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Andrew: Hey everyone. It’s Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of mixergy.com, home of the Ambitious Upstart. And I think what separates, in fact I know what separates me from other people who are doing talk shows about business on television and even on the internet is that I like to talk to as many different people as possible about how they built their online businesses and really dig deep. And I think, now that we’ve done probably 200+ interviews over the last year or so, I’ve proven that we can go deeper. We can pull information that nobody else can. And we can learn more about business because we do that. All right. And today I’ve got an entrepreneur with me named David Shteif. David is the founder of Revenue Enhancement Group. David, can you tell people what the company does?
Interviewee: Yeah. Revenue Enhancement Group is a data monetization company. What we do is we help companies that do any type of online advertising, who gather data. Basically, uncover hidden revenues within their data.
Andrew: Okay. All right. We did a pre-interview and in the pre-interview I said, tell me a little about the revenue, tell me a little bit about the profit. So
Interviewee: I’m just trying to get someone to keep it, to tone it down. They’ve got their speaker on.
Andrew: I’m glad that we weren’t actually able to hear it. It’s cool to actually see you in your office and see what’s going on there. So I was asking you a little about the revenue and a little bit about the profits. One of the questions I asked is, “Are you profitable?”
Interviewee: We are.
Andrew: Okay. And how long have you been in business?
Interviewee: Revenue Enhancement Group, I started two years ago.
Andrew: And I asked, is it, can you give me a sense of the revenues in the business and you told me?
Interviewee: In the millions.
Andrew: okay. All right. So two year-old business, in the millions in revenue, already profitable. We’re going to find out how you got there. But maybe we can, let’s see what’s the best way to take this interview? Maybe we can talk a little bit, maybe we can explain the business a bit more before we go back into your history and how you built up this business. I imagine a lot of people when they hear about Twitter and Twitter ads, they instantly get it today. When they hear about someone who’s making money off of data, they’re not as familiar with it. So, what kind of companies do you work with?
Interviewee: We work with companies that are in the lead gen space. For example, we have companies that we work with in the financial space, companies in online education, companies in the nutriceuticals space, business opportunities, to name a few.
Andrew: Silicon Valley is just now starting to understand the lead gen, means lead generation, let alone what the business is about. And people outside of the internet space, still don’t understand what lead gen is. Lead gen, in fact I was going to explain it but I think it would be better that the definition came from you. And I understand if most of the audience of Mixergy knows lead-gen
and is already in the lead gen business one way or another. But we might as well, while we’ve got you here let’s get an explanation from one of the experts in this space.
Interviewee: Great. Well, lead generation is nothing more than, let’s just say for example, you own a website that is a site that would to like to go ahead and collect information on students who are looking to find a school so they can further their education online, so lead gen is nothing more that being able to capture information. Share it then with the buyer of the information. So let’s just call it the school, to communicate with the potential student.
Andrew: And there are lots of different companies who are getting into this space. In fact, recently Google got into this space, I think where if you search for certain terms around mortgages, you’ll start to see a list of competitive mortgage rates. When you click on the one you’re interested in, you’re taken over to a form that you fill out. And that’s a lead gen based business, where they get paid every time they collect that lead for the mortgage industry. And that’s based here. Right?
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Andrew: You take those companies and you helped them monetize even further.
Interviewee: That’s right.
Andrew: Okay. Alright, so let’s go back a little bit in time and get a sense of your past. What’d you do before this?
Interviewee: Well, before this company, I was one of the founders of an online network, an ad network. Should I go further back? I’ve been in this place for ten years.
Andrew: How about we do a quick history and then we’ll dove in deep into specific areas, so let’s start with college. Did you graduate from college?
Interviewee: Florida Atlantic University
Andrew: Okay, then right after that what did you do?
Interviewee: Oh boy, right after that I got into television production.
Andrew: Really?
Interviewee: Yeah, I used be in the tv production business, and I worked for company for a short time been the entrepreneur that I am. Spent about a year and half in that space and I figured it out and I decided to start to my own tv production at the age of 24.
Andrew: Wow.
Interviewee: Yeah
Andrew: How did that go? What kind of tv shows were you producing?
Interviewee: Actually, it was more on the short form doing commercials. It was actually pretty interesting. I did things for Chevron, did some things for Cobia Boats. Gheez, I’m going back now trying to think some of the other companies that we did commercials for. It was really a lot of fun, it was a great experience. I just knew early on that I didn’t want to work for anyone that I wanted to run my own business, so that was my first floret into entrepreneurship.
Andrew: Okay, did you get into it because you wanted to get into show business or did you get into because you are into revenues, business and sales the way you and I still are today.
Interviewee: I think it has something to do with the challenge, and of course running my own business. Ultimately, it comes down to revenue. I don’t really want sit there and get a check from somebody else. I wanted to be able to control my check.
Andrew: I see. So it wasn’t because you wanted to be a tv star, or tv producer?
Interviewee: No
Andrew: You saw that. I always wanted to get into that business too, especially, when I watch the infomercial guys. In fact, when I do commercials for people here in Mixergy, I often would get emailed back saying ‘Andrew tone down the late night infomercial personality.’
Interviewee: No, I like that about you Andrew. That’s you
Andrew: I love that. Yes. I need to do just an infomercial online. I don’t know for what, but I should do a different infomercial everyday instead of interviews.
Interviewee: And you get to say, ‘But wait there’s more’
Andrew: (chuckles) Yes, so are those the kinds of interviews that you guys did- the ‘But wait there’s more.’
Interviewee: No, it was just short form thirty to sixty seconds spots. I actually did one infomercial for a psychic network. That was pretty interesting with a live audience. That was pretty cool, but I actually really enjoy short form. Short form is pretty cool; we did that for a while. Then I got into starting my own full service ad agency because our clients liked our work and from there got in the Internet back in 1999
Andrew: What did you start doing in the Internet?
Interviewee: Really got right away working into data. I worked for a company back in the day called Opt In Inc. Again, I kicked them in. I started working for them for a short time, saw that there’s was a tremendous opportunity, and then start my own company about five months later. Direc Media Buyers was the name of the company.
Andrew: I see. How did you even know that this industry existed? Did you just answer a help wanted ad? Did a friend refer it to you? Because this isn’t something that most people know about, its not in the cover of Wire Magazine.
Interviewee: I agree.
Andrew: How did you find about it?
