Case Study Series: Here's How AudioMob Solved Its Growing Pains As It Evolved From An Early-Stage Startup To A Growth-Stage Company
When your startup grows faster than expected, don't be afraid to hire the senior leaders you need sooner rather than later.
Introduction:
AudioMob is the first non-intrusive audio ad solution that enables the monetization of mobile gamers without damaging retention.
Problem: Current ad formats such as video ads interrupt gameplay and reduce game retention and game developers are struggling to find new ways to monetize their games.
Market: The overall TAM is $35B. The Serviceable Available Market and Serviceable Obtainable Market are $3.6B and $224M, respectively.
Solution: We allow advertisers to reach their consumers and game developers to monetize their games without interrupting gameplay using audio ads.
Team: Christian Facey is a former Facebook Science Partner and Google Agency Strategist, and his time with Google saw him manage a portfolio worth up to $100 million in value. Wilfrid Obeng is a former Google Customer Solution Engineer and Programmatic Account Strategist, and he also previously served roles at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Bloomberg.
Background: (Read For Necessary Context!)
Startup Spotlight #97: AudioMob - AudioMob is the first non-intrusive audio ad solution that enables the monetization of mobile gamers without damaging retention.
Case Study: AudioMob Found Product-Market Fit Success By Carefully Navigating The Three-Way Audio-Gaming Advertising Marketplace - Learn how Christian Facey and Wilfrid Obeng found PMF success by breaking down and creating value for advertisers, game developers, and gamers with AudioMob.
Case Study: AudioMob
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned since your last fundraising round or critical milestone?
Pivoting from a seed stage company structure to a growth level structure is much harder! For example, we recently hired our head of people, and head of operations post-Series A. These are pivotal positions that can help scale the structure of a business. However, during our seed phase, these functions were split between myself and Wilfrid. Finding the time to integrate a head of people and head of operations while having stellar commercial traction and international expansion is a very hard ( but not impossible) thing to do. We’ve now onboarded our head of people and operations, but in hindsight, increasing burn to hire this kind of talent during our seed phase would have been better.
Due to the macro-economic events that keep adjusting our world view, increasing burn in today’s client is much riskier than it’s been in the last ten years. Onboarding your core directors and the speed and quality of doing this are critical to company success. It will help you pivot /solve challenging scaling issues so we can grow sustainably. For example, we’ve had top 10 gaming publishers approach us to integrate within year two that we didn’t expect to speak to until year 3 /4 of our journey. Adapting our strategy to grow quickly while being sustainable is something we’re executing right now!
What are the major limitations you identified in AudioMob’s structure at the seed stage?
It was the head count. Due to the pandemic, we wanted to take large risks on pivoting to generate revenue quicker while remaining super lean, so our burn wasn’t too high. However, when we achieved extreme growth in 2021, the “seed-like” structure proved unsustainable. We did not have the funding back then (we thought) for a people & operations manager, which put an internal strain on the business, but we pulled through!
From these limitations, how did you conclude that hiring a Head of People and Head of Operations could address the issues mentioned in the previous answer?
It was something we always knew in the back of our minds needed to happen. Suppose you have employees managing too much revenue per head while having to maintain a fast growth trajectory. In that case, the pressure from this slowly builds up, as it does in any organization. More managers were needed from two standpoints. First, someone to manage employee wellbeing, headcount/hiring, and multiple queries from employees as the business pivots into a scale-up. Also, after 12-18 months, when the business shows longevity, employees will start thinking about their careers and where they will be within AudioMob in 2/3 - 5 years. A head of people was needed as multiple questions and queries concerned these areas. Of course, Wilfrid and I can deal with these queries with 10-12 employees, but not over 20! Secondly, we knew our seed structure wasn’t sustainable to maintain growth. In the early days, it’s been said you need to do things that don’t scale to scale! This started to show when the revenue per head in the sales team grew, more people and resources were needed, and smoother interlinking between teams of vastly different disciplines, i.e., Finance, engineering, marketing, etc. A Head of Operations would be needed to ensure AudioMob becomes an automated well-oiled machine that can accept larger deals and service larger clients.
How did you two onboard and communicate the roles and responsibilities to the Head of People and Head of Operations, respectively?
It was a relatively straightforward task. The head of people is in charge of employee happiness (people), talent acquisition (recruitment), and HR policy/process (HR ops). These were the three areas Wilfrid (CTO and co-founder) owned to ensure we could hire a great seed stage team and generate our hiring pipeline. The head of operations is in charge of anything needed to run the business and works closely with human resources. This includes payroll, managing accountants, managing receivables and payables, our customer success team and financial controllers, etc. Both the head of ops and people were tasked with running their own audits across the whole company, respective of their fields, so that they could get deep into the weeds extremely quickly. We also planned for them to start on the same day so their onboarding rate would be consistent as they work very closely together!
Should startups look to hire a Head of People and Head of Operations sooner than later?
If I could change one thing, it would be to increase our burn specifically to hire a head of operations and head of people within AudioMob’s first year. Like many startups, you purely concentrate on sales, product, and overall commercial traction. However, building a team that focuses on that means you’ll have more work to structure a people and operations division that is truly representative of a scale-up.
Now that you have these senior ranks filled, where do you two spend the extra time in different areas of the business?
More of our time is now focused on the strategic plays AudioMob needs to make: key products we’re going to build, our funding strategy in the face of adverse economic conditions (again!), where the next offices will be, etc.
Looking back, do you think you could have done a better job of onboarding your core directors? If so, how?
I think so, yes. You should start hiring for your key positions earlier than you think! Start hiring sooner. It’s easy to plan for the worst, but planning for the best is something to be wary of, etc.; what if your funding round turns out to be a huge success? What if you get more traction than you can deal with? Thankfully, AudioMob had an incredible 2021, which meant that we have to reactively try and find incredible talent quickly, at an unexpected rate, to maintain our growth. Secondly, it takes a while to refine an interview process, so your interviewing and onboarding becomes a well-oiled machine.
Click Here for AudioMob’s Founder File:
AudioMob’s Founder File Description: Diversifying revenue within adverse economic conditions
Facey: During 2020, many founders would have realized that they either needed to raise more money, change the kind of client they were generating revenue from, re-organize the business so they can adapt to the current conditions, or a variety of other factors. AudioMob had to do all of this and then some! I’ll touch upon some of the key factors that we learned during 2020 to come out stronger in 2021.
Two Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Facey and Obeng: Here are two founders you should check out next!
Dami Hastrup, Founder of MOONHUB: MOONHUB is a vibrant start-up company with a focus on training other companies with our engaging and innovative VR Training system!
Adrian Ruiz-Langan, Founder of Trueplayers: Trueplayers takes the best experiences on PC/Console and builds mobile-first titles inspired by them.
Previous F2F Case Studies:
Case Study: PatchRx CEO Andrew Aertker Warns Of Making Too Many Changes
Case Study: Pillar's Journey To Product-Market Fit Began By 'Living The Problems' Their Users Face
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