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00:00Oh shit. What is that? This is a business that went from zero dollars to more than three million
00:08dollars by renting out other people's billboards. I like to think about this business like a digital
00:15real estate business. Tiny little rental units, no toilets, five figures invested, and 12 to 18
00:21months cash on cash return. Kind of interesting. If you, like me, are interested in trying to
00:26figure out how can I make money on assets that work for me, even when I'm not working,
00:31this industry is interesting. I was curious about this boring business of billboards. So I found
00:37two gentlemen who are projected to make $4 million a year without owning any billboards.
00:43Look at this. There's four ways I see to make money off of billboards. One, you can have print
00:49billboards, the ones that you see on the street. Two, you could have billboards like this. These
00:52are moving billboards. Check out this company, Agile. They basically take these on last mile
00:57trucks. Three, you could own digital billboards like the ones we just showed you before, the ones
01:01on the street. Or four, you start a company like these guys and you try to figure out as more people
01:06are vying for this one precious thing, our eyeballs, how could you be the solution to their problem of
01:13not get enough of this? You had a moment that brought you this business. Tell me what happened.
01:20We had an idea for a billboard campaign for a day just to make something viral out of it. We went
01:26to the people who own the billboard. We told them, if you guys have free space, we want to buy a few
01:30hours or a day of advertising. They told us that's not really possible. They're not able to sell us
01:35one day. They have to do a minimum of a week or two because that's how their infrastructure is set up.
01:39And that's when it clicked for us. And we realized, hey, if we're able to automate that and get all that
01:45free inventory on a platform so people can access it without having to talk to someone, without having
01:50to go through the very complicated process of working with a media agency, then that's a big
01:54opportunity. So a lot of times people think if you're going to do a tech business, something big
01:58in tech, you have to have a ton of money. But that wasn't the case for you guys. How much cash did you
02:03start with? A couple of tens of thousands. The coolest part, I think, is that you went two years
02:07without getting VC funding or doing what so many people do these days, which is like, I have an idea.
02:13How about you fund it? Instead, you're like, no, no, no. We're going to put our own blood, sweat and
02:16tears into this. We're going to get not just an MVP, but a real VP up there and have hundreds of
02:23thousands of billboards in order for this to get rolling. What made you then decide, okay, we're
02:27ready. I'm going to bring in some capital and I'm going to take it to the next level. So there were
02:31actually a couple of moments that changed together to make the trigger that, yeah, this is actually huge
02:36and it's a business. The first moment was when we got our first client. So we were always self-service.
02:42The platform was always available, but people were afraid of billboards because when you're
02:47on a billboard, everybody sees it. It's not like on Facebook when you have no idea who sees it.
02:51Your mom is going to see the billboard. So we got a client out of nowhere that bought like 20 bucks
02:57something in Bucharest. I really wanted to place an ad in Times Square. For me, Times Square was the
03:01mecca of billboards. And when we first got in 2018, our first billboard and first campaign in
03:07Times Square wasn't big. It was a couple of thousands, but it was our ad on the biggest
03:12bloody screen in Times Square. Ultimate trigger, if you want, that we can take this.
03:16With a simple $18 billboard, we became the second most popular Reddit post of all time
03:22and were picked up by most major news outlets. All the way to the top.
03:26You hadn't done anything in billboards before. There was this huge multi-multi-billion dollar
03:30industry that you guys knew nothing about. You're from Romania. You're coming to the U.S.
03:35You're like, I got this. No problem. Like, how did you decide you were going to take the risk?
03:40And why this marketplace?
03:42Well, we were digital marketers. So all of us were doing stuff on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter,
03:47you name it. And we realized, obviously, the internet marketing was already maturing.
03:52So there were less and less opportunities there. If we're able to apply some of the principles that
03:56we learned from online marketing to a legacy business, like digital out-of-home or out-of-home
04:01in general, then that could be a huge opportunity.
04:05And we started learning the business because we didn't know how it was done.
04:08Honestly, it was good news from us because we weren't from that space because we were able to
04:11come up with a totally fresh perspective and actually look at it with a proven critic's eye
04:16and see the good part, but also see the bad part and how we can change that.
04:22All right. So how does this actually work? If I own a billboard, what do you guys do for me?
04:26Reach out to us. Our tech team will evaluate what players you have, the systems that you
04:30have or recommend the system that can communicate with us. Once you're hooked up and you have a
04:35connectivity to the screen and we see your screen on the system, basically it's live. You don't have
04:39to do anything, but just approve the content, push the yes or no button.
04:42So really, you're kind of like a property manager for billboards.
04:45We're looking at sort of like an Airbnb because we're renting out, not to the big guys, but to
04:51the thousands of the small guys. That makes sense.
04:54One of the things that I really enjoy doing is taking something really old and bringing it to
04:59the day and age that we live with. Whether it's paying your taxes online with a credit card or
05:03taking a very old industry and making it accessible to everybody, literally. For us,
05:09it's the number one motivation that we get on a daily basis. Every time we see a company or an
05:14individual posting something on their Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, hey, that's my company.
05:19I'm there. It doesn't matter if they spend five bucks to be there. They're so happy and you can
05:24tell the joy. Hey mom, I'm on a billboard. And billboards actually are one of the few mediums that
05:29still have that magic, you know, to make you accomplished, feel accomplished.
05:34It's so true. I mean, look at all these guys. Like my friend Alex Eberman launched a podcast.
05:38Now he puts it up on a billboard. Like another friend of mine launched a book. It's on a
05:42billboard. It almost makes people feel like, hey, it's a bigger deal than it is because it
05:47gets up here. And maybe even people don't realize that they could do that.
05:51You want to know the secrets to building billion dollar businesses? There's one thing
05:55most people don't do. Branding. So when I thought about building contrarian thinking,
06:00I referenced back to Nike and Apple from the 1984 commercial.
06:04On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh.
06:08To Nike's Just Do It Swish campaign.
06:14They don't forget this. It's not a logo. It's a contract between them and their customer.
06:21Sort of thinking about creating our company's story. I went to 99designs by Vista. I created the
06:27first two logos of contrarian thinking and unconventional acquisitions at 99designs.
06:31Then this most recent go-round, I made kind of a giant mistake. I spent $15,000 on a branding
06:37agency and their stuff was awful. And so I actually went back to 99designs and I said,
06:42what about we do a partnership? We together create the new logos for our new boring business
06:49brief. So I set up a contest on 99designs for a little mascot. All for a couple hundred bucks
06:55because it turns out my drawing's not amazing, but theirs is. So we're going to do a giveaway.
07:02We're going to give away $500 in credit for you to create your own logo.
07:08Small businesses, one of the most important parts is how do you get clients? How do you get sales?
07:12Turns out in this business, you guys have clients come to you because of the pain point.
07:17Tell them about it.
07:18We don't even have a sales team. We're not that good at sales. We're just good at creating a system
07:22that works by itself. So basically we have a lot of inbound demand because people will look up
07:26billboards in a certain area and they have two options. They either email an agency or the
07:29landlord and that takes forever to respond and it imposes a higher minimum. Or they'll come on our
07:34platform and they see how easy it is. We actually have a case now with an agency from Europe that
07:38wants to advertise for McDonald's, so a big buyer, where they want to do it fast.
07:41Is there anyone out there who wants to go fast?
07:44I want to go fast.
07:46They're not able to do it for their agency, so they're doing it for our platform.
07:49I mean, think about this. All of these industries are getting disrupted because people used to have
07:53to do this a lot. And guess what? Not everybody answers on the other end of the line. Just like
07:57Airbnb, Zillow, Redfin, all of these companies are removing the old incumbents and putting somebody
08:03like this guy in the middle.
08:06Now, break down how the costs work on billboards like this. How do you price them?
08:11How do you make money off of them? How does that work?
08:13So what's unique about our platform is we work with companies like this.
08:19We take a trade card, right? Whether it's the weekly or the monthly, break it down into hours.
08:24We get the price per hour and then we add our markup on top of that. And then you have the price
08:28that the client, like you, gets for your ad to run for an hour.
08:32So it's almost just like YouTube AdSense in a way or PPC on a Google website. You're like,
08:38this piece of real estate is worth X. You get X amount of this real estate for a certain amount
08:43of time. And because of that, we're going to charge you for it. That's basically applied across all
08:47those 500,000 billboards.
08:48Exactly. Basically why we add the extra markup. Of course, we're not an NGO. We are for business,
08:54but it's mostly for short-term campaigns. If you have the money to do a long-term campaign,
09:00definitely talk directly to the billboard owner, go to them directly, pay them, make a deal,
09:04a long-term deal. But if you want something tomorrow or two days from now, and you only
09:09want it for two hours, we're kind of the only option.
09:14What is important to know when buying your first digital billboard?
09:18First of all, don't scheme on price because you can get a lot of cheap billboards if you import
09:22them from China or anything like that, but the tech will not be there. Second of all, you want to have
09:26a good tech infrastructure so you're able to report to your advertisers, but you also want it to be
09:30flexible enough for it to be able to connect to platforms and be able to make extra revenue on
09:34top of it. What about location? How do you decide where a good billboard location is and how much
09:39you could make? I think that's the most important part. So first of all, I would look at affluent
09:44neighborhoods, look at places that maybe don't have a lot of billboards that are kind of growing a
09:48lot. So Miami is a great example. Miami, because Brickell is booming now and you have a lot of people
09:52from New York moving here. There's not a lot of digital billboards. It's similar with real estate.
09:56It does have, if you can find something that people are very interested in now that has a lot
10:00of food traffic or a lot of car traffic, then I think that's a good combination of a good location.
10:04At the end of the day, I think you want to think about it yourself like you are an advertiser.
10:09If you are looking to run advertisements, do you have 10 to 20,000 cars passing by every day? Do you
10:15have a location where your target demographic is located? So if I want to sell something to food truck
10:21owners and my product is $100,000, this might be a good place to be because we're surrounded by food
10:25trucks. If I want to sell somebody sweaters in Miami in the middle of the summer, this is probably not
10:30the spot for me. So think about what your goal is before you buy a billboard spot. Oh, this is
10:36amazing. In every business, you get a lot of no's, but especially if you're going to disrupt a boring
10:41traditional business that's been around for 100 years. Tell us what people would say about you guys
10:45in the industry and why you kept going anyway. It was interesting when we first started this and we
10:49were talking to people in the advertising space. They were telling us, yeah, that's never going to
10:52happen. The space is controlled by a few players. You're never going to have an end there.
10:57Don't worry, Mr. Zuckerberg, brighter men than you have tried and failed this class.
11:00You're going to disrupt their business. They're not going to want it. When we were talking to
11:03potential clients, they were like, this is brilliant. Can you build this? I want this.
11:06And that's when we realized, hey, it's something that the industry doesn't want because it will
11:10disrupt their business, but it's something fans want. So that means if we manage to do it,
11:14that's a huge win for us. So we kept going. We went from two screens in Bucharest to half a million
11:20now worldwide and it's going good. So something works. So ask yourself, not only is it cool when
11:25you see yourself on your own billboard, hint, but also where can you break the mold? Where is
11:30something ridiculous that bothers you like taxicab medallions and the fact that taxicabs are
11:35disgusting, aka Uber? Like the fact that billboards are so expensive to get on when they really
11:41shouldn't be. When you can take something that's been broken for a long time and fix it with a little
11:46bit of technology, that's where the billions are. A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool?
11:50You? A billion dollars.
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