Interviewee: It was through my wife’s friend’s brother in law.
Andrew: What was the story that he told that made interested in this maze?
Interviewee: I got together with him, and he started telling all these things and drawing on a whiteboard telling all this great things about theta, and the Internet, and I was like ‘Okay, and I can make how much? Ok, good I’m in. Sure’
Andrew: Look. How much was it? I was actually talking to the founder of College Humor yesterday, who told me that when he was in college he heard that Joe Cartoon was making $20,000 a month in ads and that to him seem like an impossible large number and he had to find a way to make it possible for himself. What was the number that you heard?
Interviewee: Well, back in 1999, I was sitting in his office in his office, and he again he drawing on his board and he says you can make anywhere in between $10,000 and $15,000 a month. I said sign me up. I’m in
Andrew: I see
Interviewee: That was the number back then.
Andrew: Okay. This is Opt In Inc. the company that you’re talking about.
Interviewee: Yes
Andrew: Okay. And how do they work at the time?
Interviewee: Well, again they were data company. What they did is they had sweepstakes sites online, where people sign up for sweepstakes. They collect all their information and they had data and back then there companies like Ofoto.Do you remember Ofoto?
Andrew: Yes.
Interviewee: And all these wonderful companies that were getting all these DC money, and they needed eyeballs, so what they did is that they came to Opt In Inc. And Opt In Inc. used to sell them …
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Interviewee: opted email on a cpm basis. Do you remember those words? CPM?
Andrew: Yeah.
Interviewee: Good old days
Andrew: Actually, I apparently email still can generate cpm revenue. I did an interview with the founder of Thrillest, who is basically an email based business. Email. He’s claiming that he’s getting cpm, but for the most part cpm is dead.
Interviewee: Yeah. He’s got a nice business. I saw the interview. I’m signed up to Thrillest and I think he has a great business. Really great business. Because he’s got excellent content.
Andrew: Yeah. Exactly. Excellent content, great brand and partnerships with top magazines which add to his brand all the time. And he’s profitable, too.
Interviewee: Absolutely.
Andrew: Okay so you find out about this business. What kind, all right, we found out about the kind of work that you did. What was new about the work that the company did? Specifically we did you do at this company?
Interviewee: At Opt In Inc., I came in, really as just a sales rep and then worked my way up pretty quickly to running sales for the company.
Andrew: A sales rep at that business means that you’re going out to companies who are going to spend money and then you have someone else who talks to the publishers, right?
Interviewee: I was the one who would, yes, communicate with the client. Correct. Absolutely. And then they would basically agree upon an amount of data that they wanted to go ahead and test. And then they would run the test. And then they would come back to us and say it went well we’d love a continuation.
Andrew: Back then, companies weren’t used to data collection. They thought all the data collection had to happen on their website. They didn’t understand that there was a lead based business out there. That if you allowed them to; if you worked together with them you could grow your leads traffic, dependable leads at a reasonable price. All that’s to say, how did you explain the process to them? How did you bring the new beast into this business?
Interviewee: Are we going back to Opt In Inc.? Or are we
Andrew: Yeah. Let’s go back to Opt In Inc., I imagine that even today you have bring people in and it’s not like everybody knows this space.
Interviewee: You know it’s really, I’ve always believed that, facts tell and stories sell. What I mean by that is, just telling them a factual story they don’t understand the business. You can’t sit there and tell them a bunch of facts. What you need to do is actually, kind of, create a story that they can actually connect with. And then the light bulb goes on and they say, “Ah, I get it. I understand it.” And that’s really what it came down to. Because we were dealing with so many people who came from the offline business. Traditional advertising. So I would always take the traditional world and bring that into online. And just give them the story.
Andrew: Traditional advertisers and bring them online.
Interviewee: Right.
Andrew: So you were introducing them to the internet, basically. And you were introducing them to online ads and more importantly, the tougher job was introducing them to the leads business.
Interviewee: That’s right.
Andrew: And the way to do that is to say, “What are you guys backing into right now offline? How much are you paying for a new registration of your cd club? How much are you paying for someone who wants your magazine? We’ll beat that price.” Right?
Interviewee: Well it always came down to acquisition cost. You know, what do you need to back into. But back then it wasn’t so much acquisition. Back then it was eyeballs.
Andrew: You were still selling eyeballs. Even at Opt In?
Interviewee: Oh, back then all they cared about was getting traffic to the site. They didn’t care if anybody bought anything.
Andrew: I see. Okay.
Interviewee: That was they heyday of VC’s saying, “Hey, go spend, spend, spend.” Those were the fun days. But today, I mean, to what we do. Everything comes down to, like you said, acquisition cost nothing happens unless we can actually back into a clients back-end number.
Andrew: We actually, at the time, we were also in the leads business. I remember there was one client we sold the, a new registration of their email newsletter for a buck-fifty a pop. Every time we got one of our users to join their email newsletter, they paid us a buck-fifty. And we thought we were making a killing because we were doing millions of these a month. Then one day, they bring me into their office to try and buy us out. And they show me the same deck that they showed their investors. And on that deck they were showing their investors that they were paying $7.50 per lead, per email address. And their investors were happy to fund their business at that price. Can you imagine? They thought every email on their email newsletter was worth $7.50. So they, so what I’m saying is that there was room to charge more. The trick was, back then especially, they would go public at a rate of maybe $10 or $20 per person in their email newsletter and they would get these high multiples, these billion dollar valuations and that’s the way back into it.
Interviewee: Sure.
Andrew: Okay so you were saying, and I should say that to this day I think the real money online is being made in the lead gen business.
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Andrew: I think the real money online is being made in the lead gen business one way or the other.
Interviewee: Sure.
Andrew: Right?
Interviewee: 100%.
Andrew: Even we’re discovering now that a big portion of the revenue on Facebook apps is coming in from the lead gen business. All those Facebook apps are leading users towards lead gen business. Some of them great, some of them a little shady, some of them outright bad. But the lead gen business, in one way or the other, has an insane amount of revenue. Okay. So at what point did you start going into opt in? Or how did you make the transition towards opt in? You were saying that mostly it was CPM at the beginning.
Interviewee: Uh, well, are you talking about opt in, the business or…
Andrew: Uh, the lead based part of the business. The data part of your business.
