>> What is it that let's say Adaptly would do for their company?
How would it help them make more money?
>> Yeah, so essentially we're a media bind technology for social.
We sit on top of Facebook, Twitter, a bunch of their platforms and
help big brands, little brands, big agencies.
This is of all sizes reach audiences across the different environments.
>> Okay, but how would you do that?
I mean, I understand rhetorically how that make sense.
But let's say, a big pizza company comes to you and
says that we don't know what to do.
There are all these different source of media platforms.
We can't be sending tweets and to Facebook likes out all day long.
We make pizza, what do you do for that?
>> Yes, so ultimately becomes an interesting question around which
platforms do you want to be on first.
How do you think about these environments as containing all the audiences of people
who will buy a pizza from you.
And then where it gets really interesting is thinking about how do you amplify
your content.
How do you make sure you can apply paid media, in real dollars,
in marketing dollars to grow that message against that audience and
layer on all kinds of really interesting data.
For example, for pizza companies, which we work with a few of,
you can leverage things like TV retargeting.
So when the ad for Domino's goes on television,
you could show them the ad on Twitter and on Facebook at the same time.
>> And you handle all that.
So the company writes a check to you.
>> Yes. >> And you say,
we'll take care of all the technical back office stuff.
We'll take all of that video and
we'll figure out a way to get it to the people that want it.
>> Yeah. We're fundamentally a technology company.
We provide a layer of services and
tools to our brands or partners that enable them to do that.
We also do everything ourselves just to make it as easy as possible.
>> So are you in competition with a traditional advertising company?
And at the same time you are complementary because the ad company will come to you
and say, we're very good with the concept, but we want you to do the implementation.
>> Definitely, we're that technology company that sits alongside all
the traditional agencies and traditional advertising businesses.
What is really interesting when you think about it, social is something that
complements the way people use the Internet and live their daily lives.
It's not something that's really decided to replace anything.
It helps achieve the message across many, many different channels.
>> Did you think of this when you were at Northwestern,
because I know you went from Northwestern, but then you started another company.
You've got a background as an entrepreneur.
When did you come up with this idea?
>> Yeah, so it's a really interesting story, actually.
I actually had an internship my junior year.
I was an electrical engineer at Northwestern and
was at HBO here in New York and my sister saw how they were marketing.
And how they were buying.
They really know how to do billboards and TV and all kinds of different things but
when it came to the social thing, everybody was like, how do we do this?
What's the best way to do it?
There was a lot of confusion it was very new.
So I went back to school and
met my cofounder in the back of a really boring probability class and
essentially said hey, let's figure out a way to solve this problem.
Somehow convinced him to drop out of school.
>> You convinced him to drop out of school?
>> I did. I did.
>> What's his name?
>> His name is Garrett Ullom.
>> Okay. >> Yes,
his mom wasn't too happy at the time but
she sends us care packages of cookies and stuff nowadays.
>> All right. So you're both working on this start-up.
You gave up I believe a job offer to go work for Microsoft.
>> Yeah that's right.
Ultimately my father was an entrepreneur and
built a lot of businesses in Silicon Valley.
And just kind of got the bug at an early age and said hey you know opportunity
cost if there's any time I'm going to do anything and
start a business it's going to be now.
So I figured I might as well try it right after school.
>> What about raising the money to do this?
You basically put yourself out there, and what happened?
>> So really, right out of school,
went into an incubator program in Philadelphia called DreamIt Ventures.
>> Dream Adventures?
>> DreamIt Ventures.
>> DreamIt Ventures in Philadelphia.
>> That's right, they give you a little bit of cash, 20, $25,000, and
say you have three months to go figure something out.
If you can make it, you made it.
You can't go back to doing whatever you were doing.
And we went to the program, met a lot of really great people and
it was an amazing program that supported us and literally, after demo day,
which was kind of the day to present your ideas to the community and investors.
First Round Capital, which is a major institutional venture capitalist firm
in the country, decided to fund us.