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:
There’s a lot of missed data in the offline world that is still not easy to track. Knowing and understanding your target audience is more effective and cost-efficient for you. 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 NOWShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