Interviewee: Okay. Here’s…what we got into the lead {INAUDIBLE] business. From Opt In Egg I then was the founder of a company called the DM Buyers, Direct Media Buyers, which as a matter of fact, we did some business with one of your companies back then which we spoke about.
Andrew: Yeah. And I didn’t know it. How did you know that by the way? How did you remember?
Interviewee: You know, Bradford and Reed, it’s just got that ring and I actually went back and I looked at some old information that I had. I’m like, “Wow. We actually did do business with his company back then.” So it was pretty cool. It’s like, well. There’s Andrew. But yeah, I remember and we did some good things with you guys.
Andrew: I don’t remember. Do you remember what we did together? We can tell people. Be as open as you want.
Interviewee: Oh, we just…I think back then it was just media buying. We Opt in… DM Buyers, which was the name of my company back then, which I have –
Andrew: I have heard the name, now.
Interviewee: Yeah. We…initially what we did is we went and we were buying online advertising. In bulk, on a CPM basis. On a CPC basis. So A, we either bought media from you or b, you bought media from us. Because what we used to do is buy it up in bulk and then what we used to do is sell it out to companies at a discounted rate. So that was pretty much what we were doing at DM Buyers.
Andrew: I see, yeah. And so you would buy them upfront and then you’d have to go out there and hustle to sell those ads?
Interviewee: Yes.
Andrew: Okay. All right. So you were telling us about the data business back then.
Interviewee: Yeah. You know, from going out and working with companies, in terms of providing them with a platform to get people to come to their sites, we, through DM Buyers said, “You know what? Here’s an opportunity for us to get into the monetization business.” So what we would do is communicate with companies that we would sell the advertising to and say, “Hey look. You know what? There’s a by product here. Not every person that’s coming to your site is buying, right? There’s only a certain percentage that will buy. What do you do with the people that are not buying? Well, you’re collecting the information. They’re signing up. They’re providing their first name, their last name, their email, postal address, whatever it may be but they’re not providing you with their credit card. Why don’t we go ahead and show you how we can go ahead and monetize that information and help you collect additional revenue that you are not seeing right now?” And that’s how that all came about, back at DM Buyers.
Andrew: I see. Okay. I’m sorry.
Interviewee: And then we fast forward to where we are today and we created a company that 100% just focuses just on monetization. We’re not dealing with any media buying anymore, all we do is monetization.
Andrew: Okay. All right. Let’s go back. And by the way, my brother Michael’s watching us live and he’s saying that he thinks that we bought ads from you guys when we were running grab.com. When we were running that campaign we were especially hungry for traffic. That was when we offered a big jackpot for anyone who came in to register for our site and we were doing a lot of business with it. So we were probably always looking to buy ads back then.
Interviewee: Thanks for the clarification, Brad.
Andrew: Sorry?
Interviewee: Thanks for the clarification there, Brad.
Andrew: That’s right. His name is Michael but we do like to call him Bradford and my then name would be “Reed” I guess, in the company. Okay. All right. So what happened at the end of that company? What happened to DM Buyers?
Interviewee: Oh, DM Buyers, what we actually did is I had a partner in the business back then and we…what we were doing is, again besides doing the media buying, we got into doing a lot of…helping companies like Home Depot, Circuit City and Pfizer to build up their email databases. They understood how powerful email was so they said, “We want to go ahead and build our online databases.” So we got into the opt-in co-registrations with them. We assisted them with setting up their message on different sites so this way a user could go ahead and check a box and say, “Sure. I’d love to hear from Home Depot. I’d like to know about unadvertised specials. I want to know about things before other people know about them.”
Andrew: And you were selling those check boxes to Home Depot on other people’s websites?
Interviewee: Correct.
Andrew: I see. What kind of revenue…
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Andrew: What kind of revenue were you bringing in from that at the time? Per lead?
Interviewee: Oh boy. Home Depot alone was several hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, as far as an account. Circuit City, same thing. Pfizer –
Andrew: Do you remember what they were paying per lead that you got them?
Interviewee: They were paying, on the low end, I think it was around 25 cents a lead. It’s not even a lead. Back then they were paying for an email address.
Andrew: Yeah. An email sign up.
Interviewee: That’s it. Someone is going to sign up for their newsletter. That’s all it was. So it was anywhere between 25 cents upwards of 50, 60 cents per record. So, where am I going with this? Well, you asked, what happened to the company. And this is where I really learned that you don’t necessarily want to go ahead and surround yourself around a bunch of Fortune – let’s call it 100 companies. It’s great to have Fortune 100 companies but if something happens with one of them, and you’re really dependent on that revenue, it could really hurt your business. And that’s pretty much what happened. Unfortunately, some of our bigger partners had some issues. Home Depot. Hey, no secret. And Circuit City’s no longer around. Unfortunately, we decided to let the DM Buyers just take a rest and that’s when I got out and I started to get involved in the…what the company called ‘Add Valiant Media Trust. Have you heard of Add Valiant Media Trust? Okay. It’s a network. Got involved with them. I became a… they brought me on as a founder.
Andrew: When you say ‘take a rest from the previous company’ you mean, you had to shut it down because there was too much debt?
Interviewee: Thanks for just sticking that knife in.
Andrew: All right! We’ve got to be open here!
Interviewee: Oh no, I’ll…
Andrew: So what kind of debt did you have in a business like that?
Interviewee: You know what? It really had nothing… to do with the debt. It came down to, “”You know what? It just doesn’t make sense.’ We’re just not drawing the type of revenue that we used to draw. But I’m going to go my way; my partner went his. I then had an opportunity that presented itself to become a founder of –
Andrew: Before we go on, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to ask a little more just about DM Buyers. But I won’t make it too painful. I just want to make sure that I understand it. What was the height… what was the revenue at the height?
Interviewee: You love those numbers, don’t you?
Andrew: I love numbers!
Interviewee: Revenue at the height was just under ten million.
Andrew: Okay. All right. And then just before you closed up what was the revenue?
Interviewee: Oh, God. I’m trying to go back and remember. How about not that much?
Andrew: Okay. All right.
Interviewee: It just wasn’t that much. Not enough to keep me interested.
