Author’s Note: My apologies for the delay in publishing this content for Monday. I’ve had a busier than expected Memorial Day weekend. I hope everyone is enjoying Memorial Day and is staying healthy! Enjoy the read.
I got the chance to speak with Hikari Senju, founder of Omneky, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.
Startup Spotlight #4: Omneky
Omneky founder Hikari Senju.
Problem: Creating effective online advertisements is difficult and costly. Marketers waste 26% of advertising budgets on ineffective content and strategies.
Market: Advertising agencies make $60 billion/year in revenue. The smallest agencies charge a minimum of $3k/month and 20% of advertising budgets to manage ad accounts, which is too expensive for most SMBs.
Solution: Omneky uses the latest deep learning models to generate personalized ads and manage FB ad accounts for a small monthly subscription.
Team: Hikari Senju (Harvard CS 2015) previously founded on-demand tutoring app Quickhelp (acquired by Yup.com). Investors in Omneky include Richard Socher, Chief Scientist at Salesforce and co-author of seminal ImageNet and GloVe papers, and Village Global (who's LPs include Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates).
Recent Success:
Senju: Omneky is a FB Marketing Partner, manages $100m in ad spend, and have been profitably growing 3x month/month since launching in January 2020.
Recent Struggle:
Senju: There is not enough time in the day to do all the work that I need to do and study all the things I need to learn.
Founder Advice:
Senju: If a startup is a vector, then direction matters as much if not more than magnitude. Better to work slow in the right direction than work fast in the wrong direction.
Two Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Senju: Here are two founders you should check out next!
Deon Nicholas, Founder of Forethought: Forethought’s mission is to enable everyone to become a genius at their jobs.
Joseph Lai, Founder of Bentocart: Food Delivery for Office Workers.
Check out my F2F Case Study with Hikari - Case Study: Understanding The Impact Of U.S. Monetary Policy On Fundraising For Tech Startups With Omneky's Hikari Senju
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