Bootstrapping to $15 Million in Three Years: Connatix CEO David Kashak (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let me summarize what I heard and you tell me if I got this right in terms of the key strategies that worked for you. You went after smaller publishers and accumulated a good amount of mobile inventory that was a collection of small sites. You went after advertisers who wanted to run direct response campaigns on these small advertisers’ sites. That’s how you put this ad network together and both sides of the marketplace came together.

David Kashak: Exactly. I basically started with the people who didn’t have anything to lose. If you go to CNN, they can’t give you any inventory. I believe that this is something that’s going to be engaging because it’s a type of advertising that’s non-intrusive. It looks like an article. It’s informative and provides value to the user. From the advertiser’s side, I couldn’t got to Bank of America because they’d be like, “Who are you?”.

Sramana Mitra: A couple of questions on metrics. How many publishers came together in this mode? What was the inventory size that this added up to? On the advertiser’s side, how many advertisers were you able to bring together? Talk about these in whatever timeframe in the early stages that makes sense for you to put a benchmark together.

David Kashak: I launched it in March.

Sramana Mitra: March of 2014?

David Kashak: Correct. Around June, I already had about 40 to 50 websites. We had advertisers, but those advertisers had many different offers. It looked like we had a campaign, but it came from three main customers.

Sramana Mitra: What was the inventory size across 40 to 50 publishers?

David Kashak: It accumulated to a couple of millions.

Sramana Mitra: You sold about a couple of million impressions to two or three advertisers across multiple campaigns. Who were the advertisers? What were the profiles of the advertisers?

David Kashak: Credit card insurance, newsletters, and different type of advertisers.

Sramana Mitra: This is within three months of launch. By the summer of 2014, you got this going?

David Kashak: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of revenue run rate were you able to get to?

David Kashak: A couple of thousand dollars a month.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you close 2014 at in terms of revenue?

David Kashak: Before we go there, around summertime, I said, “I want to grow it.” I thought about getting an intern. I posted the job on internships.com and got an intern. I realized that I didn’t have an office for the intern and I can’t bring him to my living room. I took a small office and got this student from France. By the end of our first year, we did almost $100,000.

Sramana Mitra: Monthly revenue?

David Kashak: Annual.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Bootstrapping to $15 Million in Three Years: Connatix CEO David Kashak
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