663: How He Gets Mega-Brands to Pay Him $5,000 To Test Their Ads Before Going Live with Delivv.io CEO Trevor Wolfe

Trevor Wolfe. He's the CEO and co-founder of Delvv.io. He started his career in New York, where he held product innovation and marketing positions for Kantar and TNS. He also led the marketing for New York brands, Gerson Lehrman Group, along with Moveline—which is a tech startup in NYC Company and Morgan Stanley. Throughout his career, he's launched over a dozen analytics and research products and is an active advisor to investors in market research, adtech, and media tech startups in New York, Vegas, and Africa. He holds a BBA in international business from Hofstra University and is an aspiring sailor. His cat's name is Junior.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Tracy Kidder's books and The Power Broker
• What CEO do you follow? – Scott Belsky
• Favorite online tool? — The Top Inbox and Slack
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 and half to 6
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Trevor would tell himself to go find his fiancée so that he could spend 5 more years with her

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:12 – Nathan introduces Trevor to the show
• 02:06 – Delvv is a platform that allows advertising and marketing professionals to get a peer review on creative campaigns before using them as paid ads
• 02:22 – Delvv has 2 models: the marketplace, where they go to agencies and brands, and the subscription model, where you can use Delvv's own organization
• 03:05 – Delvv was launched in March, 2016
• 03:29 – The subscription model has just been launched and is already being used by Ogilvy
  • 03:31 – The subscription model is per license fee
  • 03:48 – Delvv packaged a panel of 30 professionals to start an organization
  • 03:57 – The panel processes the feedback and turns it into a report
  • 04:17 – The 30 professionals are paid depending on campaign feedback
• 04:32 – If Ogilvy pays 5K for a campaign feedback, $1500-2200 will go to the 30 professionals
• 05:12 – Trevor and his co-founders have spent more time in advertising campaigns
• 05:39 – Delvv is doing more digital now, but most of their revenue comes from TV and radio campaigns
• 06:00 – Delvv has worked with 17 different brands and they're working with Delvv in 10 different countries
• 06:16 – Delvv did $180K since May 2016 in marketplace sales
• 06:30 – Delvv has paid 700-1200 professionals to do the campaign feedback
  • 06:41 – Some of them are from agencies and would spare 30-60mins for the feedback
• 07:10 – Delvv is getting $4000-6000 per contract
• 07:23 – Delvv has 8 full-time workers and a few contractors and interns
  • 07:30 – The team is based in Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 07:45 – There's an advantage to having a team in South Africa
  • 08:11 – The disadvantage in South Africa is the electricity, but not the internet speed
  • 08:21 – Once a week, the power in the whole city goes out for a few hours
• 09:05 – Trevor and his co-founder funded the business for $10K
  • 09:37 – They have raised $300K from Angel investors
• 09:49 – Trevor was 32 when he launched Delvv
  • 10:29 – Trevor has kept his expenses down to $2K to save up for the business
  • 10:41 – "I've traded my shoebox of an apartment in New York for a 4-bedroom house, here, with open garden and a pool"
• 11:18 – Delvv has 80K in contract for the month of March
• 11:33 – "We really wanted to push the SaaS based platform"
• 12:08 – Delvv will start their seed round of about $1M on an equity round
  • 13:12 – Delvv has a UK investor, a local fund and VC in South Africa as their investors
• 15:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Campaigns are significant to any company and having feedback can help you save more money.
2. There are pros and cons in having a business in another country – try to find a way to work it out if you really want a change of environment.
3. You can enter the world of entrepreneurship by saving up and making your expenses as low as possible.

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
• Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• 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
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives