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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Unicorn in the Making: Avi Steinlauf, CEO of Edmunds.com (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: Did you have venture capitalists in your early rounds? Avi Steinlauf: There were some small venture funds that were portions of larger companies but none of the blue chip VC funds that you would be familiar with today. Sramana Mitra: When you were raising money at that time, was this part of the
Building a Cool Technology Company from Chicago: Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: How does it work? Can you explain the science behind it? Stuart Frankel: We would have to fast forward a little bit as well, because at that time this was a baseball story writer. That’s the prototype that was built in the lab. It worked really well but all it did was write
Unicorn in the Making: Avi Steinlauf, CEO of Edmunds.com (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: The Internet business model that you were settling on was CPA lead generation or was it just straight up advertising? Avi Steinlauf: CPA lead generation would be a fair description using Internet lingo. That was just the beginning because we were also being approached during the later part of the ’90s by a number
Building a Cool Technology Company from Chicago: Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Then what? Stuart Frankel: This was in the Fall of 2008. Sramana Mitra: The financial crisis was coming up. Stuart Frankel: Yes. I book-ended my time at DoubleClick. Just prior to closing the transaction with Google, I liked the idea of joining another PE-backed company. I wanted to join a company that was
Unicorn in the Making: Avi Steinlauf, CEO of Edmunds.com (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What I’d like to do next is to track the major strategic moves that were responsible for that growth to the extent that you can remember them. Avi Steinlauf: There are two major things that I would refer to. I sometimes refer to these as the business model and the evolution of the
Building a Cool Technology Company from Chicago: Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Were you acting as an agency? Stuart Frankel: We were. By 2005 or 2006, we were managing close to a billion dollars in media. Sramana Mitra: Is this a regular agency business model with 10% fees? Stuart Frankel: It was also based on performance. We took a piece of every transaction. Ultimately, that arbitrage
Unicorn in the Making: Avi Steinlauf, CEO of Edmunds.com (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: When all of this was happening, it was still under your father’s watch and you were doing this other stuff? Avi Steinlauf: That’s correct. It was a small business back then. He was 100% responsible for it. There were a handful of employees who worked in a virtual way. There wasn’t even an
Building a Cool Technology Company from Chicago: Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Where is the position? This is not in Cincinnati, right? Stuart Frankel: It was in Chicago. I had met a woman who I’m married to now. She was originally from New York. She was living in Cincinnati as well. We were also figuring out, from a life standpoint, where we wanted to be.