Pictela
How to Get a Startup Acquired
While building the next Facebook or Google may be a worthy goal, the best possible outcome for many venture-backed startups is to be acquired by a larger company. In a sense, the entire startup ecosystem—founders, venture capitalists, lawyers and other service providers—forms a kind of ad hoc research and development lab for bigger companies. Given… Continue reading »
Avoiding the Wrong Kind of Customer
Any product must have market appeal in order to gain customers. At my last company, Pictela, we struggled to achieve product/market fit in our first year. Initially, we tried to sell our product to PR agencies as a way to distribute brand content. But no matter how hard we tried we could not get them… Continue reading »
What Marketers Really Care About
For ten years I worked on the partner side of the marketing business, both as an agency executive at MEC and then as the co-founder of Pictela, an ad tech firm. Now, as the CEO of an enterprise technology company, I’m a pure marketer and it turns out that this side of the business is… Continue reading »
The New York Startup Mafia
In the world of startups, the term “mafia” has come to positively describe a group of people who have built a successful company and then continued to work together to create a new wave of startups. As Sarah Lacy, founder and editor-in-chief of PandoDaily, the Silicon Valley-based publisher, recently put it: “In the case of… Continue reading »
Why Ad Tech Should Embrace Great Design
Whether it’s consumer devices like the iPhone or apps like Instagram, well-designed products are now all around us. As consumer expectations for design migrate to business, it’s more important than ever to build ad-tech systems that people actually want to use. This is especially important given the number of systems that most people already use… Continue reading »
Pictela Delivers Premium Formats Across Multiple Screens in Real Time
Greg Rogers is the CEO of Pictela, a high definition brand content platform that was acquired by AOL in 2010. We recently spoke with Greg about Pictela’s newly released ad formats. The Makegood: Pictela recently released new ad formats that enable marketers to serve premium advertising across browser, mobile, and tablet, through one work-stream. Can… Continue reading »
Kristine Welker and Hearst Build a Cross Platform Future
Kristine Welker is the Chief Revenue Officer for Hearst Digital. We spoke with her recently about her background and how Hearst Digital is preparing for the future. The Makegood: Kristine, in 1999 you began working on CosmoGIRL!, a magazine that was at the forefront of digital. What was it like to be working on, what… Continue reading »
The Makegood: How it Started and Where it’s Going
The Makegood was launched six months ago today by Matt Straz. Matt is the CEO of Namely, a platform that enables media, advertising and technology companies to manage their human capital. We spoke to Matt about why he started the The Makegood and where it is headed. The Makegood: Matt, why did you start publishing… Continue reading »
AOL Launches Pictela Enterprise, Self Serve Ad Platform for Agencies
Today AOL announced the launch of Pictela Enterprise, a self serve version of the software that powers the company’s Project Devil ad units. We spoke with Greg Rogers, CEO of Pictela, about the launch of the platform. The Makegood: What does Pictela Enterprise mean for marketers and agencies? GR: In short, it means that what… Continue reading »
6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Join a Startup
America is a startup nation. Whether it has been manufacturing, whaling or software, one of this country’s defining characteristics seems to be taking unnecessary risks to create markets where none existed previously. As an entrepreneur, I’m a huge fan of startups. Both my parents started their own small businesses, so entrepreneurialism runs in my family.… Continue reading »
Sponsor
