MoPub: Rethinking Mobile Monetization

I have recently been chatting alot with Jim Payne CEO of an awesome new start up called MoPub, which is focused on optimizing the way the world views mobile monetization. MoPub is a mobile ads serving platform, built by app developers for app developers. It's pretty sweet; the thesis behind MoPub is to help publishers in mobile to increase their revenue by working directly with advertisers, running cross-promotional and house ad campaigns and working with backfill ad networks like iAd and Google AdSense etc.

Jim founded MoPub along with a group of talented fellow ex-Google and ex-AdMob product managers and engineers: Bryan Atwood and Navis Jamal.

Bryan Atwood, who is currently head of product, gave me a sneak peak at the latest iteration, and lets just say that I am very impressed and excited to see them crush it in 2011.

MoPub is backed by Accel Partners and Harrison Metal Capital, two of the most respected investment firms in the Valley.

Emotional Rollercoaster

One of my best friends just raised a series a round of $1mm for his new mobile ad serving start up. During a recent conversation he began to explain how difficult and emotional is was, yet the pressure has really just begun.

Doing a start up is really as emotional or perhaps even more than a romantic relationship. You are always second guessing yourself – Did I choose the right partner/s? Will they flake on me like the hundreds of guys before them have over the years? What if the others in the space catch on to what you are doing and add features that will make your product not as compelling or less competitive? What features should we go to market with? or "Wait, I’m bootstrapping this venture and am on my last $100.00 and don’t have much but a few screenshots, what do I do? How do I get someone to listen?!"

The worst part is being that you spend 1000 hours a month examining the space, you end up finding solutions that are similar to what you are building or have features that you thought were unique to your new product! I’ve come to the conclusion that unless you are in real estate, where if you buy all the land in a region, there is no way someone can compete with you in that area. Yet on the web, there are zero barriers to entry and competition is fierce; it’s freaking global. There are no physical constraints or land to purchase other than domains maybe; but then you just change the URL and/or brand. Although the chances of some kid in Bangkok in his basement competing with a team of professionals in let’s say Silicon Valley, are very slim, it’s still possible.

The web space moves at such a RAPID pace, and you can bet that someone somewhere is building the same or similar idea to yours. All this said, this is what makes the web space so dam exciting and worthy of yielding high returns upon an exit. Its freaking hard!

I have just made the move back to Silicon Valley from NYC. New York City is an amazing place, yet the start up culture is still nowhere near the valley.
So I guess I’ve accepted that this will be an emotional rollercoaster for a very long time – wish me luck.

Successful Leadership – Fear or Inspiration?

I have recently been chatting with some friends who are at an about 5 year old start up whose management just makes you wonder how the heck they ever made it into a leadership position.

These recent conversations have also made me better understand how some people are really not fit for leadership and simply fall into these positions based on who they know, resumes they have built up, and perhaps people they have stepped on to get there. That said, it’s also made me appreciate the leaders who have lead by inspiration and truly believe in others, and by default others end up following them.

In my opinion, there are two ways of leading: 1) Leadership by Inspiration and Empowerment and, 2) Leadership by Fear and Arrogance.
What’s ironic is that I know leadership at this start up very well and have seen the leadership shift over time. I have seen it lead by a group of people who were inspired and thus inspired others, and have seen it now being led by management that leads by fear and arrogance.

What’s interesting is how bad moral and innovation is affected when fear is the main driver. When employees are simply “going through the motions” and all they care about is not losing their jobs. I am totally against this tactic. Think about this for a second. What happens when countries are plagued by fear? You see mass exoduses or defection, and the inevitable revolution. Sure, fear keeps the proverbial “assembly line” going yet isn’t it a matter of time until the people revolt? - And in the world of business revolting means not caring or looking for other opportunities. How can fear be an effective tactic? Especially in today’s world where there are opportunities everywhere, of course relative to the days of the baby boomers and before and ESPECIALLY in technology and the world of start ups. I personally have walked from opportunities a few times based on awful leadership.

As you can tell I am very much affected by this topic simply because leadership is something that I take very seriously and understand the impact that it has on people’s lives – both short and long term.
For me it boils down to what your motivation to lead is all about. You are either leading for the greater good or your selfish/arrogant needs. People forget that companies consist of human beings. Human beings that have families and friends and in the web world, often times are young trying to figure out their own path in life. Bad leadership can and will affect its employees. Trust me, it’s happened to me.

So I pose the question: What is it - Fear or Inspiration? What motivates you to succeed?

Realizing Your Passion, Leading To Your Success - 1

This post is inspired by a fellow yogi friend of mine. The dynamics of being a part of a yoga studio are quite interesting. To many, it’s a place where people seek answers to life’s questions by tapping into their mind and body via this meditative state. I’ve actually been doing yoga for nearly 2 years and am still trying to completely surrender into meditation and not think about all life’s nonsense, thoughts, during my practice. Regarding my yogi friend, I don’t know her much outside of the studio yet could tell that she was a smart young lady and a go-getting. And during a recent SMS chat with her we were talking about achieving great things in life and how I felt that her future was bright beyond her currently day job; which mind you is not too bad. She works for probably the most prestigious investment banking firm in the world. Yet, I have become increasingly aware of how many of these organizations operate and that at times employees are overworked and under-appreciated. In my opinion, I believe that people either get burned out and become jaded or turn into the seemingly heartless monsters they once saw in others; both very sad outcomes.

Why is this? Why do we stick around at jobs that make us sad or we dislike? Are we scared of change? Are we afraid of the unknown? – I think the answer is yes for many of us. We use the excuse of having to put food on the table for ourselves or our family; which is obviously important. Yet does this mean that we have to live in misery in order to accomplish this? I am serious! Is this really living life to the fullest?

I believe that the answer is having faith in life. When you were a baby in your mothers whom you had zero idea what would happen next. Yet you surrender to the natural course of events and things worked out as they were meant to. Now, I’m not saying quit your job and sit on the couch and wait for something to happen, yet I am saying to take a deep breath and confront the fear of the unknown. The fear that is keeping you unsatisfied at work and break your belief barriers. For me personally, breaking my belief barriers meant, realizing that I was capable of achieving as much success as I wanted to in life. And for me, part of how I quantified success was building businesses and inspiring as many people as possible along the way. That belief barrier was broken nearly 8 years ago during my junior year in college. Part of that process was understanding that it was a commitment in itself to continue to believe and motivate myself. I had to also understand that there was a journey involved and that it would not come overnight. And well, here I am 8 years later, still pursuing my goals and loving the journey. My blog is unique in that it is not a story of someone who has already achieved immense success, yet is the diary of my journey and when possible the journeys of the people who are growing along with me towards achieving our personal successes.

I decided to add a few steps that I have identified that might help others realize their passions and begin their journey towards personal success.

1) Get Inspired – I know this is easier said than done and it may take a while to find, yet find that thing that fills you up with joy. Steve Jobs speaks about having to have an undying passion of your craft or business and how without it you will not be able to persevere through the difficult moments that will confront you during your journey. This is a VERY VERY important step. Once you have identified this passion think about how you can build a business around it. Think about the people you can help and the pieces that you will have to bring together to begin building.

2) Help Others From The Heart – I can’t stress this enough. It’s got to be about more than just the money. Sure I want to accumulate financial wealth via my businesses, yet aside of the personal fulfillment, it’s about building something that is greater than I am alone. It’s about building a company that will inspire its employees and their families, and empower them to be great. So whether you are starting a yoga studio or building the next Google, don’t forget that your company is only as special as the sum of its parts and the greater and happier those parts are the greater your business will be.

