Startup Spotlight #145: Adloc
Adloc connects content-creators to brands to make content creation profitable while providing a highly-targeted marketing solution for brands of all types.
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I got the chance to speak with Shahnawaz Mogal, co-founder and CEO of Adloc, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.
Adloc connects content-creators to brands to make content creation profitable while providing a highly-targeted marketing solution for brands of all types.
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Startup Spotlight: Adloc
Problem: Unless very popular, content creators and influencers are not sufficiently compensated by platforms such as YouTube for the amount of effort they put in. Also, online advertising campaigns by brands are often inefficient because online ads are usually ignored if they aren't embedded into the content.
Market: The number of influencers has exponentially increased in the past 5 years, with the current number of mid-tier influencers ranging anywhere between 3.2 million – 37.8 million. Advertiser spending on social media campaigns has increased from $500 million in 2015 to around $5-10 billion currently, and we expect this growth to continue.
Solution: Content creators register their details with us including their viewership and demographics of their audience. We work with brands to understand their advertising needs such as their target audience according to which we hand-pick related content-creators to undergo the advertising process and get paid.
Team: Shahnawaz Mogal is the CEO & co-founder, he's working on the intersection of NLP and startups. Shahbaz Mogal is the CTO & co-founder, he's an NLP researcher, ex-Microsoft, working on democratizing AI.
Recent Success:
Mogal: We started Adloc with a vision to make it a household name for every content-creator and the go-to place for brands when they want to introduce their brand new products. Over the past few months, our team has been able to develop and streamline the behind-the-scenes mechanism to pair-up content creators with brands, so that our partner creators can start earning as soon as possible. We've also been able to massively improve the quality of these matches too so that our partner brands have high ROI. Creating a scalable system has been at the top of our priority list as we notice an increasing number of influencers from all backgrounds sign up with us.
Recent Struggle:
Mogal: Fulfilling Adloc's goal to provide all of our content-creators additional revenue means that every creator should have at least a few brands to choose from. Although we have been able to connect with new content creators every day, we are not seeing the same growth in the number of partnering brands to keep up with the content creators. Due to this, not every one of our creators currently has a brand to partner with. That being said, we are optimistic that our growing content network will gradually, but certainly attract advertisers from all industries, given the recent shift in online advertising from traditional means to influencer campaigns.
Founder Advice:
Mogal: Based on conversations with venture capitalists, being able to move away from an unsuccessful idea and being able to quickly iterate are signs of good entrepreneurs. Although startups are often close to their founders' hearts, it is important to know the difference between trying to improve a product and recognizing when to completely shift gears. That way, you could spend time and resources working on a potentially successful startup idea. Also, a piece of knowledge that motivates us to continue improving ourselves is that an investor is more likely to invest in a startup with a great team and a bad product, than in a startup with an average team and a good product!
Two Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Mogal: Here are two founders you should check out next!
Nabeel Farooqui, Founder of Halo: Halo is putting location-targeted ads on top of Uber/Lyft vehicles.
David Boskovic, Founder of Flatfile Inc.: Flatfile is a startup aimed at converting crude data into a more useful form for organizations.
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