Interview discussing entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley: what it takes to start a company, the importance of team/traction/market, hiring talent, and VigLink's new auction product.
John Rampton: Hi, I'm John Rampton here with Oliver Roup from VigLink. How's it going?
Oliver Roup: I'm good. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
John Rampton: Hey, thanks for being here. Today I had a couple questions for you regarding entrepreneurship, but we're right here in the Silicon Valley, San Francisco. What does it take to start a company here? I mean, it's got to be hard.
Oliver Roup: It is. It's definitely tough. I'd say really you want team, traction, and market. So you want to be in a market that you think can be a big market, that others are going to think can be a big market. Really, the potential for a billion dollar outcome is sort of what interests investors and even employees—they want to imagine a big future.
I think traction is you've got to be stepping forward with something. Customers are coming or engaging or revenue, whatever it is, something's growing rapidly. And you have a team that you can help build the product with. And usually that starts off often as two people, a builder and a seller. And if those two people can get together and get all three of those things, I think then you've got the seed to start something around. You can generate excitement, you can raise money, and you can go for it.
John Rampton: So when you say build a company, do you mean build a company where your customer is? So a lot of your customers are in San Francisco, or do you feel that the talent is here? So you need the talent to acquire those people here.
Oliver Roup: What's special about Silicon Valley is the existence of talent in the ecosystem. So every bar you go to, any party, you're always going to meet someone who's somehow relevant to you, who can be helpful, or who used to work at the customer you're trying to sell. And it really is a hothouse that I don't think has been duplicated anywhere else. There's a lot of other interesting places to start companies, but nothing is quite like Silicon Valley.
John Rampton: I agree with that. Now that's got to be expensive.
Oliver Roup: Absolutely. People here are very expensive, especially great engineers, who are being besieged by very high cash offers.
John Rampton: But well worth it, I take it.
Oliver Roup: Yeah, absolutely. I definitely made the choice to start here knowing that it would be more expensive, but it's a trade-off. You pay more for people, but you have this great environment and all this talent. But it's a challenge. You've got to get attention and excitement, not just from customers and investors, but from employees too. And they are being hit all the time by other people who want them to come work for them. So you've got to keep it interesting.
John Rampton: Now I've been around your office. You have some very, very talented people. How do you acquire such talented people?
Oliver Roup: Well, the best way is really through your network if you have one. So friends of friends, I think that is really where you can find essentially the best deals. Like people who will come to you earlier than maybe they would if you were a stranger. You tend to outgrow your personal network at some point or maybe you don't have one. And then I think you're really pounding the pavement. We have used executive recruiters for some of our senior hires. And that's worked, although I'd say contingent recruiters are real crapshoot. It's hard to get value there.
John Rampton: So what's next for VigLink?
Oliver Roup: Well, we recently launched an auction product where we can essentially redirect links to point to merchants who are willing to pay the most for it. And we're really seeing some great excitement there. We tend to triple the price of a click when it's auctioned off. And publishers are getting a lot more money. And merchants are excited because they have the opportunity to buy incremental traffic. And so we're making publishers money, making merchants happy. And we've got some great other products coming that maybe we'll talk about soon.
John Rampton: I love it. Well, thank you very much for coming. Again, great company here in Silicon Valley that you walk through their office and you can tell employees are happy. Not to mention it's a good company. So thanks.