3) Do it Right – Doing it right can mean many things. Yet, when I say do it right, I mean working harder than you have ever worked, being honest, and maintain your integrity. Look, I get that we are not perfect. Trust me, I am far from perfect yet at the end of the day we represent our business and our business should represent who we are. Making sure that we strive to be the best people we can be will yield great dividends in life and business.

I will continue to think through the concept of "Realizing Your Passion, Leading To Your Success" and write as I learn, yet for now I want everyone who feels that they are not living life the way that they want to or feels that they are destined for greater things to take the FIRST STEP and GET INSPIRED.

I'd love to hear your stories of acquiring inspiration. Please post a comment below if you feel compelled to do so...

The Owner Mentality

I received a call a few days ago from a good friend of mine in California who took over a business I started a few years back. By the way, she was really the person responsible for making the business a success; I simply provided a platform for her to display her talents. In any case, she had gotten pretty bored of the business which was an event promotions business operating within the nightlife scene. Upon discontinuing the business she ended up taking a day job with a company in her area and was explaining to me how it’s driving her nuts! How she was so used to being the one calling the shots and being the owner. I of course laughed and gave a her a resounding “It’s because you are a leader not a follower”. She went on to say how we think like owners not employees and how difficult it is for her. The ironic part is that they gave her a raise after only a few weeks on the job based on her ability to get things done and lead. To most people, this is more than enough to keep them excited about their job, yet for my pal Jennie she can only be a leader, an owner, the captain. It was not too long ago that I came to her with the gift of entrepreneurship and leadership; the knowledge that would change her forever. It’s awesome to see her growth and continued evolution in parallel to mine.
So in conclusion, it’s ok to have the owner mentality. Simply understand who you are and make sure that you are taking the steps towards achieving your goal. Don’t get frustrated and wonder why you are reacting negatively to being just an employee. Embrace it, learn from it, and think about how you can make the employee experience better for your future employees.

Burning the Midnight Oil…or better yet, its 4:59am; yikes.

So it’s interesting (thinking outloud as I prepare to write this post...), I have recently decided to return to the days of fully committing my entire life to building a start up. Now don’t misunderstand, I have been on this entrepreneurial journey for nearly 8 years now, yet many of those years I have had a day job to be able to support myself. Well, recently I decided to follow Paul Graham’s advice regarding half-hearted efforts and quit my day job, never to return again and go full throttle on my own biz. Now, I’ve done this before, and yes it sucks at times, cause you find yourself broke a lot of the time, you tend to see all the “rest of the world” getting up at 7am rushing to work, and every once in a while you have a moment of insanity and are tempted to jump back into the rat race, only to snap out of it cause you realize that you are not one of them; you’re an entrepreneur (whether it hurts or not). Sure those stable paychecks are nice, yet that’s about it. You end up spending most of your work day on your Blackberry working on your own stuff and lunch breaks at meetings with your own teams. You even sneak out for bathroom breaks to get on a call with a developer who you’re trying to motivate and manage. And again, nothing to do with your day job. This was my experience at my most recent attempt to work at a cushy corporate job. Yep it even sounds gross.

So here I am, I’m 29 going on 30 years old, have spent all my 20’s pursuing a dream, failing, yet loving just enough of my mini successes to have evolved into who I am today, a freaking entrepreneur. Love it or hate it, you are who you are, and this you cannot deny at the end of the day. I am a hard headed, risk-taking, crazy S.O.B, who is the captain of his own ship and will simply always be like this.

So here I am, its 5:15am, I have just finished a night of creating a business brief for a start up idea that I am increasingly excited about. I have nowhere to be in the AM, no boss but myself and guess what, I’ll be up in a few hours, rolling out of bed checking my Blackberry, warming up the PC, and going at it all over again…

This time it’s my way, and I’m loving every minute of it.

Sent to Me by a Mentor of Mine...M.M

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.

Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

"As for the future, your task is not to forsee it, but to enable it."

from The Wisdom of the Sands by Antoine de Saint - Exupery