679: Mobile Majority $25M raised, Acquires Qualcomm's Gimbal To Lead Mobile Ad Attribution Using Beacons w/ CEO Rob Emrich

Rob Emrich. He's a serial entrepreneur, currently involved in his latest venture as the founder and CEO of The Mobile Majority. He's founded and served as chief executive at 6 startups in social ventures including Road of Life, which distributed as $70M dollar curriculum; BULX, which was acquired by Dealyard in 2011; and Boundaryless Brands, which was acquired in 2011 along with SpeakerSite. Know more about Rob at his website.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Goal
• What CEO do you follow? – N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Spark Email Client
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Have fun"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:40 – Nathan introduces Rob to the show
• 01:26 – Rob just bought Gimbal and will use that name
  • 01:55 – They're taking the name most especially because of the .com in Gimbal's website
• 02:15 – Rob believes that what drives success in online marketing is data
• 02:58 – Most of Rob's previous companies were in the ecommerce space
• 03:22 – Mobile phone ends up being the bridge between the online world and the offline world
  • 03:31 – Rob was missing data regarding targeting and attribution
  • 03:46 – There's no way to know if an offline campaign is effective
• 04:36 – The technology Rob bought that has the data can now run campaigns and know that you were on that campaign
• 05:05 – Offline behavior ends up becoming an incredibly strong signal of intent and is an accurate way to measure attribution
• 05:21 – Gimbal uses Beacon
  • 05:37 – Beacons are usually a 2-flow energy and Qualcomm invested around over a hundred million dollars for the technology
  • 06:01 – Beacons are precise when working with GPS
• 06:53 – Qualcomm spun out beacons in 4 other companies to develop the culture of innovation
  • 07:28 – When they spun out in 2014, it became a challenge for big companies to innovate
• 08:20 – The valuation
• 08:44 – The deal structure that Rob had with Qualcomm was a mix of different things: cash, debt and equity
• 08:57 – Total funding from Mobile Majority was around $25M
• 09:03 – Mobile Majority was launched in 2012
• 09:38 – Rob has gone through things after his first exit
  • 10:05 – "I'm going big at this point"
• 10:16 – Rob is currently 37 and has no kids
• 10:33 – Team size is around 100
• 11:20 – Primary line of business is essentially acting as a media and advertising operating system for large media companies
  • 11:41 – They target individual people
  • 11:44 – "We understand identity very, very well"
  • 13:09 – They were getting revenue share
• 13:42 – When CBS creates content, that content generates users and Mobile Majority exposes them to more user data and will sell their operated properties
• 14:30 – Mobile Majority is different from Outbrain because Mobile Majority's ads are more targeted
• 15:10 – Mobile Majority now has 10K end customers
  • 16:00 – Total advertising purchase range is between $10M-100M
• 16:15 – Average percentage taken by Mobile Majority varies
  • 17:08 – Instead of charging towards content, Mobile Majority will only hit specific people who are on the list
• 18:46 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. There's a lot of missed data in the offline world that is still not easy to track.
2. Knowing and understanding your target audience is more effective and cost-efficient for you.
3. Just go on with your life and have fun, create businesses while you still can.

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
• Hotjar – Gives Nathan a recording of what is happening on a website or where are people clicking and scrolling on the website
• 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