Shaul Olmert. He’s the cofounder and CEO of Playbuzz, an award-winning, storytelling platform that empowers publishers, brands, and agencies worldwide to create interactive content for editorial and commercial purposes. The world’s top publishers and brands worldwide use Playbuzz's desktop and mobile-friendly storytelling tools to improve audience engagement, optimize social sharing, increase site traffic and lengthen page-viewing time.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – N/A
• What CEO do you follow? – N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Evernote
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Shaul would have told himself that everybody else in the world is as clueless as he is

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Shaul to the show
• 02:25 – Playbuzz is a platform that helps make one’s storytelling more compelling and engaging
• 03:10 – Playbuzz's tools are completely free for publishers
• 03:20 – Playbuzz currently has tens of thousands of publishers
• 03:24 – Playbuzz has market leaders using their toolset
• 03:46 – Playbuzz makes money when publishers opt-in to their monetization program
• 04:11 – Advertisers want to present their brands to the audience that is listening
• 04:54 – Playbuzz's revenue is in the dozens of millions on ad spent on the platform
• 05:18 – Playbuzz's volume is high and consistently growing
• 06:10 – Playbuzz manages the distribution of the content items which will benefit the publishers as well
• 07:00 – Nathan summarizes how he understands Playbuzz to work
• 07:50 – The brands create their content and Playbuzz shares them on their partnered website
  • 08:16 – Playbuzz charges per view
  • 08:35 – The charge depends on how long their content is being viewed or listened to
• 10:00 – Playbuzz is creating new ways to grow their engagement
• 10:37 – Playbuzz has two revenue streams
• 11:53 – Playbuzz has been around for 5 years and has been in the market for 3 years
• 12:36 – Playbuzz has 2 founders and 170 employees globally
• 12:54 – Playbuzz has raised a total of $31M
• 13:40 – Shaul shares what he thinks of Disney’s efforts in advertising
• 14:43 – “The more value we create, the more our value increases”
• 14:54 – Playbuzz is still burning capital and scaling up
• 15:10 – Playbuzz is constantly creating to optimize data
• 15:36 – The majority of the funds go to engineering, product and data
• 15:49 – Shaul believes that eventually they will win the war by having superior technology
• 16:50 – Shaul shares his take on using voice searches for collecting data
  • 17:30 – Shaul is looking to take podcasts to a wider audience
• 19:15 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

1. Content is KING.
2. No matter how good your content is, if you can’t share it with an audience, it’s useless.
3. Voice searches will change how we do advertising, and this change will happen soon.

 

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