Building A Vertical Ad Network Powerhouse: Glam Media CEO Samir Arora (Part 4)

SM: Glam was a pioneering startup. How did you assemble your management team?

SA: Our seven key founders are all serial entrepreneurs and pioneers in Silicon Valley and Internet Technology. Fernando Ruarte, our CTO and VP of Engineering, built one of the first content management systems on the web. Raj Narayan is the Chief Architect and holds the patent on the first page layout editor to generate HTML. Susan Kare created the first graphical user interface for the original Apple Macintosh in 1984 and Microsoft Windows 3.0. Vic Zauderer worked with Clement Mok in one of the early agencies before forming his own. Ernie Cicogna spent his career at IBM in finance and business management technology before moving to Silicon Valley and working at several startups within the media and entertainment space. Rebecca Bogle brought product and technology skills from Oracle and Accenture. Emmanuel Job brought key Internet Technology Publishing and Feeds skills to Glam.

In addition to the founding team, the key earlier contributors were Karen Edwards, who was the former Chief Marketing Officer of Yahoo, Carl Portale the former publisher of Elle and Harper’s Bazaar, and Jack Rotolo. They were instrumental in establishing the focus on brands at Glam.

SM: Did you recruit everyone individually or were they attracted to the company and concept?

SA: It was a combination of both. Some of the founders had worked with each other or me before, like Dianna and Fernando. Dianna Mullins holds the record of having worked for me three times in the past. It was a combination of people that I helped bring in and those who were attracted to the team.

Two people I really thank for getting us here are Esther Dyson and Jim Breyer. When the initial idea was conceived I spoke with Esther and walked her through the concept. She immediately said it sounded like a good idea and told me to stop talking about it and build it. The second person I spoke to was Jim Breyer at Accel. Jim and I had a phone call, and to Jim’s credit he got it in less than five minutes over the phone. He is on the Wal-Mart board, and now Facebook, and has tremendous insight on new media. With his encouragement I went ahead and personally made the initial investment. Later, when we were doing a Series B, he introduced me to Theresia Ranzetta at Accel who had independently found this space as an area to invest in which is very, very, rare in venture capital. The Series B round was led by Accel with DFJ. Tim Draper joined the board along with Josh Stein as an active observer. Glam was created in a downturn in the Valley. Accel and DFJ were one of the few firms that believed in the model and took risks when most firms avoided investing in this space.

SM: How do you define ‘this space’?

SA: I defined it as women’s brand media. Back then the term web 2.0 was not being used and there were very few investments happening. The big idea that Glam was founded on was all about helping brands come online. The first idea was a media company with advertising revenue and additional revenue for enabling product sales on retail web sites.

SM: You launched Glam.com at the same time as your publisher network, right?

SA: We developed the core technology platform for Glam.com 18 months prior to launch and the Glam Publisher Network six months prior to launch. We officially launched our owned and operated web site Glam.com at Fashion Week in New York and Demo in San Diego in the fall of 2005. We launched the Glam Publisher Network about one month later with 12 charter members, who are all still a part of the Glam Network today.

SM: How did you come up with the publisher network concept specifically?

SA: Historically speaking, Glam was the first to create a vertically focused publisher network. I give all of the credit to Lisa Stone. She worked for Glam as a consultant before she founded BlogHer. She came up with the concept and understood there was real opportunity in not having just a destination site but a network of publishers. She went to several people in the Valley with her idea, and no one listened to her. I loved the idea immediately. It was realized with the help of Catherine Levene, who actually implemented the publisher network.

SM: What characteristics did you look for in your publisher network?

SA: If there is one word that embodies the selection criteria for Glam publishers it is “professional”. We look for high quality individual voices that are and want to be professional publishers. I believe passionately that there are many people in the world – authors, writers, editors, designers, video producers, and curators – who are creative and professional but who have not had venues to build their voices, create great content, and build an audience. Glam is a company that helps unleash the power of these media companies and independent publishers by helping them monetize their creative work.

SM: Why did you decide to zone in on women?

SA: The question we asked is “Where will the money come from?” In our case the answer was brands. Then we asked the question, “Within brand advertising, how is the money structured and focused?” What we found was that brand advertising follows consumer spending. It is a really simple connection. In America, 83% of consumer spending is done by women.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Building A Vertical Ad Network Powerhouse: Glam Media CEO Samir Arora
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