Frank Addante's FounderBlog:
Starting startups by a serial entrepreneur.

I sent out a Twitter update saying that I was stumped and needed some new, fresh blog ideas. Ian Douglas, one of our engineers here at the Rubicon Project responded with an idea (thanks Ian!)

Here is what he wrote:
"Fear of failure can often paralyze a company, but sometimes so can 'fear of success'. I don't imagine that's ever slowed you down, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it. "

Ian brings up a point that over the last few years I've learned is a very real issue. At 31, I've been incredibly fortunate to have had a lot of wins at a young age. Certain things are easier with past success (e.g. confidence, attracting investors, recruiting, etc.) However, the expectations are also higher resulting in an intense pressure to perform.

In my twenties, I built a site that ranked #7 in terms of Internet popularity, was an officer of a public company, had raised millions of dollars from top tier VC firms, spoke at top industry conferences, and hired hundreds of employees all over the world (most of whom, by the way, were older than me.)

I never thought twice about any of it. I followed my instincts and my gut. That's what drove me. There was very little to no second guessing. I just did what I believed had to be done.

A few years ago, I lost that ability; the ability to just trust my instincts. I applied logic and common sense to every decision. Guess what? It didn't work as well. I made more mistakes by over-thinking things than I did when I was following my gut feeling. Fortunately, I recognized this behavior and worked hard to get back to trusting my instincts. This was hard to do.

The problem is similar to the difference between children and adults. Children run around with little fear. Adults are more cautious. The reason I changed my behavior is because I was a victim of my own success. With success came expectations. Before, when I was the "young kid in the room" I could make mistakes because it was expected, I could say the wrong thing and it was OK and if I did anything great or impressive it was a surprise. All of a sudden, there was this inherent pressure to perform. I was no longer the "young kid" in the room that got lucky a couple of times. I became the "experienced entrepreneur" that people actually expected something from. People expected results. They expected me to say something smart. They expected the right answers. These expectations clouded my ability to simply trust my gut and I felt that I needed to have more logical support for my decisions. It slowed me down.

Before starting the Rubicon Project, I was fully aware of this newfound deficiency (pressure to perform.) So, this time around, I took a different attitude. I shoved all of the success aside and got back to basics. I've relearned to trust my instincts. I've learned it's OK to feel strongly about something without necessarily having a rationale explanation for it. I've learned that if you truly believe in something, you really can't go wrong - it may not be "right" but if it's not you'll learn why and that learning will bring you to the right place faster. I learned that sometimes I will say the wrong thing because it's impossible to be "right" all the time. And, I've learned that in the end, it's really just not worth stressing about anyway. We aren't saving lives, this is just a business. Ultimately, what I have grown to accept and be comfortable with is that it's all OK.

A note to my investors: Don't worry! I take the business seriously, but I don't stress about it. I believe that if you have the right team and they are cohesive and focused on the right goals, they will perform the best that they can. The right team wants to win and will do whatever it takes. The right team does not want to fail. When they make mistakes, you need to encourage them. It is very much like coaching basketball. No one wants to miss a shot. If they miss and you keep harping on their misses, they'll stress out and lose confidence. If they lose confidence, they'll wind up in a slump. People do not perform well under stress. Stress causes tension. Tension causes bad habits. Bad habits cause failure. To continue the basketball analogy, if you are tensed up sitting at the free throw line waiting to shoot, you're likely going to miss because the tension will screw up your shot. Staying loose, feeling confident and focused increases your chance of success. Fear of failure will cause losing behavior. Fear of success raises the bar for the definition of success (and failure as a result.) Especially in environments where the bar for success is high and the chance of failure is also high, you need to keep encouraging your team when there are misses. They'll regain their confidence, get back in their groove and keep scoring.

So, yes Ian, there is such a thing as "fear of success." And yes, I have fallen victim to it in the past (contrary to your confidence in me.) My best advice is to simply not take it so seriously. Just do the best you can, feel good about every decision you make by trusting your instincts and the rest will fall into place as it should. Chill out, relax, it's OK.

