Tattletech Hot Seat with Ari Wegter, GlibHippo

If you haven’t figured it out already, there are some entrepreneurs that are memorable and some that are not. This one you can’t forget even if you try – Ari Wegter, one of the Co Founders of LoveFilm, the European online DVD distributor like NetFlix but with a better name; and now one of the Co Founder’s of GlibHippo, a new vertical for 18-34 year old males in the Net Generation. Caught up with Ari in his restaurant in Copenhagen – and we warn you, it’s raw and uncensored, like we like him!

Tattletech: Your site says “We Speak European”.  I like that – how does it inform your everyday business practices?

Ari Wegter: GlibHippo is an opportunistic play – After years of doing start-ups with capital intensive, bleeding edge technology, I wanted to do something different, something simple that made money from day-one. So I decided to exploit the inherent inefficiencies of today’s online advertising market in which buyers and sellers are both clueless and disconnected. This venture is conceived of as a luxury guide product, a kind of bespoke digital navigator for Alexa 1000 customers. In other words, GlibHippo caters to blue chip publishers and advertisers, connecting them via GlibHippo’s propietary trading platform. Here’s how it works: we buy web traffic internationally, re-package that traffic by vertical media category, e.g. video games, movies or music audiences, and sell it to European advertisers. Since many of our upstream customers are American – who labor under the illusion that the EU is a coherent single market with a common language – we arrived at the tag line “We Speak European”. Just a dash of Monty Pythonesque humor to denote that we are a vintage European internet company.

TT: It sounds like your target audience is 18-34 year old males.  Doesn’t that exclude a lot of potential users?

AW: Yes, it does – if you consider a global audience of 250 million users to be a limitation to our reach. GlibHippo specializes in media categories that correspond closely with our publishing network’s core user profile, namely young, tech savvy, digital entertainment-hungry males with disposable income to boot. We understand the behavior of this premium segment because we belong to it ourselves.

TT: Social networking is being cited as the cornerstone for the marketing efforts of more and more companies lately.  What kind of sustained or increased growth do you see in social networking, and in what directions?

AW: Social networking as a marketing tool is underused and overrated. The more intrusive facebook becomes in my private space, the less likely it is users will want to return there. Also, social networking traffic is cheap. Traditional online advertising is no different from above-the-line content in that it works in best in semi-public spheres. Only when the message becomes more sophisticated can we expect to see internet user tolerance grow beyond the remote-control response adopted from skipping TV-ads. I believe marketing trends will shift gradually from advertisers preferring major portal channels towards highly targeted niche (i.e. vertical content) social network sites. Eventually, analog channels will be entirely displaced by online / mobile marketing worldwide. And then, whoever owns the pipes controls the flow. And no – content is not king, liquidity is king.

TT: You must have some gamers on staff – what do you guys enjoy playing most, what are some of your new favorites?

AW: That is true! We dig games and gadgets. Between the GlibHippo founders we cover all platforms from console to PC. So Josh is a Call of Duty veteran who “gits some” every day on XBox Live. Søren is a real guitar hero. Maik,our German Sales Director, loves Killerspiele and has developed impressive chainsaw skills on Gears of War. I prefer racing and simulation games with any type of hardware.

TT: How has your success with Lovefilm dovetailed with the development and growth of GlibHippo?

AW: I lost my virginity as an entrepreneur at Lovefilm. As Europe’s largest digital entertainment site today with more the 1.1 millions active users, Lovefilm showed us how hard it is to reach your target audience on the web. Controlling your cost-per-acquisition of new customers is the key to sustainable growth, particularly in a cash-constrained environment. GlibHippo helps advertisers to achieve this goal while connecting them to the right publishers. The next step for us is to build a full-fledged exchange platform.

TT:  As the recent economic downturn has dragged on, inventory management and control have become more crucial than ever.  Do you have any indication from your partners and publishers that this has started to relent?

AW: Signals are weak, so no real indication yet. Traffic sales are down, inventory prices are depressed and advertisers are still in cost-cutting mode. It’s a bear market out there with little change is sight til Q4 this year.

TT: Word on the street is that Ari Gold is your hero, any others out there?

AW: Want to hug it out bitch? I admit: Ari Gold is my alter-ego. Jeremy Piven has gotten the break he deserves with this role, from playing the perennial best-friend to leading man in Entourage. His abrasive, hyper-American management style is everything Europeans loathe and fear about the land of the free. I find that amusing. Gold is a post-modern superhero, a flawed human specimen endowed with mythical powers of persuasion and greed. Pretty easy to identify with, just like my other HBO favorite Tony Soprano. I think Ari Gold will give Obama a run for his money as Republican nominee in 2012!

