Learning From Mistakes: Roy Peleg, CEO of FirstImpression.io (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: It is very difficult to make a success of those kinds of businesses. As you may have been following what’s happening in the online media industry, most of the companies are failing in that space.

Roy Peleg: You’re correct. I would say that revenue was secondary. There were hardly any independent computer websites back then. The next site I made money from. It was in English, so that market was bigger. We were able make a few thousand dollars a month, but it was hard.

Sramana Mitra: I would summarize your startup attempts as probably having been hard because of the business model that you chose to pursue. These business models of ad-supported media sites is not working. Let’s come to what happens after that.

Roy Peleg: After that, I tried again. The concept was to create a platform that allows you to say which features you want in a product and surface products that fit your criteria. We started with consumer electronics. There were lots of ups and downs in this startup. I didn’t get along well with my two partners and ended up letting them keep about 10% of the equity.

Then I went to find partners abroad and got some big shots like a former SVP of Amazon. They were really strong people, but I was working with them remotely. In the end, I decided to drop the idea. Partners were an issue even in the second iteration.

Then I decided to start another company. It was a marketplace for articles. Because of my SEO background, the idea was to sell articles off-the-shelf allowing publishers to acquire articles fast. We started generating revenues and launched with a thousand articles written by more than 200 freelancers. I had three other partners. I was the head of product.

After a year, the partners were not getting along. I offered to acquire them, but they didn’t agree. They said that maybe they’ll acquire my share. I decided to quit and then came this startup. Instead of a full-time job, I took a part-time job in order to do this startup. I was able to make progress and generate revenue.

Sramana Mitra: The startup where you had conflict with your partners, were you doing it part-time or full-time?

Roy Peleg: I was doing full-time while working part-time to make a living.

Sramana Mitra: You’re saying that the two content startups you did before, you were doing while working a full-time job. The article marketplace, you also had a part-time job?

Roy Peleg: Yes. I was working full-time and I asked my boss to reduce the load to 50%. After the previous startups, I couldn’t see myself doing it part-time.

Sramana Mitra: This startup didn’t work either.

Roy Peleg: Yes. After a year, I had learnt a lot about relationships, but I decided that it wasn’t worth continuing with that startup. It was time for a change.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Learning From Mistakes: Roy Peleg, CEO of FirstImpression.io
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