Congrats to Russ and the rest of the Adify team

I only hope that the rest of my investing career can result in exits as successful as my first…

Media co. Cox eyes online ad growth, buys startup for $300M

By ANICK JESDANUN – 8 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Media conglomerate Cox Enterprises Inc., betting its future on Internet advertising as newspaper and television audiences shrink, plans to spend $300 million to buy a startup that helps Web sites pool their ad space.

The all-cash deal with Adify Corp., to be announced Tuesday, represents the latest evolution for a media company that began more than a century ago with one newspaper in Dayton, Ohio. As new technologies emerged, Cox expanded to include radio, television and cable systems across the country.

“We’re absolutely convinced at Cox that online revenue is continuing to grow,” John Dyer, Cox executive vice president for finance, told The Associated Press. “If you look at Cox’s history, we’ve not necessarily been the first into a space. … But we’ve prided ourselves in the course of history in being early investors.”

With Adify, Cox gets a technology platform that can help Web sites more successfully sell higher-priced ads targeted to specific audiences, such as parents or travel enthusiasts, keeping brand-name advertisers from fleeing to larger Internet companies like Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Marketers wishing to reach a targeted audience may find a particular media Web site lacking enough ad space to sell. Adify helps media companies form networks of Web sites around parenting, travel and other topics, allowing marketers to reach readers on dozens or hundreds of like-minded sites through a single buy.

Adify already runs several ad networks, including a lifestyles-focused one for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. and a network of hundreds of independent financial blogs assembled by the online unit of Forbes Inc.

Cox is exploring its own specialty ad networks around such Web properties as cable TV’s Travel Channel, the AutoTrader.com classifieds site and the Kudzu local search portal.

Russ Fradin, who will continue to run Adify, said Cox was initially in talks with Adify to launch such networks as a regular customer. A year of discussions led to Cox deciding to buy the startup outright, he said.

Fradin said Adify would continue operating as an independent company, with Cox competitors treated as well as Cox-owned Web sites.

But he said early investors in Adify, which include General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and Time Warner Inc.’s investment arm, will cash out and have no direct control after the deal closes, which is expected to happen in mid-May. NBC will remain a customer, however.

Adify and its 80 or so employees will remain in San Bruno, Calif.

Competitors include Burst Media Corp., which runs an ad network for Viacom Inc., and Seevast Corp., which also has a deal with NBC — through its MSNBC.com joint venture with Microsoft Corp.

Cox, a privately held company with headquarters in Atlanta, also runs cable and high-speed Internet systems across the country, 17 daily newspapers including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and 15 TV stations, and it has majority stake in about 80 radio stations in Atlanta, Houston, Miami and 16 other markets.

Dharmesh's 2008 Startup School Takeaways

Great advice from thought leaders of several different verticals of the startup world. Of the advice below, I think the three most important are: Jack Sheridan (get legal topics sorted out correctly from the get go), Greg McAdoo (back great entrepreneurs that know the market) and Marc Andresson (become indispensable and don’t give up)

It would be interesting to see others thoughts - reblog with what you think are the 3 most important topics. 

navajeet:

via


David Lawee, VP Corporate Development, Google; founder, XFire.

Main take-away:Hurry Up. David emphasized the role of speed in a startup, and how the modern timetable is considerably shorter than a more traditional “2 years until product launch” strategy. Your ability to turn on a dime and do things quickly is highlighted as a major advantage for the startup.

Sam Altman, Founder, Loopt.

Main take-away: If you can avoid having to raise money, then don’t do it. If you do need to raise money, get it out of the way and get back to work; many startups have been sidetracked by the money-raising process, even fizzling out along the way.

Jack Sheridan, Lawyer, Wilson Sonsini.

Main take-away: Some legal decisions that you may make early on never go away; pay close attention to these sorts of issues.Know:

* Who owns the company

* Who owns the technology (IP)

* Who controls the company

* Who gets what in a liquidity event (sale, IPO, etc.)

Paul Graham; Founder, ViaWeb, YCombinator.

Main take-away: Build something people want + Don’t worry too much about money = Non-profit. Doing “good” is a strategy. The “Tamagotchi” effect — making something that attracts users and a community gives you something to take care of; this can be a powerful motivator.

Greg McAdoo, Partner, Sequoia Capital.

Main take-away: Greg’s wave & surfer metaphor. It takes a great surfer (entrepreneur) to ride a great wave (business/social/technology trend). The surfer has to pick the wave, but can’t control the wave.
Know your market; as much about it as possible.
Have a market “whose hair is on fire” — who needs your product badly, now.

David Heinemeier Hansson, creator, Ruby on Rails, partner, 37Signals:

Main take-away: Your odds are better to not try to be the next Facebook/YouTube/billion dollar acquisition. You can do very well just creating a great product and charging money (gasp!) for that product. Don’t be in such a hurry, don’t try to be so big, don’t look for a wave.

Paul Buchheit: creator, Gmail, founder, FriendFeed.

Main take-away: On listening to users; listen != obey. Listening to your users, you don’t necessarily do exactly what they tell you they want; interpret their feedback to try to determine what the real problem is. Then find a solution to that problem.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon.

Main take-away: Cloud computing will be increasingly important, and doesn’t need to be an industry with a single winner. Unfortunately, aside from this, his talk was largely a commercial for Amazon Web Services. The insight into why cloud computing could be important was more interesting than the commercial; would have been nice to have more of that, or more practical entrepreneurial advice.

Mike Arrington, blogger, TechCrunch.

Main take-away: Getting press for your startup: have a compelling story. Stand out; stand out in a different way than other people have stood out (used Seth Godin’s purple cow analogy).

Marc Andreesson, Founder, Netscape, Ning, etc.

Main take-away: Be so good they can’t ignore you (via Steve Martin).
Be prepared for everything to look like it will fail… and nearly doing so. Don’t quit.
Have a business model that doesn’t depend on a great economy (especially right now).

Peter Norvig, Director of research, Google.

Main take-away: Start small, go fast, iterate rapidly. Leverage data; especially other people’s data. A challenge: anyone can go out onto the web and get 1.7 billion words. Go get them and do something (analysis, algorithms, searching, etc.) with them.