Tags: Advertising, Lovefilm, online advertising

Angel investors give good advice

Mixed in the VC crowds at European Venture Summit last week was one lone angel investor full of inspiration, advice and practical tips. Arican Wegter, former founder of Lovefilm and Internet Entrepreneur reminded us that its this hands on advice that start ups really need so that they can get their act together at inception – not 4.5 million into the project. Another example of the innovative Dutch approach to business. – JLH

Tags: Angel investor, Arican Wegter, e-Unlimited, Eurpean Venture Summit, Lovefilm, venture capital

European Venture Summit comes to an end, sadly

e-Unlimited proved again that it is serious about bringing together the venture and entrepreneurs of Europe at this two day event. Completely focused on letting VCs, angel investors and start ups in biotech, ICT, clean tech  intensely mingle and discuss the possibility of investment and the dream of having their company make it big. The Summit was a constant hive of activity and even Tattletech barely had time for a cup of coffee bouncing from meeting to meeting.

Despite the statistics and the mood of markets, there was no lack of entrepreneurial spirit and positive outlook at this event. Even from two start ups who were just looking for seed money to the Swedish mobile language learning tool seeking 10 million, both VCs and start ups were talking business.

Some highlights included the amazingly and oddly interesting commentary by the keynote  Dr. Thomas Meyer an Economist for Deutsche Bank Research who, despite his youthful looks, talked about an aspect of economics that held everyone’s attention – the economic benefit of start ups to this particular economy in terms of keeping a fire burning in the business cycle – making the market more flexible and rich in diversity.

Charles Van Costenobel, Director Eurecan and Ester Palomar, Eurecan Cataluna

The Summit also had a large contingency of Spanish start ups as part of the work with Eurocan – led by the dynamic duo Charles Van Costenobel and Ester Palomar.  OK  first we have to just point out that they are with Caja Navarra which is Civic Banking – yes you heard right – Civic Banking a new and truly pioneering concept in banking.

CEO Davorin Gurnick and COO Dennis Gurnick, Intera

Tattletech’s favorites at the Summit were the Slovenian Intera rolling out software as a service for the Enterprise in the emerging Central European markets as well as German markets. Their competitive advantage lies in their business model and approach to market as well as the platform focusing on social media tools for the enterprise. We also liked IRL, led by a young and dynamic team out of Amsterdam. They had the business model right when it came to location based social networking because they also had a platform for corporations as well. (video to come!) They were passionate about their product but also extremely realistic and cautious about investment and how to use that money to correctly roll to market. Also, Yasmo LIve which is a mobile application for networking at conferences – in other words lets you know who is there so you can get some business done and provides a revenue producing opportunity for conference organizers and promotional options for sponsors. The company was led by the only female entrepreneur at the event, Areti Kampyli.

As we said before, Spain seemed to dominate and three other favorite Spanish start ups were Intelliglass which improves energy efficiency of buildings; La Cupula Music,  founded by another Dutchman, is focused on the digital distribution of music for the Spanish and Latin America markets; Zentym led by the one of the most dynamic CFO’s we have ever met – Jaime Pont who is going to revolutionize and make profitable (he claims) advertising models, distribution and relevancy for MobileTV, and then of course Tattletech’s personal favorite, nuubo. So many reasons we like nuubo – because they have taken smart materials and combined them with  innovative software & wireless communication systems in order to make bio monitoring clothes or equipment to improve health or save lives. Sure that is one of them. Because he went along with a little semantic joke, or  because they had one of the best presentations for a start up that we have ever seen, because they are already working with Telefonica Mobiles to bring this to market or because their General Manager Rodrigo Miranda Beltran is just the most charming, deeply intelligent and ultimate gentleman on the planet universe.

Arican Wegter, Internet Entrepreneur & Angel Investor and Dorte Wiene, Regional Director, e-Unlimited and bGrand Advisory Board

We also found that angel investors like Internet Entrepreneur and Angel Investor Arican Wegter, former founder of Lovefilm (Europe’s NetFlix) but he embraces the true spirit of the entrepreneur – providing funding, business support and direction to help them get off the ground successfully with the right business model and foundation for growth.

This week we will post a series of video interviews with many covered in this post. So stay tuned.

Tags: Arican Wegter, Caja Navarra, Civic Banking, e-Unlimited, Intera, IRLConnect, La Cupula, Lovefilm, nuubo, Zentym