Vistar Media
Jeremy Ozen spent time at Goldman Sachs in its European Special Situations Group and later at a hedge fund in Monaco. A friend's success in Poland, where he copied U.S. retail concepts and applied them in a new market, convinced him that proven ideas could be reapplied with less risk than inventing something new.
Ozen's friend Michael had helped build an online advertising company that Google acquired, one of the first to do programmatic advertising. Ozen concluded that programmatic buying would eventually reach all advertising and found that out-of-home was being ignored. The founders started with the idea that digital billboards could be bought in real time. Ozen said it was hard because there was no standard integration, so the team had to work with every media owner to explain the system. He described programmatic in 2012 as "totally foreign" to those owners.
The company raised a half-million-dollar fund in early 2012 and another $1.5 million in 2013, both as convertible notes. Ozen said the company then generated cash, with "gross, it's about 20 million" and EBITDA of roughly 20 to 25 percent. Media owners were paid for platform access, and agencies were charged fees for using the technology.
The model avoided inventory risk because the system buys ad space in real time only when needed to fulfill a client order. Ozen said the team had considered buying billboard companies outright, but dropped the idea. He described the company as a virtual out-of-home network that connects to large operators such as Lamar and Clear Channel.
As of the interview in 2017, Vistar Media had about 50 to 55 employees and a goal of $10 million in EBITDA for that year. Ozen said the company did not plan a Series A and intended to build toward an exit to Google or Verizon.
- •Applying a proven programmatic model from online advertising to an overlooked channel gave the company a market with little competition.
- •Working in real time, and buying inventory only when a client needs it, removed the inventory risk that would otherwise burden a billboard-based business.
- •Using telecom location data to decide where and when to buy gave clients a targeting advantage that traditional billboard sales could not match.
- •Bootstrapping with small convertible raises and reinvesting profits kept dilution low while the company grew into a profitable business.
- 1.Identify a proven technology shift in one channel (such as programmatic ad buying) and look for a neighboring channel that has not adopted it.
- 2.Design a model where you pay for supply only when a customer order requires it, so you avoid carrying inventory risk.
- 3.Build a data advantage, such as a partnership with a telecom or measurement provider, that improves targeting over what incumbents offer.
- 4.Sign partnerships with the supply-side owners first, since onboarding them is the main barrier in an incumbent-controlled market.
- 5.Keep fundraising small and reinvest profits into hiring to grow enterprise value without giving up equity.
Similar Companies
247.ai
$25.0M/mo247.ai, founded by PV Cannon in 2000, is an AI-powered customer service automation platform serving over 150 enterprise customers with $300M+ in ARR. The company raised only $20M from Sequoia (2003) and bootstrap, achieving 10% net profit margins while maintaining a 12-month CAC payback period and 100% net revenue retention. Despite a security breach setback around 2018, 247.ai has recovered and recently achieved 20% new revenue booking growth in their best quarter.
iCIMS
$13.3M/moiCIMS is a bootstrapped SaaS provider founded in 1999 that dominates the talent acquisition software market as the #2 player, serving 3,500 enterprise customers with an average monthly spend of $4,000. The company exited 2017 with $160M ARR and is targeting 25%+ annual growth while maintaining profitability, recently acquiring Text Recruit to expand into candidate messaging and recruitment advertising.
Zoom
$12.0M/moZoom is a freemium SaaS video conferencing platform founded by Eric Yuan in July 2011 after he left Cisco to build a next-generation collaboration solution. The company has grown to 850,000+ paying customers across individual, SMB, and enterprise segments, generating over $12M in monthly recurring revenue with approximately 100% year-over-year growth. Rather than focusing on customer stickiness or aggressive growth targets, Zoom emphasizes customer happiness and organic word-of-mouth acquisition, which has proven highly effective in driving viral adoption.
Madwire
$10.0M/moMadwire is a comprehensive SaaS platform for small businesses (1-100 employees) that combines CRM, payments, invoicing, billing, e-commerce, and multi-channel marketing tools in a single platform. Founded in 2009, the company has grown to $120M ARR serving 20,000 customers with an average revenue per user of $500/month, while maintaining strong unit economics ($3,000-$4,000 CAC with 3-month payback) and recently turning profitable with a focus on reaching 15-20% EBITDA margins. The company is exploring an IPO within 12-18 months without having raised substantial capital beyond an initial $7.5M.
SwiftPage
$7.0M/moSwiftPage is a CRM and marketing automation platform founded in 2001 that targets small businesses. Under CEO John Oshel's leadership since 2012, the company scaled from 60,000 customers with $26.2M revenue in 2015 to 84,000 customers today with an estimated ARR of $36M+, maintaining 1.5% monthly logo churn and a 6-7 month payback period with a sub-$500 CAC.
Related Guides
AI-extracted from the linked source. Monthly revenue can include one-time sales or donations, and may describe a later stage than the first-customer story.