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HOT TOPICS
- 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
Internet Advertising Pioneer: Kevin O’Connor, Founder of DoubleClick and FindTheBest (Part 4)
Sramana: One of the core philosophies of our incubator is that over 99% of business that seek venture or angel financing get rejected. In the reject pool, there are a lot of solid mid-sized businesses. They will not be massive, but they can be solid profitable businesses. Kevin O’Connor: I agree. Every top VC going
Internet Advertising Pioneer: Kevin O’Connor, Founder of DoubleClick and FindTheBest (Part 3)
Sramana: At that time people were still doing concept financing. The Internet happened because of concept financing. I wonder if the Internet would ever have happened if we did not have concept financing. Kevin O’Connor: I’m not sure I agree. Eventually everything shakes out in a capitalistic market. It took a bit longer for things
Internet Advertising Pioneer: Kevin O’Connor, Founder of DoubleClick and FindTheBest (Part 2)
Sramana: How did DoubleClick get off the ground? Kevin O’Connor: When we started it in my basement we called in Internet Advertising Federation. We later changed it to Internet Advertising Network. We were developing the technology. While Dwight was building the technology, I was researching. We did not know anything about advertising or direct response.
Internet Advertising Pioneer: Kevin O’Connor, Founder of DoubleClick and FindTheBest (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Kevin O’Connor is a serial entrepreneur with a track record of success. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in electrical engineering in 1983. He was the founder and VP of Research at ICC, which was acquired by DCA in 1992. He was
Student Entrepreneur to $10M Revenue Run Rate: Extrabux CEO Jeff Nobbs (Part 7)
Sramana: Do you have any unique challenges that you overcame? Most entreprenuers have a chicken and egg challenge that they have to overcome. Jeff Nobbs: We definitely had a chicken and egg problem with our merchant relationships. To work with Victoria Secrets, JC Penny and others you have to be more than just a little
Student Entrepreneur to $10M Revenue Run Rate: Extrabux CEO Jeff Nobbs (Part 6)
Sramana: When you had just five employees, were you all getting paid? Did you and your co-founder get paid? Jeff Nobbs: My co-founder and I were barely getting paid. We were making minimum wage. We paid everyone else in equity and cash. Their salaries were a little under market, but not drastically. We made up
Student Entrepreneur to $10M Revenue Run Rate: Extrabux CEO Jeff Nobbs (Part 5)
Sramana: You said you raised a million dollars of funding. When did you raise that funding? Jeff Nobbs: We raised money every few months for a couple of years. We have not raised money since 2011. Our valuation grew every time we raised money. We have a lot of shareholders now. Looking back, it would
Student Entrepreneur to $10M Revenue Run Rate: Extrabux CEO Jeff Nobbs (Part 4)
Sramana: You were chugging along, making some progress, and then you hit an inflection point. What was that inflection point and what led up to that? Jeff Nobbs: The inflection point was the holiday shopping season in 2011. I don’t think there is any one thing that led up to it. We had 20% month