Yesterday, our 1,000th customer went live here at the Rubicon Project. I have been blown away by how fast this team moves and how quickly we have ramped. So, I took a step back and asked myself, how did we go from zero to 1,000 customers in 6 months? The answer is that we have specifically focused on optimizing this company for speed. Speed is our mindset. It's easier said than done. It doesn't just "happen." You have to purposely manage a company differently to be optimized for speed - and it requires a special set of expectations, alignment, trust and discipline.

Different companies operate in various gears at different stages of their development. It's really important to define and set the "gear" for the company and make sure everyone is aware of what it means. As an example, a company optimized for cash-flow may not take as many risks or yield as much waste. A company optimized for speed is going to be very risky, make lots of mistakes and there will be a certain amount of waste. If people are not aligned, it could create a lot of confusion. Right now, speed is our strategy. Meaning, our #1 objective is to move the company forward by putting points on the board as fast as possible (e.g. market-share, customer growth, product development, etc.)

The primary reason that we have raised $21M in capital is so that we can afford to operate in this gear. This is because when optimized for speed, you should expect that 30% of all of your efforts will be wasted:

- 30% your decisions will be wrong;
- 30% of your money will be wasted;
- 30% of your time will be wasted;

This 30% waste is generated by making fast decisions. Fast decisions on hiring, advertising, product development, operating infrastructure and strategy. But, when right, optimizing for speed will put you leaps ahead.

Thomas Edison failed more than 1,000 times when trying to create the light bulb. When asked about it, Edison allegedly said, "I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb."

Edison was able to afford himself the time to make 1,000 mistakes. He wasted a lot of time. But, his waste yielded great success. So, in order to truly optimize for speed, you have to reconcile with the fact that you will produce waste.

This may sound irresponsible. But, if the objective is speed, you are inevitably going to create waste. If you are in your car and you slam on the gas pedal after every stop light versus slowly easing into it, you are going to waste fuel, but you will likely get to your destination faster. (note: by no means am I encouraging this driving method - it is unsafe and environmentally irresponsible :) )

One of the biggest benefits of raising capital is that it enables a company to move fast. And to move fast, you will make mistakes. Capital enables mistakes without sacrificing the viability of the company. Along side that, you need to encourage mistakes and (managed) waste. It is an extremely difficult discipline to accept.

This is one of the hardest lessons I have learned. When you bootstrap a company, every penny counts. You have to spend wisely and cannot afford waste. Going from bootstrap mode to optimized for speed, requires a different kind of discipline, ultimate trust in your instincts and a whole different mindset. Many entrepreneurs can't make that transition, it took me 5 companies to figure it out.

Labels: optimized speed venture capital waste

I can't believe it's been a year. When Craig, Julie and Duc and I got together a year ago we didn't have a business plan, we didn't have goals... actually, none of us were even looking to start a company in the first place. So, today, on our first birthday, I ask myself where did this all come from? I'm just amazed by how fast this company has grown...

Immediately after asking myself that question, I remembered the very first meeting that the four of us had together. We spent a majority of our that meeting talking about the "kind" of company we wanted to build and the "way" we wanted to build it. We didn't talk about product or marketing or sales or finances... We talked about people, culture and vision. We committed that team development and people would be our #1 priority. If we could build the world's best team, they could build a world class company.

We wanted to make sure we enjoyed everyone we worked with and wanted to make work fun. Our vision was to attract a team of winners, entrepreneurs... a team of good people, and a team who had extreme pride in their work. We talked about all the ways we could keep the team motivated and continue to make culture a priority ranging from small perks and benefits to donating a percentage of our profits (and our time) to charity. The second thing we discussed was that we wanted to do something big and game-changing. We generally felt that the online advertising space needed a new wave of innovation. We knew it would take big risk and a big effort. We were committed to creating that wave. That was day 1.

