MeetInnovators™

Scott Tilton, the CEO of Loop'd Network is very much into action sports. And he has found a way to combine social media with sponsorships within the action sports world. Its a pretty interesting model, the best way of monetizing social networking sites I've ever heard of. He gets ECPM's in the multiple $$ ranges, compared to the miserable ECPM's of other social networking sites. Loop'd Network get users of the site to compete to become sponsored by brands. Its a great offer for the brands since they get some of the very best candidates available. (Note that Loop'd Network is completely different to Loopt, the iphone gps application). Since he's taken the venture funding route, Scott asked me to mention that Loop'd is currently profitable but are looking to grow the company even more quickly and is looking for investors. If you're interested, drop me a line, and I'll put you in touch. And if you're looking for ideas for monetizing social networking type traffic, Scott's interview is a good one to check out for a fresh approach.

Jason Nazar from Docstoc has created a site where any type of document can be uploaded or downloaded for free. You've probably seen the docstoc viewer on techcrunch. It sounds kind of uninteresting until you realise that the documents get a lot of search traffic (eg people looking for mortgage forms, legal forms, etc) and that they become a perfect tool for lead generation. If you're interested in working with Jason as a lead provider, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch.

Jon Praed is a total stud! He spends his time tracking down hard-core black-hat spammers. The kind that run illegal viagra, casino, porn and phishing spam. A lot of guys have made money in "grey" areas of internet marketing. Jon explains how gradually people are being forced to choose sides and that all the aggressive stuff is slowly going away. If you want to get an overall understanding on where the internet is going long term, this is the interview to check out. It was one of the most powerful and fascinating ones I've done. I think you'll find this interview worth listening to yourself. The audio is freely available; after the Fast Track Interview.

Renata Hesse from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) is with me for this interview about US antitrust law. Renata is a high-powered antitrust attorney who has been in the middle of some of the biggest antitrust cases in US history including the massive Microsoft antitrust case of the 1990's. I have found WSGR to be a great law firm to work with and they have helped me on a number of critical issues. My brother Matthew, who some of you have met, works for WSGR also on antitrust issues as in-house counsel at Google. I'm often surprised by seemingly smart internet companies making a lot of money have really poor legal representation. I think its a competitive advantage to have a great law firm on your side like these guys. They can be difficult to be accepted as a client (they normally represent companies like Google), so if you do want to switch your law firm and you know me personally, drop me a line and we can talk offline. Antitrust can come across as dry and boring - but in fact it can be a great way for a small company to beat a larger company in the market. Netscape vs Microsoft is obviously a case where it didn't work too well for Netscape, but there are many examples of smaller companies beating larger ones using antitrust law. Although I've talked with my brother about antitrust over the years, I didn't really understand how it could apply to someone like me - living in the Caribbean - and be an effective business tool - until after this interview. Renata explains how an antitrust investigation can be started for only $20,000 to $50,000 instead of the millions it can cost for a lawsuit - and how you gain tremendous leverage by having the US Government on your side against your competitors. If you are interested in keeping bigger companies from threatening you, protecting your company and staying competitive, this is a must read interview.

Alfred Lin from Zappos is with us for this interview. Alfred is the Zappos Chairman and COO - he's Tony Hsieh, the CEO's right hand man when it comes to handling finance and operations for Zappos. I wanted to interview Alfred to get his perspective as being the key guy working with Tony. I wanted to understand how they met and how they're building Zappos. Most successful technology companies were built by two guys working together (Google, HP, Microsoft, etc) and I thought this would be a good opportunity to understand this kind of relationship better. I didn't expect Alfred to focus so strongly on the importance of the entire team being strong, not just the Tony/Alfred relationship. In his mind they're successful because of the entire team, not just the two guys in the spotlight. On a side note, Alfred talks about how he and Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos started working together. Tony sold pizza by the whole pie. Alfred sold pizza by the slice. Who do you think was the most profitable?

Eben Pagan from Hot Topic Media is with me for this interview. You might be more familiar with him by the name David DeAngelo and Double Your Dating. He has helped a lot of guys who are lost when it comes to getting a date. I thought we would cover marketing, split-testing, and Double Your Dating. Instead the conversation went in a completely different direction. We ended up talking about philosophy, Ayn Rand, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and insight from psychologist Claire Graves. Eben talks about how and why the Internet gives us all opportunities to make a difference in the world. I think it is the first time I've had a conversation like this during an interview.

This interview is one I've been waiting to do for quite a while. This guy is one of the most financially unsuccessful internet guys I know. At the same time he drives absolutely monster traffic and has a huge amount of influence in the internet world. For millions of people he is an absolute rockstar. His name is Andy Scorcini and his handle is Mr Babyman - he's the number one poster to Digg, the social news site. He controls a huge amount of traffic volume and IMHO is effectively the leader of the informal network that has developed among Digg's top users that decide which stories get posted to the site. The number one question Andy and the others is always asked - do they get paid for what they do. We discussed this in detail in the interview.

Have you ever wondered how the fortune 500 use direct response marketing? This week's interview is with the Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy, Barry Judge (Fortune 500 rank: 72). Barry has a $500M annual advertising spend at his disposal. Most of their marketing online is direct response driven. But one of the really interesting things from the call was learning how they track and analyze everything within each store to find out what performs best - and everything is tracked back to overall demographics via your rewards card. Its working, since Best Buy is bringing in $35 billion annual revenue.

Anne Mitchell of SuretyMail can help you get your mail delivered if you want to handle your own e-mail deliverability. I have known Anne for a number of years and have learned a lot from her. She has a long history of working with Internet and e-mail. She even helped author part of CAN-SPAM - she's a Stanford lawyer, as well as being an e-mail tech-head. And talking about CAN-SPAM, Anne explains recent changes to the law and gives some pointers to consider to make sure you're in compliance. We all have the same goal: get our e-mails into the in-box instead of the junk folder. Anne helps us understand what it will take to do just that.

Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos. They're on track to do $1 billion dollars this year, all online. Tony previously founded LinkExchange which he sold for $265M to Microsoft in 1998. While Zappos started by selling shoes, Tony shares how Zappos' focus is really on the customer experience and customer service it provides. Tony talks about how he went from investor to full-time employee at Zappos because it was really taking off, and as Tony said, seemed fun.