There are many roads to success: The Buddy Media example

It’s been a few days now since their acquisition was formally announced, and I continue to be fascinated by the Buddy Media story.  But what fascinates me is less the company itself and all the things that make it great –  and instead the fact that its success tests the conventional wisdom of what makes a venture successful.  Rightly or wrongly, investors, prospective employees, the press, and anyone who tries to predict the highly unpredictable fate of startups, tend to default to some common assumptions about what’s going to work and what isn’t.  The Buddy Media story challenges that conventional wisdom in some interesting ways:

1.  NYC is not a good place to start an enterprise software company

It’s a bit ironic that, for all the talk about NYC being a media and eCommerce hub, the largest acquisition in five years would be an enterprise software company.

2.  It takes forever to build a successful enterprise software company.

It took Buddy Media less than 5 years from start to success, including an initial pivot.  

3.  To build a successful enterprise software company, you need technical co-founders, or at least a technical CEO

Buddy Media’s CEO is a serial entrepreneur with two degrees in journalism.  Buddy Media’s COO is a serial entrepreneur with a background in business development and marketing and a degree in economics.  The other co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer is a digital branding and marketing expert with a degree in Broadcasting and Mass Media.  

4.  Selling to marketers and advertisers is a really tough business.

Fortune 500 marketers and advertising agencies are indeed a tough audience – long sales cycles, often low budgets, a preference for homegrown solutions, a reluctance to buy what others in the industry purchase: not easy.   But the Buddy Media success shows that it can be done, with the right execution: build the best product in your category, focus on sales, make friends in the right places, hire some key people from agencies, and work really hard.

5.  Be really careful with strategic money

Buddy Media took a strategic investment from advertising leader WPP, which ended up substantially accelerating their business.

6. Service companies can’t become product companies

After an initial pivot, Buddy Media had to turn themselves into a service company to survive the 2008 economic recession.  James Altucher has a really interesting post on Techcrunch that describes this phase.  Somehow, they were able to gradually build a product offering.  

7.  The best founders are young and single

Two of the co-founders of Buddy Media are married.  On top of that, they have three children.  While there are famous examples of homeruns started by married founders (Cisco, VMware, etc.), in my experience, behind closed doors most investors think it’s a terribly risky idea.   The Buddy Media story shows that where there is will there is a way: founders with family obligations can still endure the rollercoaster lifestyle of the startup world.

 

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