Day 2, we went to work with those fundamentals in mind. And we did exactly what we committed to. Team development has been the #1 priority for us. I can't say this enough... If you build a great team, they build a great business. We have an unbelievable team here. They are all winners. I am so proud of everything that they have accomplished. And, I'm proud of the -way- that they have gone about accomplishing it. I feel privileged and honored to work with every one of them.

I would like to personally thank the entire team for being rock stars... I'd like to thank all of them for believing in me, Craig, Julie and Duc. And thank you to Clearstone Ventures for having the foresight and faith to invest in this crazy dream of ours...

One of my favorite quotes is... "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Year 2 starts tomorrow... Lucky me! I get to watch this incredible team of believers dream new dreams...

Labels: happy birthday

I was in the process of writing this post, and then I got this comment from a reader challenging my last post (particularly, our presence at ad:tech San Francisco.) While John and I likely disagree on management style and approach, we do agree on the right questions to ask (not the way of asking, but the questions themselves). Interestingly enough, we asked ourselves at the Rubicon Project these same questions prior to committing to the event and the launch. So, I have rearranged my post to directly address his remarks.

Here is John’s comment: “A few comments/observations on this disturbing post:1-Sending your entire team is crazy..some of them are very very junior in their experience level. How could they possibly engage with prospects in a meaningful way? Would be better off and save money hiring local booth talent.2-Carpooling in large SUV's with gas over $4.00/gallon? Quite expensive, and what a huge carbon footprint! Please, go hybrid. That is just shameful.3-Visit MarketingSherpa or other similar resources, they all say that trade shows and event marketing will not deliver the biggest bang for your buck. Those marketing dollars can be put to far better use that will deliver much better ROI and build your client base. Gimmicks like this don't.Maybe these things don't matter since you are flush with cash right now or maybe you are stuck in a time warp from one of your former gigs. Two words for you: BURN RATE” - John

Short version: this was by far the most successful event I have been a part of. Net results: 1,800 leads (and reached an estimated 3,000 prospects and 250 ad network partners.) It was a very high ROI event for us.

The only concern that I did have about our presence at ad:tech was that people might have the perception that we spent an excessive amount of money. Despite appearances, we did not. The team did an absolutely amazing job creating a strong presence, a presence that looked a lot more costly than it actually was. However, our budget was not out of the norm for a typical show presence. We spent wisely and were able to squeeze a lot out of the areas that we did invest. We only spent about 10% more on this show than I had with prior companies and we yielded 5X the results. It proved to me that a little extra effort, unique thinking and a passionate team can make a HUGE difference.

Bottom line: The show exceeded our expectations and goals and likely accelerated our business an additional 6 months.

As for John's comments, here are my responses:


“John: A few comments/observations on this disturbing post: 1-Sending your entire team is crazy..some of them are very very junior in their experience level. How could they possibly engage with prospects in a meaningful way? Would be better off and save money hiring local booth talent.”

This is a team that pulled all-nighters for 3 weeks trying to get this release out. So, I wanted them to see the direct results of their hard work. It was a motivator on one hand (they had to be there in front of prospects and stand behind the product they built) and it was rewarding on the other hand.

There is not a single person in this company that I would not (proudly) put in front of a customer. And, I'm happy to say they proved me right. Every single person in the company meaningfully engaged with prospects. They were well trained and knowledgeable. The results speak for themselves. Not only did they do a fantastic job engaging and bringing home a wealth of leads (avg. of 50 per person,) they also learned a lot more about our customers' needs. We say that our customers are our #1 priority. And while we do speak to them on the phone every day, it was very valuable and impactful for our team to meet with them face to face. Even the engineers were able to engage with real customers and prospects about the product, and to see them using it first hand. How often do you see engineers in a booth? That touch point was priceless and the end result will be a better product.

Local booth talent? No way. Never. It’s the worst thing you could possibly do. We do not believe in hiring local booth talent, we believe in engaging with our customers directly. In fact, we received many compliments for doing just that at ad:tech SF and ad:tech NY. Myself included… someone stopped me while I was passing out water bottles in NY and asked what company I was with (assuming I was hired to pass out water bottles), I said, “I'm the CEO”... It resulted in a customer (and set a an example for the rest of the company.) Engaging directly with our customers - that kind of ROI cannot be beat.


“John: 2-Carpooling in large SUV's with gas over $4.00/gallon? Quite expensive, and what a huge carbon footprint! Please, go hybrid. That is just shameful.”


The environment and cash management are very important to us. We carefully considered these factors as well. We do our best to be green, though, admittedly, we could do a better job, but we do the best we can. As an example, we did away with water bottles in the office and instead have glasses and a Rubicon Project re-useable water bottle for everyone on the team (saving thousands of hours of energy every month). In this particular example, the carbon footprint of flying everyone on airplanes was greater than actually driving.

As for cost, originally, we were going to bring 20 people (sales, marketing, business development) to engage with customers and partners. Flying 20 would have cost about $350 per person (between flights, taxi's and parking,) approximately $7000. The cost of driving 40 people was $6700 (less than the cost of flying 20.) With more than 9,000 people attending ad:tech most of the ad networks that we partner with were going to be there already and thousands of prospects. As a whole, it is a huge cost savings play for us because we don't have to fly to see them individually in their respective cities - having them all in one place is much more efficient. And, because of the efficiency of meeting many of our customers and partners in one place, we were able to reduce our travel budget (to meet with customers and partners) for the rest of the year by at least $5,000 (estimated ten trips times $500/trip including airfare, hotel, taxi and meals).

Further, having teams of 7 in cars together was highly productive. Not only did they bond (great for productivity) but also it was 12 hours (6 hours each way) that the teams had a chance to talk about important business-related issues. Brainstorming led to great ideas being generated during the trip. We believe very strongly in active communication, in fact, I think it has been the largest contributor to why we have been able to do so much, so fast.

Oh, and by the way, even though the carbon impact was less than flying we did purchase carbon offsets to counteract the impact of those vehicles. (Would you believe the carbon offset cost was less than $200 for the whole trip?! I paid for it personally, not with company funds.)


“John: 3-Visit MarketingSherpa or other similar resources, they all say that trade shows and event marketing will not deliver the biggest bang for your buck. Those marketing dollars can be put to far better use that will deliver much better ROI and build your client base. Gimmicks like this don't.”

Interesting. This is the third company in which trade shows have been the single largest source of leads for us. The key is to execute well at these shows, however, I would agree that most companies do not. The key is to measure and metric the success of these shows like you would any other lead generation activity. We had a goal for this show of 500 leads. We brought back 1,800 and probably touched another 3,000 indirectly.

“John: Maybe these things don't matter since you are flush with cash right now or maybe you are stuck in a time warp from one of your former gigs. Two words for you: BURN RATE”

Given that we spent half as much money as our original plan and accomplished twice as much in half the time... We understand this well. We are a highly metrics and ROI driven organization. When we spend, we spend wisely. We consistently exceed our top line targets and have spent less than our plan. But, thank you for the reminder, it is always important to remember.

To summarize…

Things we did to make a big splash without spending big cash:

1. Designed a slick booth --ourselves-- Marwan, our VP of Brand and Creative, literally designed the booth on the back of a postcard at a restaurant in NYC after ad:tech NY. He did an amazing job! (see pictures below)
2. Do NOT hire local booth talent - it is expensive, ineffective and insulting to your brand (see: Why Booth Babes Are a Mistake)
3. We brought 40 people gave them branded clothes - it was like having 40 walking billboards (avg. cost per person: $200)
4. Shared hotel rooms (cut costs in half), stayed at the Holiday Inn (budget hotel), carpooled instead of flying (less expensive)
5. Threw a party, largely sponsored by StrongMail Systems, Clearstone Ventures and Om Records (big impact, low cost) – thank you to our sponsors!
6. Re-used materials (such as the video from our website)
7. Did very little printing (saves trees and cost.) We kept collateral to one half-sheet which featured a “free music” card (which, by the way, the free music was sponsored, no cost to us - thank you to our partner, Om Records!)
8. Focused on the primary goal: get leads (we brought home 1,800 leads in 2 days, almost half of what we acquired in the past 6 months)
9. Trained the team well (our people, engaging with real customers and prospects) - priceless.


