Yaron Galai of Outbrain #208

Monday

Nov212011

Monday, November 21, 2011 at 02:27PM

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How many founders can you think of that have both served in the Israeli military and sold their company to AOL for millions of dollars? Yaron Galai of Outbrain has done both, but, then again, he's no ordinary founder. Listen to Jason's interview with Yaron and prepare to be inspired!

0:00-4:00 Hi everyone, on TWiST today we have guest Yaron Galai of Outbrain.
4:00-6:30 Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring the show. Go to squarespace.com/twist to save 20% for six months.
6:30-7:30 Welcome to Yaron!
7:30-8:00 You served for six years in the Israeli navy?
8:00-10:30 Do you think that serving in the military is one of the reasons that so many great founders come out of Israel?
10:30-12:00 What happened to the asset? Is it still operating inside of AOL?
12:00-15:00 What is the mission of Outbrain?
15:00-15:45 So you saw that publishers were broke and wanted to turn this into a revenue opportunity?
15:45-17:30 What’s the average a publishers gets per click on these stories?
17:30-18:30 How do you respond to all the people you see knocking this off?
18:30-19:45 How much of this was inspired by Tony Hsieh’s Link Exchange bought by Microsoft?
19:45-20:45 What do you do to make sure that the ads are classy?
20:45-22:00 How do you think publishing has changed in the last 10 years?
22:00-25:00 Did you have Business Insider as a client at one point?
25:00-26:30 How do you lobby prospective clients on why the design and UX is a critical factor?
26:30-30:00 Thank you to GoToMeeting for sponsoring the show--use the promo code START for a free trial! Everyone thank @GoToMeeting on Twitter for their support!
30:30-34:15 Let’s talk about video. Are a lot of the people leveraging Outbrain serving up video links? If you pay a nickel, is that $50 CPM?
34:15-35:15 Who determines the ratio of sponsored content to a publisher’s own content?
35:15-36:00 Question from the chat: How meaningful is the blog segment of Outbrain’s business?
36:00-37:15 How do you deal with the fact that so many ad networks are hounding publishers for distribution?
37:15-38:00 What’s the SEO impact of all of this?
38:00-39:00 What do you think is the key to building a successful startup?
39:00-41:30 How do you keep people inside the company focused?
41:30-42:30 Have you always had a co-founder? Have you never thought about just doing it yourself and just doubling up on the equity?
42:30-44:00 What’s your take on where consumption is going? Does text have a place in the future?
44:00-46:00 Jason tells the story of when he had to fire an employee he caught watching video at work.
46:00-51:00 Yaron, what’s the craziest experience you’ve had with an employee?
51:30-52:30 Let’s take an Ask Jason call. Anson, what’s your question?
52:30-53:30 Jason’s advice: If you want to sell it, you should package it and find a domain name broker and make a case for the sale.
53:30-54:30 How much does it make per month?
54:30-56:45 Tyler, what do you think?
56:45-57:00 Jason’s advice: Making your intentions public is a great way to build interest.
57:00-57:15 Thank you to everyone for joining us today, we’ll see you next time!

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