you launch this company and kind of why get into the tech side of things?

A Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've, uh, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I mean, I came, um, I sort of, you know, started several small businesses when I was a kid. Um, I went to school knowing that I wasn't just going to take a nine to five job. Um, I was fortunate to meet, uh, a dear friend of mine and my collaborator now for 15 years in business, Michael Itcoff. We founded our publishing company right out of college, um, literally like a classic startup story out of the dorm room. Uh, it was a print media company playing in the luxury market. Um, we scaled that brand from a print magazine into a full blown, uh, art book publishing company globally distributed, uh, celebrated in the art and design and sort of couture market. Um, and then inevitably we began exploring, you know, incrementally exploring revenue opportunities in digital as a publisher that had access to really high value content. And, uh, pretty significant audiences. And we, through that process, saw how broken the digital tools were for the creation and distribution.

AI assessment note: “saw how broken the digital tools were for the creation and distribution”

Q Taj, what year was this, by the way?

A I'm sorry? Oh, what year? Um, so, uh, to date myself, yeah, I graduated college in oh three. That's when we started our previous company. Um, and then it was about four or five years ago that we began recognizing the lack of tools for rich media design focused, uh, publishing. Um, and we began building in-house technology inside publishing company to solve those internal problems that we and our customers were facing. Um, And, uh, and then a couple of years ago, we, uh, recognized just how significant the opportunity was to, um, you know, build the platform out for third party use, um, and, uh, and, and effectively, um, you know, solve these, these issues that, that we were very, very successful in solving internally for, uh, enterprise clients. And so at that point in time, um, we, we began building the technology as the third party cloud platform that it is today. Um, and the uptake has just been exponential.

AI assessment note: “I graduated college in oh three. That's when we started our previous company.”

Q Yeah. Well, no, some, sometimes people say, yeah, we have, you know, 10,000 customers, and I go, so they're all paying, and they go, oh, no, no, no, only a hundred are paying, right? So, so just to be clear, you have a hundred groups that are actively using and paying for the product.

A Uh, it's a mix. I mean, we've got, uh, we've got a hundred accounts on the platform. Um, we have, uh, a very healthy customer base that is rapidly growing and a series of those accounts are in some kind of a pilot, um, you know, uh, like paradigm right now in, in the process of either deploying initial campaigns, some paid, um, on a pilot basis, not having converted to a full blown enterprise account. You know, first hits for free, and then, uh, our stuff is good, so you're gonna start paying for it thereafter. Uh, but, but yeah, we, we've got a, a really healthy, dedicated customer base. Our product is very sticky, um, and we are, uh, we're growing aggressively.

AI assessment note: “it's a mix. I mean, we've got, uh, we've got a hundred accounts”

Q Does that look like, I mean, are we talking like a 120% year over year or 200% year over year? What's expansion look like?

A Oh, I mean, we're growing at over 200% a year right now, just in terms of growth rate. Um, and we've, you know, we've painstakingly built this platform to consolidate the multiple disconnected, uh, you know, tools and, uh, and, and workflow processes for modern digital marketers into an interface that was built for marketers. So we are very, uh, you know, sort of data driven in our product development. We do tremendous listening to our customers and we iterate the product based on the needs of the end user. So it's a very complex technology stack with an overtly simple, pretty sexy design focused interface that begets you. So marketers begin touching the tool and they fall in love instantly because it just does everything that they're responsible for doing. Better, more efficiently, and it's an enjoyable environment to work in.

AI assessment note: “we're growing at over 200% a year right now”

Q So I mean, that's, that's, that's obviously super healthy growth. And is most of the, is most of the additional revenue coming from expanding accounts when you're renewing them or adding brand new pilot accounts?

A Uh, it's a, it's a hybrid of both. I mean, we can only extract so much revenue out of an existing customer unless we have sold into, like, let, let's take a, you know, CPG brand. Uh, you know, if we, if we, if we sold into one of Procter & Gamble's, you know, consumer brands, um, and then, wow, the product is performing incredibly well, and we're driving increased, you know, e-commerce, uh, conversions. Like, beautiful. That might expand into a massive account for us. We've got influence most of the time, so we typically sell into the top, and as a result, we're focused on, you know, servicing those customers, maybe driving ancillary long-tail revenues through our services offerings, but from a pure SaaS play, uh, you know, we're interested in scaling our revenues by adding new customers to the customer base. I will say that as relates to native advertising and working with publishing and media companies, You know, oftentimes, um, those relationships are a bit more nuanced from a, you know, like just, uh, cost of doing business perspective as well as a revenue perspective, namely because they operate like agencies. Um, so, you know, the internal, uh, custom content, um, groups within the large publishing companies, they're producing, uh, you know, problem solving solutions for their clients executed through content that is distributed against the audience that the client has in…

AI assessment note: “it's a hybrid of both. I mean, we can only extract so much revenue”

Q salary of 60 grand. I'm sure they're probably more than that. If you're in New York and San Francisco, that's 420 grand a year right there. That is basically put into your fully weighted cap. I mean, your, your, your equation there, right? So like, I mean, maybe a better question to ask is like, how quickly do you like to recover your capital on a new group paying you?

A Yeah, that's a good question. Um, yeah, I mean, it's, I guess all paths lead to Rome, right? Uh, so we, you know, we, we, uh, we try, we try to, we try to maintain an eight percent profit margin on our customer accounts. Let's put it that way. Um, and, uh, and then we also do a really good job of incenting our biz dev and sales team to, you know, align against a win. So we provide commissions to everyone that's doing BD and sales for us. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and, and we provide additional sweeteners for, for the larger accounts, um, so that if there's attribution and we drive, you know, significant growth inside those accounts, that, that attribution, you know, originated with the rep, uh, you know, that, that, that brought that account in.

AI assessment note: “we try to maintain an eight percent profit margin on our customer accounts.”