Thanks for teeing up this post, John! I was having a hard time getting it started – sometimes it is hard to get motivated to write and finish a post. I appreciate the thoughts and am glad to hear there are other people out there that are passionate about the environment and the success of other businesses.

Today’s lesson(s):

1. When you spend, spend wisely.
2. Make sure everything has a goal and measure against it.
3. And… do not ever hire anyone that you wouldn’t feel comfortable putting in front of a customer.

Labels: ad:tech, booth, environment

Although I try to keep this blog very focused on entrepreneurial lessons and stories, a lot of people have requested I share some of Rubicon Project's news on this blog. I've been trying to figure out how I can balance both without compromising the lesson-oriented posts. So, I'm going to label any Rubicon Project news with "Rubicon Project" first in the title for easy identification. I'm copying a blog post that I wrote on the Rubicon Project website into this post (below).

Short version - we launched a Free Ad Network Ad Server today, a literal first for the industry. You can read a bit more about it in the Wall Street Journal ("Rubicon Project Goes Live") and MediaPost ("Rubicon Project Takes on Google with Free AdServer") articles. Or read more below or click here...

And, come visit me at ad:tech San Francisco (booth #6166), I'll be there with the whole team this week (see below). We'll be serving espresso in the morning and beer in the afternoon along with giving away cool tunes from our partner Om Records.

Oh, and the lesson for today's post: get yourself a rock star team, it makes all the difference in the world!