Andrew: All right. Fair enough. And when it goes away it almost goes away like that. Especially when, and I was in a situation like you were, a handful of my advertisers were responsible for a vast majority of my revenue. If they have trouble, they’re all having trouble together because they tend to be in the same space, buying pretty much the same product from, you know, from me. From one company. It’s a very dangerous place to be in. And then you’ve got to go and scramble and try to find a lot of other people to make up for it. And the problem with the big advertisers is they want everything. They don’t want a small sliver of your small company compared to them. They want all of your business and it’s still small compared to them. So you can say ‘I’m going to and go diversify.’ Or it’s harder. Okay. So you were saying about the next business that you went on to co-found.
Interviewee: Really what I did is I came in just to help out some friends with an ad network. It was really for a short time. I knew that and it’s not really where I want to be because I own a minority share of the company. And I’m not really good with owning minority shares of things. So I came in, I did my thing, I helped them out. As far as their revenues, got them up to where they wanted to be and then I moved on. And that’s where I am today: Revenue Enhancement Group.
Andrew: Okay. And you founded Revenue Enhancement Group two years ago, you said? How much –
Interviewee: Yeah.
Andrew: Did you get any outside funding in the business?
Interviewee: Nope. It was all my own funding.
Andrew: How much did you put in the business? And by the way, as I ask you that question I know the answer because I’m looking at the pre-interview notes. So…
Interviewee: I started the company out with about 100,000.
Andrew: Okay. About $100,000 you’re putting into this business with…what was the idea? What was the thesis behind the business?
Interviewee: The idea behind the business was to help companies that again, are in the lead gem space. Or even in transactional. Doing any type of transactional business online. Really helping them uncover hidden revenues within their data. Because data’s sitting there. This is data, right? I just did one thing with it, I’m done. But you’re not really done because when you speak to a Revenue Enhancement group, we could show you how we could take this and multiply it. Month after month after month. Does that make sense?
Andrew: And so if you’re selling pens, you can only sell a pen one time. But if you’re selling data, you made copies of it and you sell it responsibly multiple times.
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Andrew: You can only sell a pen one time.
Interviewee: Right
Andrew: But if you’re selling data; you make copies of it and you can sell it responsibly multiple times.
Interviewee: Well, we’re not making copies. No.
Andrew: Okay
Interviewee: What we do is we’re looking at every aspect that’s coming in. We’re looking at the email. We’re looking at the postal address. We’re looking at the phone numbers. We’re looking at even the mobile today, which is a tremendous space for us. We understand how do go ahead and monetize the email address, send other offers to the individuals that signed up. That they will end up clicking on; taking some kind of action to generate additional revenues.
Andrew: I see. Are you managing that data and that’s why you’re saying?
Interviewee: No
Andrew: Oh. I see. So if you’re getting a phone number, you’re the only ones sending out a text message to that phone or if you’re getting an email address you’re the only ones to do it.
Interviewee: That’s right.
Andrew: That’s what you meant by, “We don’t copy.” It’s not like we’re doing and also we’re selling it to Andrew’s company and Steve’s company.
Interviewee: We’re not selling it to anybody now.
Andrew: Okay. All right. And I said on Twitter, to tell people who are coming in to watch us live, what our interviews going to be about, that you went for 0 to multi-million dollars business in two years. Day One you obviously had zero revenue but what you told me that in a couple of months you were able to bring in, you were profitable. Here it is, in my notes. You were profitable within 2 months.
Interviewee: That’s right.
Andrew: how do you get profitable within two months?
Interviewee: It’s called a lot of hard work and great relationships.
Andrew: And especially in this industry, relationships are important. Right?
Interviewee: You are absolutely, absolutely. Again I’ve been in the business for 10 years. A lot of people know me. It was really a matter of me picking up the phone, speaking to people I know and saying, “Look, this is where I am. This is what I’m doing. Let’s go ahead and do some business.” And that’s what really helped us to get to profit in month two.
Andrew: Okay. All right. Like any business, you’ve got two sides of the equation. You’ve got the suppliers and you’ve got the customers. The suppliers are the ones who are feeding you data. We talked about the kind to companies that they are. They’re online education companies. They’re people in the financial industry. Weight-loss industry. Right?
Interviewee: Yes.
Andrew: How did you have those contacts before?
Interviewee: I’ve had those contacts simply from attending shows. You know your Ad Techs, your Affiliate Summits. People introducing people to me. And again, just throughout the years, of knowing different. You’d appreciate this. You know through the years you get to know people. And as you know that, people move pretty quickly. One day someone is working for a specific company. The next day, they start their own company. What’s really helpful is always keeping that good relationship. Being cool with people. Always having respect for them. And always doing whatever you can to help them because one day when you start something up you can be able to pick up the phone and say, “Hey.” And that person is going to say, “Yeah I remember that person he was always cool to me. I want to do some business with him.”
Andrew: Okay
Interviewee: So I would say that had a lot to do with helping us to get to where we are.
Andrew: Okay. Yeah. And especially in this industry. You talk to a guy who’s a pipsqueak who’s going nowhere. Meanwhile, that same guy, who’s working for somebody else for a while has studied on his own. The pipsqueak is building his own business in his house that’s going to be bigger than the company he worked for.
Interviewee: Absolutely.
Andrew: And still look like a pipsqueak and still look like a dork. Look at me. And there they are.
Interviewee: I’m seeing that every day. I’ve got a friend that I was just on the phone with the other day yesterday. Who again used to work for a company based out of New York. He went out and he went out on his own. Started his own deal. Sold his company about a year ago for some crazy number. I think it was up around $40 million mark. So.
Andrew: Wow
Interviewee: Yeah
Andrew: Wow
Interviewee: Pretty exciting
Andrew: Wow. All right. Yeah. So makes me even want to learn more about this business. Okay so these companies. Most of them that you’re working for are guys that are collecting leads and then making a commission on them. These are people who are creating landing pages for weight loss sites. They’re creating landing pages for get-out-of-debt sites. Then they take it and sell that data to another company that services the customer. And there are certain leads that they can’t sell; because the lead isn’t qualified because maybe they were supposed to send them over to a debt company and their level of debt doesn’t meet the minimum or maybe there’s an issue with the data you collected, where you didn’t collect all of it. That’s where they end up having excess data that they come to you with. Did I understand that right?
Interviewee: You almost have it
Andrew: Okay.
Interviewee: But yeah. The partials, lets just call it the partial data. The people who didn’t buy. The people who sent through and they got to the credit card page and they were like Nah, I’m not going to buy this. Or maybe it was a bad credit card. Whatever it may be, that information again falls on the floor. We try to pick up what’s on the floor. And show our clients that there is money with what just fell on the floor.
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Interviewee: So we try to, you know, pick up what’s on the floor, and show our clients that there’s money with what just fell on the floor.
Andrew: What about what’s not on the floor? Do you also monetize the data that they do sell? The data that they do…
Interviewee: Yeah. Yeah, you know, as long as, let’s clarify one thing which is extremely important. All the people that we work with, we’ve got a pretty strong Compliance Department. We need to make sure, A, that the privacy policy allows them to work with a third party monetizer like us. So that’s first and foremost. And to answer your question, yeah, you know, there are clients that we work with. And we say, “you know, would you like us to work with your buyers or your non-buyers”? And this is when it comes down to transactional. And some will say, “no, you know, I’m comfortable just with the non-buyers”. And that’s OK. There’s some that will say, “you know what? I’m OK with that. Let’s go ahead and do something with the buyers and the non-buyers”.
Andrew: OK. All right. So, we talked about where you get the data. We also, in the pre-interview, talked about how at first you did, you were selling only email, and sorry, not selling, you were only doing business in email and first name. Right?
Interviewee: Right. Monetizing just email data.
Andrew: I’m sorry, just email data at first. And then you discovered some other data that was valuable, like cell phone numbers for SMS.
Interviewee: That’s right.
Andrew: Who you, who’s buying those ads?
Interviewee: You know what? It’s not who’s buying them. What we do is, we have a closed-end loop. What we do is, we send out a text message to the people that we’re working with, well, to the data. And what we do is, we invite them to dial a toll-free number. And obviously there’s a bit of an incentive in it. I mean remember, you being with Grab.com, I’m sure that you remember incentivization. And we’ll incent them with a gift card to a retail store, have them dial-in to one of the call centers that we work with, and the call center will go ahead and provide them that incentive that we said they’re going to receive. And then they’ll say, “oh, by the way, would you be interested in this service or this product?” Whatever it is, it’s an upsell. And that’s where the revenue is generated.
Andrew: I see. OK. All right. We’ve got a question here from someone who’s watching us live. Michael Tajata is saying “hey Andrew, and Mixergy, is this Spamming 101”? I’m sure you get this question a lot in the data industry.
Interviewee: Absolutely.
Andrew: Is this Spamming 101?
Interviewee: No, you know, spamming is sending out a message to someone who does not want to receive it. And spamming is also when you send out a message, and there’s no way to remove yourself. And you’re hiding. We don’t do that. We don’t hide, and we don’t send something out to someone that does not want to receive it. And, anytime that something is sent to someone, we always give them the opportunity to remove themselves. So, spamming is having no way of finding out where it’s coming from or being able to remove yourself. So good question. I appreciate that question.
Andrew: OK. How does somebody remove themselves from an SMS message?
Interviewee: Just response STOP, or yeah, that’s it. Actually the way we have it set up right now, just response STOP.
Andrew: And they know that.
Interviewee: Yeah.
Andrew: They know that they can respond STOP because you include that in the message?
Interviewee: That’s right.
Andrew: You do. All right. Here’s my take on this thing, first of all, before we continue. I want to understand what’s really going on in the business world, without coming out with statements like this is spam, or any of the loaded questions, or the loaded messages that people have out there. Bottom line is, people are doing something with data. We can just shrink back from it and say this is spam. I’m not going to pay attention to it. Or, we can learn as much as possible, and even recognize that some of the big, well-funded, well-respected businesses are in the legion, are in the data business in one way or another. They just don’t put this up front. They don’t talk about this much because there are people that have the kind of reaction that Michael brought up, which is a valid reaction. And I’m not saying, I’m not telling you we shouldn’t. Be as open as you want in live comments. But for me, and my work here, and for the people who I’m trying to attract who want to learn as much as possible from the full industry, and here’s a profitable portion of the business that’s helping. That’s working for David’s company. That’s working for other companies. And you guys have been reading what’s going on in the text space. You see that there are other people who are in the space, and we want to understand it. OK, let’s see. What’s next for us, too? So, SMS Adresses, right?
Interviewee: Right.
Andrew: What are you doing with actual addresses, physical addresses?
Interviewee: Well, postal addresses, actually, we have off-line companies that would like to go in, communicate with specific people in specific verticals. And that is the data that’s actually sold on a CPM basis. So it’s really nothing more than when, if someone signs up, let’s say for a credit card. Let’s say Citibank. You sign up for a Citibank card, and you fill out the information. And then you end up getting the credit card in the mail. And then there’s a little pamphlet in there, and if you just don’t want them to share your information, all you do is, you dial a toll-free number, say “hey please don’t share my information”. So it’s companies like that. It’s credit card companies. It’s magazine companies that would like to go ahead and communicate with specific people
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Interviewee: that would like to go ahead and communicate with specific people that we have information on, who will share the postal addresses with on a CPM basis.
Andrew: OK. How hard is it to get into this business? It seems like all it takes is a phone and a couple of related, not a couple, a phone and some relationships.
Interviewee: Uh-huh. I would say that [Barrier to Entry], it’s not great. I think it’s pretty simple to get in, but it really comes down to relationships. It really comes down to who you know, and it comes down to really using technology. In terms of how you’re doing things.
Andrew: Uh-hmm.
Interviewee: I’ve seen a lot of people try to get into this business, and I’ve seen a lot of people fail. There’s really just a handful of people who really are doing very well in this space.
Andrew: OK. Let’s see. We’re starting to get some more questions here. Oh, so, Michael Tajata is asking what kind of products are you guys selling? What kind of products does the end-user end up being up-sold?
Interviewee: OK, is that on the SMS side?
Andrew: I’m assuming he means the SMS side, since that’s…
Interviewee: OK.
Andrew: what he talked about when he first wrote in.
Interviewee: Most of the time they’re services. There are magazine clubs. There are savings clubs. There’s coupon clubs. All these different types of club offers, where you sign up, and it’s not just a… It’s a continuity, where they sign up, and then they have an opportunity to see if they like it first, for let’s say the first seven days or fourteen days. Then after that, they would be charged on a monthly basis if they liked the product or service.
Andrew: That’s where you guys are upselling.
Interviewee: That’s on the SMS side.
Andrew: And it’s happening on. Somebody gets the SMS. They’re calling up. Wow.
Interviewee: Yup.
Andrew: This is a part of the business, though, that we recently had some FTC trouble, no?
Interviewee: Well, you know, the FTC I understand, was coming down on robo-calling, if I’m not mistaken. And we’re not doing any type of robo-calling.
Andrew: I think they were coming down on the people who, after they bought, after you bought on buy.com, for example.
Interviewee: Sure.
Andrew: They were showing that. It was what Web Loyalty and a few others that I think, I’m not sure. They were showing the page that said, Congratulations, you just won so and so. Just enter you email address. Hit submit, and we’ll send it to you. And the user didn’t understand that their credit card and their name was going onto Web, I think it was Web Loyalty,
Interviewee: Yeah.
Andrew: some Web Loyalty company.
Interviewee: I appreciate you bringing that up because if it’s going into a call center, they are actually speaking to the individual, so, and the calls are recorded. But I do. I know what you’re talking about. And that’s why we’re not doing any of that online because there are a lot of companies who find deceptive ways to go ahead and capture information, capture credit cards. And then the person wants to go ahead and remove themselves, they can’t remove themselves. But that’s not what we participate in. We don’t believe in that.
Andrew: OK. Next question. This is a tough business to talk about, right, because there is so much that’s…testimonials…
Interviewee: Yeah, you know what? There’s always controversy. There’s always someone concerned about spam, concerned about legitimate things. But you know, again, I’m glad that we’re talking about them. And I invite all the questions. And I’d like to see how I could answer them so people understand that what we’re doing is not something that is going to offend someone, or go against the FTC rules and regulations. We’ve got a very good reputation. So I’d say Google us. Take a look if there’s any complaints. There are no complaints. But, yeah, I invite all the questions. I really would like to see how we could answer them.
Andrew: Casey Allen’s asking, he’s saying lead-gen is a really crowded space right now. How do you find, what are the niches that are available?
Interviewee: Niches are available in lead-gen…
Andrew: Yeah, that aren’t too crowded right now.
Interviewee: Oh gosh. Lead-gen spaces that are not too crowded, that’s a good question. Let me think about that. You know, let’s put it this way. The profitable ones are, payday loan.
Andrew: Payday loans.
Interviewee: Business opportunities, online education, are the profitable ones. All three very crowded, but very profitable. Areas that are not crowded, you know what? That’s a good question. I am stumped. And you know what? As soon as I find the answer, we’ll probably get into that area and start driving more profits.
Andrew: All right. Looks like we’ve exhausted Michael’s questions. He’s saying that, ”thanks Andrew. Love the show”. And he wants to see me back on this week in start-ups, I guess, with Jason Goganis.
Interviewee: Yeah, Jason’s a good one.
Andrew: Yeah, he does a great show, and he’s had me on, and I would be on there again if I lived in Santa Monica. Those guys have been really good to me over at Mahalo.
Interviewee: Yeah, um.
Andrew: OK. People at the company. You’ve watched some of them earn good money, watched some of them end up in good lives. What are…
Interviewee: Yup.
Andrew: What’s going on with them?
Interviewee: I love my people. And one of the things that I do is, I always put them first. And you know, it’s interesting. You know everyone comes in for a paycheck, right? But I really try to get a little deeper. I like to find out what’s important to them.
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Interviewee: I try to get a little deeper. I like to find out ,what’s important to them. What do they want? You know, do you want to buy a new car? Do you want to buy a new house? Do you want to take a vacation? What is it that’s really important to you? And, once I really understand that, we work toward that. And I’ve had people that have worked for me who have come in, who were living in a rental apartment, and their goal was to buy a home. And you know what? We helped them buy a home. I got people who came in to work for me who were driving like these kind of cars that were, like their tires were falling off, and their goal was to buy a new car. And we helped them get there, to buy a new car.
Andrew: How many people do you have in the company? I’m looking, trying to count behind, over your shoulder, behind you, I see two, three people. I know there’s one to the right of you who apparently was making phone calls earlier while I was talking with you.
Interviewee: That’s Allen over there, our CFO. We got to keep them down. We have twelve people total. We have a few people that work outside of the office. Yep. Twelve people right now. And growing.
Andrew: OK, let’s see what else we’re getting for people. Jay [Amini] is asking, “do you help clients with lead management, and what software do you recommend”?
Interviewee: You know, lead management, we’ll recommend different lead management off-the-shelf software. There are quite a few really good companies out there. So, if I understood specifically what he wanted to do. I mean, there’s ones that are great if you’re doing lead management in the debt space. There’s some for lead management in education. So, different companies, different needs. So I really wouldn’t just throw one company name out there. So, if he wants to expand a little bit, I’d be more than happy to see if I could look up some names here that I would recommend.
Andrew: OK, if you’re still listening, and you got time to type it in, let us know. What else do I want to know? With us at the same, here’s the way, since Michael brought up Grab, and it sounds like what we were doing is probably buying ads from you for Grab to feed people into our funnel. And our funnel started like this. It was a big landing page that said, “pick your winning numbers, and we were going to a raffle within a month or so”. People would pick their numbers, they would enter their e-mail address. That way, they were on our mailing list, and they knew they going on a mailing list where they would find out about new contests every day. And then there was a landing page after that where the process is over, what do you do with them now? Sometimes you would send people over to, I think, a client’s web page, and we would sell that on a cost per click, or a cost per visit basis. And sometimes what we would do is, and hopefully this is what we would get to do more than anything else, we would offer a lead-based offer. So, it would be something like, we’d know their name and their e-mail address on the first page, not just their e-mail address. The second page would say, “all right David, did you know that you can get a free CD from BMG, if you sign up to BMG service?” And because we addressed them by their first name, because we offered them an ad, and a lead-based ad, when there was nothing else to do, nothing else going on on the page except that congratulations and the offer. People were likely to sign up for it. And we ended up getting tremendous response for ads like that. So, that’s the way we embedded it. I can see that other people that are listening to us might be hopefully using that and saying, “where can I embed in my process some lead based, lead based offer”? If they want to explore this, who can they talk to about the offers that are out there? About how to embed those into their products? How to make them a part of what th
ey’re offering right now?
Interviewee: So, you’re saying that they have a site, they got traffic, right? And what they want to do is introduce lead-gen into their current site?
Andrew: Yes.
Interviewee: Is it lead-gen for them, or is it lead-gen? Well, one piece is lead-gen for themselves for another service or a product? Or is it lead-gen, where they’re bringing third-party offers, where they can generate additional revenue?
