828: AdTech: MobFox Acquired for $14m by Matomy, Now $36m+ in Ad Spend Annually

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka

Ceo, Entrepreneurs, Founders, Software, Business, Entrepreneurship, Saas, Startups

4.6 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2017

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Gil Klein from MobFox where he’s the managing director and a C-level executive at Matomy Media Group. Having joined the company in 2006, he’s been the member of the executive management team since 2014. He previously served as senior VP of media and senior VP of clients for this particular group. He holds an MBA in International Management from the College of Management in Israel.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great
What CEO do you follow? – Brian O’Kelley
Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Travel even more than you already have, experiment, take a lot of risks and spend as much time as you can with your family

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:57 – Nathan introduces Gil to the show
02:30 – Matomy is a global performance company that holds a few entities
02:44 – Gil personally runs and oversees MobFox, which is an mobile in-app audience SSP acquired by Matomy in 2014
- 03:15 – The acquisition was for $12M in cash
03:30 – Gil was with Matomy since 2006 and he helped the company grow
04:00 – MobFox makes money when their clients make money
04:17 – The tools of MobFox are usually for the developers and publishers focused on the in-app space
04:48 – MobFox tries to contact the best demand partners in the space like YuMe, AppNexus and PocketMath
05:50 – In 2015, MobFox generated $18M of the transaction volume
- 06:10 – MobFox’s charges depend on the deals they have
06:32 – MobFox usually keeps 17-20% of the transaction
06:56 – MobFox has grown to 36%
07:09 – Gil believes that MobFox is currently in a great space
07:51 – In 2017, Gil’s goal is to stretch as much as he can
08:21 – MobFox is currently working with 20-30K publishers, 4K are SDK-based
09:13 – MobFox currently has 180 DSP (Demand Side Platforms)
- 09:35 – A single DSP can have a thousand advertisers
- 09:42 – “We connect to a programmatic player”
10:00 – Current headcount of MobFox is 73-74
- 10:11 – 50 are engineers and the rest in sales, retention, HR and finance
- 10:26 – MobFox team is global
11:29 – Gil can and will do anything to get new customers, like suddenly showing up with presents and asking for a meeting
- 12:23 – “I try to listen to the customer”
13:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Set numbers for your goals, but aim to SURPASS those numbers.
Find the best partnerships that you can where you can mutually benefit each other.
Don’t hesitate to TAKE risks!

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	He joined his parent company in 2006, before making the recommendation to acquire a mob box.
0:06.8	They acquired it for about $14 million back in 2014, I believe you said.
0:11.5	In 2015, that platform had $18 million in ad spend processed, of which Mob Fox kept about $3.5-ish million or about 17 to 20% gross. In 2016, they more than doubled to
0:23.5	almost 36 million in total ad spend. They're working with between 20 and 30,000 publishers,
0:28.4	of which 4,000 are meaningful and about 180 demand side platforms, which could have, you know,
0:33.1	1,000 advertisers on that 1 DSP. They got 74 people, again, trying to make it easier for folks,
0:38.6	especially mobile app developers, to find the right advertisers, to get render rates up and
0:42.2	generally bring more efficiency. This is the top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are
0:47.7	number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn
0:53.8	how much revenue they're making,
0:55.6	what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000
1:01.4	per talk. Five and six million. He is hell bent on global domination. We just broke our $100,000
1:06.9	unit sole mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Many of you listening right now don't have time to listen to every B-to-B SaaS CEO that I've interviewed.
1:15.6	If you want to get access to the database I've created with year-over-year growth rates, customer accounts, margins, and many, many other data metrics and data points, you can go to G-E-T-L-A-T-K-A.com.
1:26.6	Here's the thing, though, this database, I keep it to myself.
1:30.9	It's so freaking valuable.
1:32.6	And to preserve the quality of the data and make sure that the people that have access to it have a true advantage,
1:37.8	I'm only letting 10 companies on each month.
1:40.5	So we're full this month, but you can go to gitlatka.com to get on the waiting list for next month. So we're full this month, but you can go to getlatka.com to get on the waiting list for next month. And look, there's big people on the waiting list. I mean, the biggest
1:47.3	VCs you've ever heard of, you've probably heard of them. They're big, private equity, billions and
1:51.5	billions under management. So it's an impressive waiting list. Go get on now at gitlatka.com.
1:56.4	Hello, everybody. My guest today is Gil Klein from Mob Fox, where he's a managing director and a sea level executive at Amadami Media Group. Having joined the company in 2006, he's been a member of the executive management team since 2014 and previously served as senior vice president of media and senior vice president of clients for the group. He holds an MBA and international management
	...

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