Yaron Galai of Outbrain | E208

In this episode, Jason Calacanis chats with Yaron Galai, co-founder of Outbrain. They discuss Galai's military service, the mission of Outbrain, and how it works to generate revenue for publishers. The conversation also covers changes in publishing, the importance of design and UX, and the role of video in Outbrain's strategy. They discuss challenges with ad networks and maintaining focus within the company. The episode concludes with a Q&A, where Jason offers advice on selling a domain name.

Speakers

AI Chat

Unidentified

Jason Calacanis

Host • 53%

Yaron Galai

Guest • 40%

Unidentified

Unidentified

Partners

Chapters

0:00	Hi everyone, on TWiST today we have guest Yaron Galai of Outbrain.
4:00	Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring the show. Go to squarespace.com/twist to save 20% for six months.
6:30	Welcome to Yaron!
7:30	You served for six years in the Israeli navy?
10:30	What happened to the asset? Is it still operating inside of AOL?
12:00	What is the mission of Outbrain?
15:00	So you saw that publishers were broke and wanted to turn this into a revenue opportunity?
15:45	What's the average a publishers gets per click on these stories?
18:30	How much of this was inspired by Tony Hsieh's Link Exchange bought by Microsoft?
19:45	What do you do to make sure that the ads are classy?
20:45	How do you think publishing has changed in the last 10 years?
25:00	How do you lobby prospective clients on why the design and UX is a critical factor?
26:30	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	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?
35:15	Question from the chat: How meaningful is the blog segment of Outbrain's business?
36:00	How do you deal with the fact that so many ad networks are hounding publishers for distribution?
39:00	How do you keep people inside the company focused?
41:30	Have you always had a co-founder? Have you never thought about just doing it yourself and just doubling up on the equity?
44:00	Jason tells the story of when he had to fire an employee he caught watching video at work.
46:00	Yaron, what's the craziest experience you've had with an employee?
51:30	Let's take an Ask Jason call. Anson, what's your question?
52:30	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.
56:45	Jason's advice: Making your intentions public is a great way to build interest.
57:00	Thank you to everyone for joining us today, we'll see you next time!

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