Alex Gold is the co-founder of Buzzstarter, a marketing technology company in San Francisco working with the world’s largest brands like Dove, Axe, Degree, Clear, Danone Activa, and Aeropostale to drive higher return on investment for their ad campaigns.
Buzzstarter is a distribution marketplace and exchange
that, on one side, connects any type of brand content (such as videos or
articles) with hundreds of thousands of users who, on the other
side, share the content. He uses data science to optimize the
marketplace connections.
Originally from Toronto, Canada, and a lawyer by trade, Mr.
Gold’s background is in the entertainment and advertising industries
working with Discovery Communications ,
Vuguru, LLC, and DDB Canada. I sat down with him to discuss his rapidly
growing company and the future of communications technology.
After 5.5 months, you’ve had significant traction
with some of the world’s most prominent brands? How did you get from 0
to 60 in such a short time, when most entrepreneurs need much longer to
build momentum?
Great question. Two reasons: 1) addressing real pain and
acute need and 2) maniacal research and planning. Brands are feeling
real pain with online marketing right now. There are so many options,
and target audiences are not migrating to one or two online
destinations. They are splintering to hundreds of thousands. This gives
brands, who are used to buying single destination advertising like
television a massive headache but also a lot of fear of missing out or
FOMO. So Buzzstarter comes in with a value proposition of: 1) a single
destination site that will give your brand access to hundreds of
thousands of channels; 2) a laser sharp and very open focus on metrics;
and 3) increased ROI. People start paying attention. We back that up
with an acute understanding of what specific needs are on our platform.
We designed it with that in mind.
What were some of the tactics you used to launch Buzzstarter and get it off the ground fast?
We analyzed each step of the process: research,
development, operations in a very methodical way. I suggest this to any
entrepreneur. This may be in contrast to what you think about most startups, where
one prominent entrepreneur described it as “putting on a parachute
while falling down.” My Co-Founder Kenzi Wang and I spent months in
customer development obtaining information on what our target users
(brands and advertisers) wanted. We did not want to build a product on
intuition and we shifted the focus numerous times in research. With
development, we started two parallels: product engineering, which is
typical, but also sales and advisory. Since we knew sales would take
some time to get off the ground, we set about creating relationships on
an advisory level with potential partners months ahead of time. We are
lucky in a way that one of our first customers, Lou Paik, from Danone,
has an incredible amount of vision and foresight in the digital space.
This gave us a running start. And for operations, we carefully engaged
in a trial period with many of our colleagues where they were asked to
generate real value before permanent onboarding. We have a great team
as a result like our designer Zach Zorbas and our account manager,
Melissa Aiello.
You work very closely with large brands. What do
large brands gain from working with startups like Buzzstarter as opposed
to their traditional established agencies?
Very timely and funny. Well, first, they usually get to
have their dollar go further because startups offer better ROI and more
efficiency in their offerings. Large brands get the benefit of the
startups’ deep knowledge of up-to-the-minute innovation. Startups act as
brands’ eyes and ears on the ground and in some instances form external
innovation teams. Large brands can employ startups to source new trends
and even partners. My brands ask me all the time what new emerging
social media sites are out there as I get calls asking what Medium and
Secret are (side note: sign up for Secret – it’s awesome). Dave McClure,
the Founder of 500 Startups has always said, “Brands have access to
customers and distribution, but like many large companies they don’t
move fast and aren’t experts in tech innovation. Startups are tech-savvy
and can impart and even transfer rapid innovation forward.”
Does BuzzStarter apply to just advertising? Can it
apply to content creators like filmmakers or musicians who have a need
to distribute their message cost-efficiently and can’t afford to do so
through traditional means?
Yes, of course. We’ve never seen Buzzstarter as applied
only to advertising. We anticipate a very near future in which our
plug-and-play platform assists in optimizing communications for nearly
every creator of content: from an advertiser to a filmmaker to a
musician to nearly any writer. We are banking on the fact that as the
number of means for communicating online increase, the amount of noise
is also going to increase. What’s going to matter most is relevance and
optimization. Relevant audience targeting and optimization of message.
This is a great time to switch gears. What inspired
your career move from producing creative content to leading a team of
engineers and data scientists to drive efficiency in creative content
distribution through technology?
One word: the market. Coming from the traditional
entertainment side at Discovery and Vuguru, I saw that entertainment
distribution windows were starting to narrow with the arrival of Netflix
and Amazon. But consumers were (and still are) moving faster than any
one platform. They are consuming content not just in one destination
but in a multiplicity of applications, sites, and channels that are not
limited to the social web or where you can buy exposure. The only way
to harness this — to truly harness these new market dynamics — was
through data and technology. I saw what Andreas Wigand was doing at
Amazon in regards to targeting audiences across different channels and
was shocked that no plug-and-play solution existed. If you wanted to
target audiences on one blog versus another you needed to make separate
deals. On each social network, another separate deal. That’s enough to
give anyone a headache. I knew there was a need to create a plug and
play solution that allowed any content creator or advertiser the
opportunity to distribute across all of these apps and social media
outlets that no one else can get into. And now we have the engineering
and data science to make it work. So, I partnered with Kenzi Wang, a
growth engineer, moved to San Francisco, and started Buzzstarter.
Was the transition from being a creative to being a technologist challenging?
Yes, it was, although I find my creative side to be an
immense asset. Initially, it was hard getting my head wrapped around
the concept of scalability at inception. Building a technology platform
requires that every function and action be scalable to a target market
with minimal labor. By contrast, developing a television series or a
film is iterative, customized, and often personal. Coming into the tech
world, this was a jarring difference for me but as soon as I learned
the ropes, I started to jump. In fact, I use my more creative skills
every day in iterative product focused problem solving and roadmapping.
I have picked that up directly from the story-editing and development
process. It allowed us to craft a user focused story faster and launch
the company sooner.
Do you have any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs coming from the corporate world?
Yes. This may sound trite, but you have to be an optimist.
You also have to be open to a flexible schedule. You may have heard it
before, but working in a startup is backbreaking and awful. There are
many times you may want to give up. This means you constantly need to be
an optimist. You always have to keep your eye on the positive aspects.
Sometimes, admittedly, even blind optimism helps. The other thing you
need to be open to is a flexible schedule. Coming from the corporate
world, you may be used to 9-5 meetings and some weekend work but startup
life is everywhere, all the time, including time you may think is off.
This may sound obvious, but I have met many a new entrepreneur who came
from the corporate world only to attempt to run their startup the same
way. Not my advice. Be flexible in your schedule and time. It’s the
mental barrier that makes such a difference.
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