Gotta run... Hope to see you at ad:tech!

~~~ My Post from the Rubicon Project Blog ~~~

Greetings everyone! I'm Frank Addante, CEO and one of the founders of the Rubicon Project. Today is a very big day for us. Our whole team is excited to finally unveil a number of things we've been working diligently on the past three months. But first, I have to tell you, I am incredibly proud of what this team has accomplished in such a short period of time. For example, our engineering team has, literally, been working around the clock for weeks now. And even though we all could use a long nap the atmosphere around the office has continued to be energized -- even at 4am after multiple rounds of all-nighters. The commitment to building a world-class product is unshakeable.

We are quickly approaching out 1-year anniversary since starting the Rubicon Project (see my original blog post) which, when I think about it, is truly amazing.... On one side, I can’t believe how much we’ve accomplished in such a short period of time: we've served 11+ billion ads across 750+ certified websites, developed deep relationships with 62+ top ad networks, we've built a stellar team of 40+ people and we've forged and created a new category - Ad Network Optimization. On the other side, like they say, time sure flies when you're having fun-- And we are having a lot of fun!

The main intent of our private beta was to learn and test our theory that websites need a better solution to manage and generate revenue from ad networks. We were overwhelmed with the positive response. We originally planned to try and sign up 500 websites for the private beta over the course of 6 months. To our surprise, more than 500 signed up the very first day, with 5000 websites having signed up since. We’ve learned a ton and are now launching products and services based on those learnings as we move into phase II of our mission.

I want to bring you up to speed on all of the news from this week and last, starting with today.

This Week:

Free Ad Network Ad Server
We launched a Free Ad Network Ad Server today (see press release). Ten years ago, I created one of the first ad servers (it was called adMonitor). That is where I first worked with my co-founders Craig, Julie and Duc. DoubleClick was our #1 competitor and the 800-pound gorilla at the time. adMonitor grew to be the second largest ad serving platform behind DoubleClick who later acquired it after our IPO. Back then, 100% of ad space was sold by in-house direct sales teams (or exclusive ad sales rep firms). Times have changed. Today, up to 80% of ad space goes unsold directly. And a lot of websites depend on ad networks for 100% of their revenue. Ad servers were designed for direct sales, not for managing ad networks. Websites have told us that their ad servers do not help them efficiently manage ad networks. In response, we created the industry’s first free Ad Network Ad Server - specially designed for managing ad networks. I believe this product will help ad networks and websites work together more efficiently - creating a better growth opportunity for both. Click here to check it out...

New Ad Network Optimizer Release
We have made significant enhancements to our core product, our Ad Network Optimizer:

• Smarter Algorithms: We have upgraded our algorithms helping to boost CPMs even further, increase fill rates and kill default ads (unpaid or very low paying ads).
  
• Ad Quality Screener: Websites have told us that ad quality is very important to them. In addition to the ad quality preferences and filters, we have added the ability to quickly screen ads from ad networks and pause unwanted ads.
  
• Guaranteed On-Time Payments: Ad networks have varying billing and payment terms. This is a big challenge when working with multiple networks. We now centralize the billing so websites get one simple check from us -monthly- and we guarantee the payments come on-time even if the ad networks pay late.
  
• Reporting: The entire user interface has been upgraded and there are many new reports based on all of the great feedback we've received.
  

Click here to learn more about the Ad Network Optimizer...

I don’t know where to begin to try and explain how much work has gone into this release. Both our engineering and market team's have been hyper-focused on delivering a high-quality product that is a direct result of customer feedback.


Last week:
JT Batson, who leads our publisher team, already addressed a number of our new initiatives in last week's post, so I will keep this brief.

• Q1 Ad Network Landscape, Outlook and Trends: We have assembled our learnings and produced this 21-page educational report for the industry. (download the report...)
  
• Golden Eggs Video: A simple, fun way to tell the complex story of the changing online advertising space the past 7 years. (see the video...)
  
• New Website: Our business is driven by technology and data. We designed a site that reflected the real-time, dynamic nature of our business.
  
• Ad Space Certification program: We are committed to helping ad networks grow their business. Ad networks (and their advertisers) have told us that if we can provide them with better classified inventory and assure it's safety and accuracy, that they could do a better job selling and converting that inventory. As a result we launched the industry's first Ad Space Certification program-- a win-win for everyone. (learn more...).
  
• Ad Space Finder: The more visibility we can provide ad networks into available ad inventory the more effective they can be. We now provide real-time visibility into the ad inventory of our website customers via the Ad Space Finder (check it out...).
  

Now in Public Beta:
Also, we have officially moved from private beta to public beta. What’s significant about that is we are now letting everyone in, not just the 750 websites we accepted into the private beta. The more websites that join, the more data our technology can use to analyze to make the right matches between ad impressions and ad networks and the greater exposure all inventory gets to more ad networks and more of their advertisers.

I know this is a long post. But, just writing this all out for the first time reminds me how much work the team has put into making this a big success for our websites and ad network partners.

The momentum and excitement are what's keeping us going after many, many late nights. It’s nice to see people rooting for us and seeing what we’re doing being validated in articles in the Wall Street Journal ("Rubicon Project Goes Live") and MediaPost ("Rubicon Project Takes on Google"). The team is running on adrenaline in place of sleep and this kind of fuel keeps them pumped.

One last thing...

Come visit us at ad:tech San Francisco this week!
Our entire team is going to be at ad:tech San Francisco this week for our first time exhibiting at a trade show. Yes, I did say the entire team (all 40 of us)! Why? Well, we always say our customers and partners are incredibly important to us. So we packed up the entire team and carpooled up to San Francisco (from LA.) We thought it would be great for everyone in the company to meet our customers and partners in person. So, we'll all be here! Hopefully you'll come out to see us, we'll be easy to find -- just look for people wearing black Rubicon Project shirts and a smile! Stop by our booth #6166 for some cool, free tunes from Om records or an espresso in the morning and beer in the afternoon!



(PS - don't worry websites, should you need us the team will always be available. We covered our bases with a scheduled set-up for dedicated customer service.

That's all I have for now... I'd like to personally thank all of our website publishers and ad networks for all the support. We're committed to what we're doing and your proactive support means a lot to us. And, of utmost importance to me, I'd like to extend my deepest thanks to my team - your passion and dedication inspire me every day!

We're looking forward to the future!

Frank

Labels: ad network ad server, ad network optimizer, ad:tech, adtech, media post, om records, rubicon project blog, wall street journal

Check out this video and then read the rest of this post:



I talk about simplicity all the time. In general, I think a lot of companies focus too much on "how" they do things instead of "what" they do. It's an easy trap to fall in, particularly in startup companies that are so product focused. We get so hung up in the product and the technology and forget to describe to people why they should use it in the first place.

As an example, at the Rubicon Project, we are forging new territory. Along with this comes a very complex story to tell. We constantly struggle with trying to find simple ways to tell the complex story of how online advertising has evolved over the past 10 years.

Most people understand that the online ad market has grown significantly (to $27Bn in 2008). But most do not recognize how the landscape has changed and how it affects the challenges websites face when trying to monetize their ad space. I could tell you about the very complex technology that heavily leverages data and smart algorithms to solve this problem and all the C++, JavaScript, AJAX, blah blah blah that comes with it. And, I could talk your ear off about the 10+ billion ads that we've optimized for over 750+ websites across 62+ top ad networks and the mounds of valuable market data that we've collected as a result. But, none of that matters to you unless I can convince you "why" we need to exist in the first place and tell how this could help you achieve your business goals.

Today, we launched a number of tools for the online advertising industry. They range from simple and entertaining to in-depth and detailed. They are all geared around further educating the market:

1. Video (above): the Rubicon Project presents: In search of online advertising's Golden Egg (an entertaining and educational video on the changes in the online ad space)
   
2. Market Report: 2008 Online Advertising Market Report - Q1 Ad Network Landscape, Trends and Outlook (a very detailed report based on our analysis of billions of ads delivered between ad networks and website publishers) [click here to download a copy]
   
3. Ad Space Certification program: our first move toward creating an industry standard to ensure the safety, accuracy and trust for ad networks (and their advertisers) when placing ads on website [see Press Release]
   
4. New Website: our business is technology and data driven, we redesigned our website to illustrate this by providing real-time data and access [check out the new site and our new Ad Space Finder]
   

There is a lot of deep, complex information behind each of these. So, to keep things simple, we thought it would be best to produce a video with a fun, simple story to describe what we do. I have embedded it in this post here:

Bottom line: you need to find a balance between sharing the complex information (e.g. our Market Report) with a simple way to tell your story (e.g. our Golden Egg video above)

We, at the Rubicon Project, moved into new office today. It is a very exciting day for us. Actually, liberating would be a more appropriate word. Before, we had 40 people squeezed into a 2,000 square foot office, designed to fit 15 people, max. Today, we moved into a 20,000 square foot office, 10X the size of the previous one. Personally, I believe that work environment is a critical factor for team productivity. Especially in a startup company where people spend most of their days, and many, many nights in the office...

I did a posting on our original office 9 months ago. There was a lot of thought that went into that first space, even though it was relatively small. That extra thought paid off. People that visited the office always took notice and commented about the welcoming, energetic feeling. We were able to create a very open environment that encouraged very active communication. As the office became overly crowded, that communication grew stronger. And, while it wasn't the most convenient with the space limitations, it contributed to the strong culture that has developed here at the Rubicon Project. We knew it was a challenge, but we improvised. For example, on sunny days (much thanks to Los Angeles weather!), we pulled chairs outside into the parking lot and created make-shift conference rooms (see photo). We sure felt the space squeeze on a rainy day!



The tight space added to the charm. So, we wanted to be careful not to disrupt the culture. As with our first office space, we put a lot of thought into Office 2.0:

Style: "24"
The new office is where they filmed the first season of the show "24". Jack Bauer's office is prominently displayed in the middle of the space. Yes, of course we named it the "Bauer Conference Room"! The other conference rooms were named in memory of (President) "Palmer" and "Edgar". In the middle of the office is a giant tented theater. We have learned that before filming 24, the space was used for the production of the movie, Titanic. The theater room was a screening room. We turned it into a conference and team meeting room, for our weekly all-hands team meetings. For those that watch the show 24, we named the theater conference room "CTU".



Communication & Productivity
In the new space, there are over 20 walled offices with doors and a very large, open area. We could have easily put everyone in an office. Instead, we chose to put everyone in the open area. And yes, by everyone, I include myself. We wanted to keep the communication flowing. But, we also realize that it could be anti-productive. Particularly when it comes to phone calls. So, we turned all of the offices into phone rooms and conference rooms that are assigned/dedicated to each department. These phone/conference rooms can be used for team meetings or people can jump in a room for an hour or a few hours and use it as their own private office. We thought it was a nice balance. Sitting here for about 5 hours now, it was the right decision. I've learned more sitting in the middle of the office in the past 5 hours by absorbing the background conversations than I would have in 2 hours of meetings.




Fun
Since we spend a lot of time here, we wanted to create an environment where the team could kick back and chill out a bit. So, you'll find a lot of huge lounge chairs, sofas and a separate bar/play area. We also installed free vending machines and expanded our Wii Lounge, added a pool table, ping-pong table, dart board and foos ball table. (Disclaimer: see bullet on "budget" below, we are not going to be one of those cliche dot-com stories...) We have a huge parking lot, so we also picked up a portable basketball hoop. We like to balance hard work and fun with healthy living and exercise. (Last week, we had a team kickball match at lunchtime, my team lost - this time!)



Urgency
We are an extremely metrics driven company. We chose to mount flat-panel screens around the office with our Mad Cash Meter. It is a real-time view of how many ads we're optimizing and how much money we're generating for our website customers. We also use it to track our goals and keep the company updated on group progress. The visual screens are a constant reminder to keep us all very focused on our #1 goal of helping our customers make mad cash from the ads on their site.



Events
We hold a regular event called Thursdays in the Mix. We've been doing them at local venues (bars, etc.). The event is focused on Southern California business networking and the advertising and technology industries. The events usually attract 300+ attendees and we usually have to limit the guest list due to venue size. Going forward, we are going to host the events at our office which will allow us to expand the guest list. We setup a bar area to support the event and the office has a huge courtyard which is perfect for entertaining. There's 20,000 square feet of office and probably another 20,000 square feet in the enclosed courtyard.



Location
The new office is just 2 blocks away from the old one. It certainly made the move easier. It is near Santa Monica, which is quickly becoming the technology capital of Southern California near companies like Yahoo!, Shopzilla, Fandango, LowerMyBills.com and even MySpace.com started here. It's a great, central place for us to recruit new talent from many area of LA.

Budget
Here's the best part (and the lesson). Relatively speaking, we spent very little money furnishing the space and making it our own. By keeping the area open, we avoided having to buy expensive cubicles which could run $2k - $3k per person. Instead, people have desks that cost $150. We bought our phone/conference room furniture at IKEA for less than $300 per conference room. For the theater room, instead of buying 50 chairs for $100+ apiece, we opted for black and red (our company colors) cubes for $33 from Overstock.com. We painted the space and added our signs and tagline to the walls which wasn't very expensive. Everything we bought was either from IKEA, Target, Craig’s List or discount furniture stores. Overall, we spent about 25% of "normal costs" to setup our space but feel like we got 5X the value!



The team is totally jazzed about the new office. We really wanted to make it nice for them. They work extremely hard and are committed to building a great business. We're looking forward to our new "home". We strived to do something unique and stellar without a stellar price. I feel like we struck a great balance.