Category Archives: Startups

The Dumb Things We Say in the Startup World

Posted on May 10, 2013 by

I recently co-authored an article, “The Dumb Things We Say in the Startup World” with Mark Menell, a former partner at Rustic Canyon and the past COO & CFO of ShopRunner. Having worked together on several ventures, Mark and I … Continue reading →

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Love the Ones You’re With. Why Startup Success Depends on Relationships | SiliconANGLE

Posted on February 13, 2013 by

I recently wrote this post with Doug Kilponen, COO at Wanderful Media. Having worked together on two different startups over the course of several years, it has become clear to us that loyalty is the secret ingredient for success. The media … Continue reading →

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Pinterest – Pinning Down Its Value For Retail | MediaPost

Posted on February 6, 2013 by

This is a great piece I wrote with Ron Adams, VP of National Sales at Wanderful Media. The Wanderful team is focused on connecting local retailers with consumers, and we see a huge opportunity for retailers to capitalize on areas … Continue reading →

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Retail is not dying… just transforming.

Posted on February 1, 2013 by

By Seema Sud and Ben T. Smith, IV VHS was going to be the cinema killer in the late ‘70s; and yet, 30 “DVR, Blue ray and big screen TV” years later, cinema is more popular than ever and the … Continue reading →

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Wanderful Media raises $5 million in new funding round

Posted on January 30, 2013 by

It’s been an incredible year for the retail and e-commerce industries, especially when it comes to discovery shopping. For Wanderful Media, 2012 will be defined as a year of building, and the theme for this year will be delivering. We’ve … Continue reading →

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2012: A Year of Building

Posted on January 8, 2013 by

If you think about it, every year takes on a character, or theme, of its own depending upon goals we’ve set, decisions we’ve made and unplanned events that take place along the way.  2011 was driven by a few great … Continue reading →

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Wanderful Acquires iCircular to Enhance Local Discovery Shopping

Posted on November 14, 2012 by

Yesterday Wanderful Media ™ announced the acquisition of iCircular from TheAssociated Press. iCircular is the mobile-phone equivalent of the stacks of coupons and other promotions inserted into print editions of weekend newspapers. We’re making a bet on mobile and tablets … Continue reading →

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Wanderful Media Adds Dave Thomsen as EVP of Product and Design to Growing Management Team | Marketwire

Posted on November 1, 2012 by

As Doug and I set out to build Wanderful Media, we decided to do some things very differently than MerchantCircle. One of them was putting design at the core of the company DNA.  The addition of Dave Thomsen as a … Continue reading →

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Newspapers’ Next Move In Expanding The Reach Of Digital Ads | Fast Company

Posted on July 11, 2012 by

From a piece in Fast Company about our efforts to recreate a dominant Shopping business with the newspaper and media industry.  We are just getting started but with over 225 newspapers now live and hundreds more committed, when we relaunch … Continue reading →

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Victor Belfor, Ben Smith: Backing A College Dropout Might Be Your Smartest Investment Strategy

Posted on May 29, 2012 by

  I recently invested in two companies whose founders either had little interest in school as students or who dropped out of grad school: MixRank and Influitive. Both management teams are driven, hard working and well prepared for the difficult road … Continue reading →

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