687: Monaco Bored Him, Now Places Ads on DIgital Billboards with VistarMedia CEO Jeremy Ozen

Jeremy Ozen. He's the president and co-founder of Vistar Media. He was previously a Goldman Sachs European Special Situations in London monitoring a portfolio of venture investments. He also has a BS in Material Science Engineering and a BSc in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Sam Walton's Biography
• What CEO do you follow? – 3G Capital Founders
• Favorite online tool? — Gmail Calendar
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jeremy wished he had not taken life so seriously and not every day is the end of the world

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:43 – Nathan introduces Jeremy to the show
• 01:15 – Vistar Media connects a technology to a software that runs digital billboard
• 01:35 – Vistar Media makes money by selling the technology or ads to the advertisers or agencies
• 01:52 – Vistar Media pays the media to access the platform then charges advertising agencies to use their technology
• 02:18 – VistarMedia doesn't have a financial risk because the system is a real-time system
  • 02:28 – There is a real-time buying of ad inventory
• 02:53 – VistarMedia's technology can adjust to digital ones
  • 03:06 – VistarMedia uses data for telecoms especially the location data of consumers to analyze where the consumers are within a day
• 04:20 – Jeremy started with Goldman Sachs in London
• 04:45 – Goldman had 2 groups, one is in stocks and the other is the special situations
• 05:20 – Jeremy stayed with Goldman for 2 years
• 05:22 – Jeremy then went to a hedge fund based in Monaco
• 06:12 – Jeremy became friends with people in Monaco
  • 06:30 – There was a guy who has a very successful business in Poland
• 07:31 – Jeremy accepted and liked the concept of knowing something that is already working
• 08:10 – Jeremy has a friend who was working for a company that was founded by Google in 2010
  • 08:23 – They're one of the first to do programmatic advertising
  • 08:59 – Jeremy then realized that what this company was doing for online advertising would eventually be the way for every type of advertising
• 10:54 – When Jeremy started, they knew the out-of-home advertising space was growing in terms of how much is digital
• 11:19 – Vistar Media needed to work with different media outlets explaining to them how to integrate into their system
  • 11:28 – The idea of programmatic advertising was totally foreign to them
• 11:39 – Vistar Media was launched in 2012
• 12:48 – Team size is 55
• 12:52 – Vistar Media raised in 2013 a convertible round
• 13:15 – Vistar Media hasn't raised a series A and will not raise one
• 14:01 – The biggest expenses of Vistar Media is the cost of media
• 15:20 – Jeremy has thought of buying Upfront
• 16:01 – Vistar Media has a difference in capital with the billboard guys
• 16:43 – Jeremy would describe themselves as the biggest billboard company in the USA
  • 16:46 – They have all these big partners that work with them
• 17:29 – Vistar Media is bringing the billboard companies new money
• 18:02 – Vistar Media is the only player of programmatic advertising out-of-home
• 18:15 – $7B has been spent on billboards annually
• 18:27 – Jeremy is now 31
• 18:51 – Personally, when Jeremy started Vistar Media, they thought they were building a VC tech like business
• 19:12 – Jeremy built a business to have an exit at some point
• 19:48 – The best way to grow your value is by growing your business
• 20:05 – Jeremy is paying himself $50K a year
• 20:35 – Goal for 2017
• 21:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Going from one field to another is not that difficult if you really want and need a change.
2. You grow your value by growing your business.
3. There's a time to work hard and a time to play hard.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives