Jeremy Ozen. He’s the president and co-founder of Vistar Media. He was previously a Goldman Sachs European Special Situations in London monitoring a portfolio of venture investments. He also has a BS in Material Science Engineering and a BSc in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Sam Walton’s Biography
What CEO do you follow? – 3G Capital Founders
Favorite online tool? — Gmail Calendar
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jeremy wished he had not taken life so seriously and not every day is the end of the world

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:43 – Nathan introduces Jeremy to the show
01:15 – Vistar Media connects a technology to a software that runs digital billboard
01:35 – Vistar Media makes money by selling the technology or ads to the advertisers or agencies
01:52 – Vistar Media pays the media to access the platform then charges advertising agencies to use their technology
02:18 – VistarMedia doesn’t have a financial risk because the system is a real-time system
- 02:28 – There is a real-time buying of ad inventory
02:53 – VistarMedia’s technology can adjust to digital ones
- 03:06 – VistarMedia uses data for telecoms especially the location data of consumers to analyze where the consumers are within a day
04:20 – Jeremy started with Goldman Sachs in London
04:45 – Goldman had 2 groups, one is in stocks and the other is the special situations
05:20 – Jeremy stayed with Goldman for 2 years
05:22 – Jeremy then went to a hedge fund based in Monaco
06:12 – Jeremy became friends with people in Monaco
- 06:30 – There was a guy who has a very successful business in Poland
07:31 – Jeremy accepted and liked the concept of knowing something that is already working
08:10 – Jeremy has a friend who was working for a company that was founded by Google in 2010
- 08:23 – They’re one of the first to do programmatic advertising
- 08:59 – Jeremy then realized that what this company was doing for online advertising would eventually be the way for every type of advertising
10:54 – When Jeremy started, they knew the out-of-home advertising space was growing in terms of how much is digital
11:19 – Vistar Media needed to work with different media outlets explaining to them how to integrate into their system
- 11:28 – The idea of programmatic advertising was totally foreign to them
11:39 – Vistar Media was launched in 2012
12:48 – Team size is 55
12:52 – Vistar Media raised in 2013 a convertible round
13:15 – Vistar Media hasn’t raised a series A and will not raise one
14:01 – The biggest expenses of Vistar Media is the cost of media
15:20 – Jeremy has thought of buying Upfront
16:01 – Vistar Media has a difference in capital with the billboard guys
16:43 – Jeremy would describe themselves as the biggest billboard company in the USA
- 16:46 – They have all these big partners that work with them
17:29 – Vistar Media is bringing the billboard companies new money
18:02 – Vistar Media is the only player of programmatic advertising out-of-home
18:15 – $7B has been spent on billboards annually
18:27 – Jeremy is now 31
18:51 – Personally, when Jeremy started Vistar Media, they thought they were building a VC tech like business
19:12 – Jeremy built a business to have an exit at some point
19:48 – The best way to grow your value is by growing your business
20:05 – Jeremy is paying himself $50K a year
20:35 – Goal for 2017
21:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Going from one field to another is not that difficult if you really want and need a change.
You grow your value by growing your business.
There’s a time to work hard and a time to play hard.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

687: Monaco Bored Him, Now Places Ads on DIgital Billboards with VistarMedia CEO Jeremy Ozen

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders