Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about cracking into the larger publishers from a go-to-market standpoint. How did you get your first larger publisher to buy the product? How did that evolve?

Ankit Oberoi: I think the first five or ten was still easy because we were so connected in the ecosystem and had so many great investors who were connected. The first ten was easy, because we would just get them through introductions.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Did you bring in not just Google’s ad server but also other vertical ad servers? Were you also running an auction on your end across all those different ad networks?

Ankit Oberoi: Not only did we bring in those ad networks but we also brought in those ad networks on different ad demands which a publisher could now source. They could also control how the auction was happening using a simple visual platform, which they couldn’t do in the past.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did you course correct from there?

Ankit Oberoi: It took much longer than we anticipated. We had to first understand the fundamentals. We spent six months doing that. We didn’t shut down the business. We had started making $50,000 to $60,000 a month.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What happens with the AdPushup business? 

Ankit Oberoi: We just found a new office. Everybody is excited. Those four or five people who were working in a small room in the other company finally realized that what we have built is becoming a company. We got a new office. We got a lot of coverage on TechCrunch and other websites.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How do you anticipate that? How do you know what to show whom?

Ankit Oberoi: That’s a data problem. We capture 30 plus parameters from the user, then create buckets where you can put analytical logins that can predict or help you decide which variation will do better.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Whom did you sell that business to?

Ankit Oberoi: This was a hosting company. It was just a customer and it wasn’t a fancy transaction by any means. I just sold off all my customers to another hosting company in the US. It was not a big transaction by any means.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Great entrepreneurs continuously learn from the market. Ankit’s story is one of really diligent learning. Wonderful read!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?

Bootstrapping to $130M: Pura Vida CEO Griffin Thall (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about your team? What kind of team did you need to make this happen?

Griffin Thall: Right now, we have about 40 employees. Everyone is an amazing team member. They are creative and hardworking. A lot of our experienced team members have come from other surf brands or apparel brands.