Work

Instacart (2020 – 2022)

Instacart (2020 – )

For two years I owned the Enterprise Product team at Instacart as the company transitioned from focusing exclusively on it's consumer product to also offering a substantial white label product for Enterprise customers. I owned multiple products line representing billions in revenue and a significant fraction of gross profit for the entire company and completely rebuilt the team during that time. I moved retailer NPS score +20 and team health score +45%. I was the executive sponsor of the successful FoodStorm acquisition, delivering 100% of OKRs and retaining the entire team. During my tenure I delivered numerous high-stakes platform and customer launches for key partners like Costco, Wegmans, Kroger, and Publix.

VigLink (2009 – 2019)

VigLink (2009 – Present)

From 2009 to 2019, I ran VigLink which sought to be the indispensible platform for content driven commerce. In 2018 the company was acquired by Sovrn and continues today as Sovrn Commerce. When it was sold the company was responsible for ~$1B in annual consumer spend and worked with more than 75,000 advertisers and 2 million publisher domains.

Xbox Live Video Marketplace (2005 – 2006)

Xbox Live Video Marketplace (2006)

I ran the team that built the back end for the Xbox Live Video Marketplace

Zune (2005 – 2006)

Zune Software (2006)

Not everything can be your best work

MSN Music 2004

The story of Mango and Juice, the greatest music subscription service that never was.

MSN Music (2003 – 2004)

MSN Music 2004

I was product manager for the MSN Music download service

Digital Aristotle (2001 – 2003)

Project Halo

I was program manager for an AI research effort at Vulcan called Project Halo

Echo Networks (1999 – 2001)

Echo Networks (2001)

I was Director of Advanced Technology for Echo Networks

Hive / Things That Think (1997 – 1999)

Hive / Things That Think (1997 - 1999)

I was a sponsored research assistant at the MIT Media Lab in the Things That Think consortium

Media Appearances

2016
Affiliate Summit Toronto - In Data We Trust
Digital Growth Summit - Influencer Campaign Best Practices
2015
Advertising Week - Content to Commerce: Are We There Yet?
Affiliate Summit East - Monetization
Pulsepoint - Oliver Roup, founder & CEO of VigLink, at ad:tech San Francisco
PerformanceIN - INside the Boardroom: CEO at VigLink, Oliver Roup
Affiliate Management Days - Content Driving Sales in a Cross-Device World
FeedFront - The Future of Marketing is Editorial Traffic
Ebay Partner Network Blog - Wrapping Up Another Successful ASW 2015
Affiliate Summit West - Creating Unique Partnerships for Publisher Success
2014
Rise of the Entrepreneur - ROTE 032: Oliver Roup Wants to Make Every Link Intelligent and Valuable
Affiliate Summit East - Content-Driven Commerce: Affiliate Marketing Gets a Makeover
Website Magazine - Viglink and the Future of Monetization for Publishers
Jewish Business News - Oliver Roup Picks Up $18 Million In Series C Funding For VigLink
AM Days - Mobile Affiliate Marketing: Million Dollar Industry Not on Everyone's Radar

Half of the volume and much of the growth of online traffic is due to mobile. A quarter of smartphone users bought something from their device and purchases are set to exceed $100billion by 2015. What is unclear is how ready retailers and affiliate networks are to capture the value of mobile traffic. Mobile conversion remains low even though merchants understand the need for mobile-optimized sites.

John Rampton - Interview with Oliver Roup from Viglink on Growing A Business In Silicon Valley
Wired Insights - Shopping on Smartphones: How to Fix the 24 Screens Problem
2013
Search Engine Journal - Why Your Links are Getting Ripped Off
Adotas - Video Q&A: VigLink Founder/CEO Oliver Roup @ Ad:tech New York
Upstart Business Journal - Three funding lessons from VigLink founder Oliver Roup
Venture Beat - Mobile app monetization: Think business model, not ads
Ad Exchanger - Affiliate Marketing Going 'Mainstream' Says VigLink CEO Roup
2012
Techcrunch - Hyperlinks Are Dumb And Bleeding Money; How To Ensure Yours Aren’t
Growmap - Affiliate Marketing Tips Part 3 of 3 on Future of Publishing
Growmap - Affiliate Marketing Tips Part 2 – Future of Publishing
Growmap - Affiliate Marketing Tips – Future of Publishing
Scott Jangro - Oliver Roup of Viglink: What's the Value of a Hyperlink? Try $58,000
The Admin Zone - Interview with Oliver Roup - VigLink Founder and CEO
Founder.ly - Oliver Roup – VigLink 1 of 2
Founder.ly - Oliver Roup – VigLink 2 of 2
Ideammensch - Oliver Roup – Founder and CEO of VigLink
Affiliate Summit East - Increasing Website Revenue by Driving Social Behaviors
2011
Vator TV - Today's Entrepreneur: Oliver Roup
Harvard Club - Founders Series with Oliver Roup of VigLink: Monetizing Your Content
Sugarrae - Interview with VigLink CEO, Oliver Roup
The Next Web - Beyond analytics, VigLink automates affiliate links to pay publishers
Affiliate Summit West - New Developments in Automated Monetization
2010
John Chow - The Top 5 Internet Marketers To Look Out for In 2011
Googleblog - Viglink: Easier Way to Monetize Links On Your Blog
Youtube - Introduction to VigLink
Gigaom - VigLink Finds a New Way to Make Blogging Pay
2009
Mass High Tech - Stealthy VigLink lands Google Ventures Funds