Andrew: Third party offers. So it might be a University of Phoenix landing page. So maybe somebody’s got an educational web site, he just got people through his own registration pipeline. The registration is over, instead of saying, “see you, or go explore my site”, they want to say, “how about signing up for an offer from this university”? Where do they get offers like that so they can try to integrate them?
Interviewee: There’s a great company based out of New York that I like quite a bit that I used to do a lot of business with them called Opt-In, Opt-Intelligence, sorry. It’s called Opt-Intelligence. What I like about them is they work with a lot of branded companies who are into an opt-encourage, let’s just say. So, let’s say for example, someone comes to someone’s site, and it says, “hey, thank you for signing up with us. Here’s some offers you might be interested in”. So there might be an opt-encourage for the Gap. There might be an opt-encourage for the New York Times. So, there’s different opt-encourages where what opt-intelligence will do is, for every person that checks a box, they’ll do rev-share with them on what’s collected. So they might go ahead and get $1.50 from the New York Times.
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Interviewee: …on what’s collected. So they might go ahead and get $1.50 from the New York Times and split that with the list owner.
Andrew: I see.
Interviewee: Oh, I’m sorry. The site owner. I apologize.
Andrew: The site owner. And they’re being explicit about what the sign up is so that the end user knows you’re signing up for the New York Times or the University of Whatever?
Interviewee: Absolutely. That’s right. And I like them because they’ve got a great interface. They’ve worked with a lot of branded companies and that really helps. When there’s a brand. Someone will go ahead and check the box because it’s a trusted brand. It’s something that they know.
Andrew: I did an interview with Jeremy Shoemoney. Known as… Jeremy Shoemaker.
Interviewee: I know Jeremy. Great guy. Been to his Elite Retreats. The guy’s awesome.
Andrew: Yeah. You actually were there recently, right?
Interviewee: Yes. I was at the Elite Retreat in New York.
Andrew: I missed that one. I think I was down here in Buenos Aries but he…what he told me in his interview is that his thing is that he can come up with clever ways to get people to see offers. And he gets a better response if he doesn’t show the offer right away. So if he buys an ad and sends it to an offer like, let’s say, Netflix, he does so-so. Not well enough to keep buying ads. But if instead he buys an ad and he leads people towards a quiz of some kind where, at the end of the quiz, in return for doing well they win a Netflix ad…they win a free month of Netflix, they’re more likely to register for Netflix. So almost adding more steps to the process increases the conversion for that end ad. So I’m thinking, people who are listening to us now who already have a process or already have a flow might be able to integrate some of these offers into them.
Interviewee: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think there’s…Jeremy obviously gets his a lot of his ads from the ad networks then…He’s definitely a very creative guy in terms of going out there and trying to figure out, “Okay. How can I go ahead and get an action?” And get more actions with some of the ways that he concocts? Again, I think the guy’s brilliant. So…
Andrew: And here’s an advantage that him, and guys like him, have over the average person who’s just trying to break into this business. The people who have offers are going to go out of their way to give him the best pay out, to signal to him what the best offer is. What’s the one that has the greatest conversion? The average person has to go in there and just experiment. The average person is almost like a lab rat who’s figuring out where the cheese is for Jeremy and people like him. But, occasionally, one of these guys will – not occasionally, but often if they’re tenacious enough they’ll find a path that works really well on their own and then they end up becoming just like Jeremy and get fed all the other great offers. All right, Casey Allen’s asking a question. He’s saying, “Why are companies like yours just managing data? Why don’t you crush it yourself?” He’s saying.
Interviewee: Crush it myself? All right. I mean, we’re crushing it but…
Andrew: I think you are crushing it. I think there’s a big business to be made in data itself, just as somebody…just in this space there’s a lot of room to grow it. But a lot of consultants who build out websites, who develop websites, often want to break out and develop their own websites. I don’t see that happening too much in the data space. I don’t see companies and people like you saying, “All right. I see how it all works. I’m going to go and create my own Facebook based business so I can generate leads.”
Interviewee: You know, you’re bringing up something that’s very valid. And, as a matter of fact, we are in the process of creating some things that belong to us. Our own technology to generate leads. So some things I really just can’t let out of the box yet that are coming up first quarter of 2010. But very good observation and it’s something that we are working on that will be released very soon.
Andrew: Have we talked about doing an interview after you release it?
Interviewee: Uh, we haven’t but I’d be more than happy to set something up you.
Andrew: Good. Let’s do that after you release it I’m curious to see how it goes. What else? I’m looking at my notes here. What else did I say? Ah, I told you in the pre-interview – I keep bringing up the pre-interview but we had this great conversation. I told you in the pre-interview that I just recently got married and that I keep hearing from people that it’s harder to build a business when you’re married. It’s harder to build a business when you’ve got kids. You had the opposite experience.
Interviewee: I did.
Andrew: What was your experience?
Interviewee: My experience was I didn’t really start making six figures until I got married. I got married…wow. Ten years ago. And from the time that I got married what happened was I just felt like, “Hey. I got married. I’ve got responsibility. I need to support. I really need to go out there and do better.” And I did. And then I had my first kid and I made even more money. And then I had my second kid and I made even more money. I’ve got two girls and they’re both wonderful and it just motivated me to go out there and do everything that I can for those girls. And for my wife. I mean, I’ve got a bunch of girls at home. So the other thing that I think is really important is having a very supportive wife. My wife is always very supportive of all my ideas, all of the businesses that I put together.
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Interviewee: My wife is always very supportive of my ideas, all of the businesses that I put together. There are some wives out there that they just want that security. They don’t feel that you should take the risk. Where my wife has always said, “Dave, go for it. I believe in you”. And that helped. So, I do honestly owe a lot to my wife for where I am today.
Andrew: You know, I’ve actually seen that, too. You see, some wives, all they want is to have you at home more , I guess they all want to have you at home more often.
Interviewee: Yeah.
Andrew: They want the security, they want the safety of having a job. They want to be able to say, “my husband is so-and-so”. Others say, “no, go out there, do what you need to do. Let’s create something incredible. I’m going to fight with you, and in the lows is when we’re really going to get together and we’re going to encourage each other. And then later on, when we succeed, we’ll look back on those days as some of our best days ever.”
Interviewee: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s really what it’s been. I mean, we look back to where we used to be, where we are today, and it’s pretty amazing. And again, I truly do owe a lot to my wife for supporting me and being my number 1 fan. I mean, she, funny, she was a cheerleader back in school, and she’s my own cheerleader, man. She just, “go, Dave, go”. So, it’s awesome.
Andrew: Dave [Yank], who’s watching us live, is saying that he’s got two girls at home, too, and he’s wondering about your work-life balance. Do you have a work-life balance? Is that possible?
Interviewee: It’s very possible. I got my daughter’s soccer game today, and I’m there. I don’t miss a soccer game. Yesterday, my girls had a dance performance, and I left the office and I said, “I got to go. I’m going to go see my girls holiday dance performance.
Andrew: You’re not on your Blackberry? You’re not on your iPhone checking out what’s going on, on e-mail?
Interviewee: You know, yes. I do have my iPhone, and if I do need to handle something, it’s handled. But you know what, it can wait 10 minutes, it can wait a half-hour, it can wait an hour. If it’s urgent, I’m on it. So, it’s important for me to be there. Because, you know, your kids are only young once, and you don’t want to miss them growing up. And I don’t ever want to have my girls turn around one day and say, “I don’t ever remember my dad really being around much. He was always working.” So, family is very important to me, and I will always be there for everything for them.
Andrew: All right. Well, if anyone’s listening and has some advice for me, a guy who just got married a few weeks ago, I will take it all. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve got any clue about how to make all that work together. How to make work and family, and go home and still let go of everything that I’m doing during the day. I’ll take as much feedback and as many suggestions on that as I can.
Interviewee: I’ll tell you what. You know, the best advice that I got from a very successful entrepreneur years ago. He said, “You know what? You can have a very successful business. But if you don’t carry that success home, and there’s an inbalance, you’re not going to be a happy guy. Because you got to make sure you got that balance at home and in business. Because if one’s off, you’re just not going to be a happy person”.
Andrew: My dad was always like that. I mean, obviously, there were no Blackberrys at the time. And no laptops that you could bring your work home with. But he’d leave work, and that was the end of it for the rest of the day. And on the weekends, I guess no, on Sundays, he would go out and collect money from the stores that he sold to. And I think mom was happy to have him out of the house for a while. But beyond that, he was just there, if he was there.
Interviewee: Yep. Yep. But it’s interesting you should say that, because I think that’s what really encouraged me to become an entrepreneur. My dad owned businesses in New York. He owned three bakeries and an Amoco gas station. And I remember when I was younger, I used to go with him evenings to close up the stores, and then come home and count the money. So, I used to say, “wow, give me some of this”. I think I probably owe a little of it to my dad as far as maybe pushing me in the direction of being an entrepreneur.
Andrew: Yeah, I remember that, too. I remember my dad would come home with bundles of cash. It was all rubber-banded up. Because he was going to stores, he was selling the merchandise, and they were giving him whatever was in the cash register for it. He was selling, he sold women’s clothing that he manufactured. And that got me fired up, too. There’s nothing like seeing real cash. Seeing numbers on a page is great, but real cash is a whole other feeling.
Interviewee: Yeah. I mean, these days you don’t really, that means…
Andrew: …now…
Interviewee: …but yeah, it was, I remember, it happens all, James Bond brief case. You know, opening it up, and just, money all over the place.
Andrew: My dad, it was in his socks. He would take those bundles, he would put it in his socks, and somehow it was hidden. He would wear dress socks full of bundles of cash, and then sneakers. Somehow.
Interviewee: And then all the hiding places in the house, right? Where all the, right?
Andrew: And the safety deposit box. I’m so glad that’s over, actually. Who needs to have any cash in the house?
Interviewee: I agree.
Andrew: A bakery and a gas station. How did he get both those businesses?
Interviewee: He owned three bakeries and a gas station. He had an opportunity.
Andrew: A friend said, “hey, listen to this business that I’m in. The gas station business. People keep coming. They’re always going to need more gas. They’re going to drive more.”
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Interviewee: I guess that’s what happened. His buddy said “Hey listen, I’m gonna buy this, and I could use a partner.” My dad had all his cash, and he said “Okay, sure.” So (laughing), it worked out for him! I mean, today…
Andrew: Did he make you work at the gas station or at the bakery?
Interviewee: You know, it’s funny, I worked everywhere. I worked at the gas station growing up, I worked at the bakeries growing up, yeah, and I enjoyed it. I loved it.
Andrew: Alright, I see that we’re already at the top of the hour here. Is there anything that I missed, anything that we need to leave people with?
Interviewee: I think you covered it all. I appreciate you having me on today, and I appreciate answering questions. So, thank you.
Andrew: And thank you. How can people connect with you? I was going to say, is there a way for them to contact you all?
Interviewee: Sure, they can call me at my office if they’d like. Can I give out a phone number?
Andrew: If you’re up for it, go for it!
Interviewee: Sure, yeah, if they’d like to dial my office, it’s 561 area code, 362-8770, extension 101, or leave an email at dshteif@revenuegrp.com. Abbreviation for “group”.
Andrew: And what kind of companies or what kind of people do you want to get connected with?
Interviewee: You know, that’s a great question. I like connecting with everybody, because you just never know where the next opportunity is going to come from. It’s just not necessarily going to come from that individual sometimes that you’re speaking with, but maybe someone who that individual knows. Does that make sense?
Andrew: Yeah. I think our connection broke up for some reason as you were saying that, but absolutely. You’re saying that you get connected to one person and that he ends up introducing you to somebody else that becomes a perfect fit for your business.
Interviewee: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I love meeting everybody. There really isn’t anybody that I don’t enjoy meeting.
Andrew: Alright, well I see that we are actually losing the connection somehow, which, I’m glad — ah, there it is, you’re back now. So, I’ll say this. Thank you for doing the interview with me, thank you all who are watching us live, and feeding me questions and comments, and saying things like maxer08 who has said that he’s enjoying this Mixergy interview. Thank you, all of you guys that contributed here, all of you who are listening afterwards. Give me as much feedback as you can on this interview, suggest other interviews. Neil Patel introduced me to David, and that’s how we ended up with this interview, so if you’re like Neil Patel and you met someone you think is in an incredible business or something that’s different than what we’re used to hearing, introduce me the way that Neil did so that we can get them on here and do an interview on Mixergy. Alright, thank you all for watching, and I’ll see you in the comments.
