AdAge: Startup, Meet Agency: How Silicon Alley and Madison Avenue Are Finally Working Together


Nikhil Sethi knew he needed Madison Avenue. After graduating from Northwestern, the co-founder of Adaptly, a bulk ad-buying platform for social media that he founded as a senior, headed east and spent six months blanketing New York ad agencies. He often set up six to eight meetings a day, starting with junior media buyers. The demands of networking were a shock to him and his co-founder, who had both studied engineering in college. Read more…

PandoDaily: 
HearMyPitch, The Brand-Startup Matchmaker


Advertising is the monetization plan for many of the hottest consumer Internet startups. But for brand new companies, nailing down that first brand partnership is a daunting task. It’s an experience Jeffrey Cutler, now Director of Digital Strategy at Team Epic, knows well. He spent a chunk of time “literally running up and down Madison Avenue,” he says, as Director of Marketing at Going.com before it sold to AOL in 2009. The time sink required to court brands and agencies is frustrating and full of dead ends. It’s even difficult for the biggest, arguably most successful consumer Internet startups: Twitter’s New York headquarters are on none other than Madison Avenue and Facebook has invested serious money and manpower into courting the ad world. Smaller startups are competing with them for attention–you can imagine who gets the meeting and in, turn, the ad dollars. Read more…

Bostinno: 10 Reasons Why Working at a Startup is Better than Getting an MBA


I have learned a lot as a business school student enrolled at Northeastern University. I have met some awesome people and have had the opportunity to work with world-renowned professors. However, business school is not exactly what I expected it to be. It was not until my second year of the program when most of my pre-requisites were out of the way that I fully realized my misperception. I must note that prior to enrolling in business school I was the director of business development at Going.com (acquired by AOL). Thus, I am comparing my experiences and learning’s at business school to my professional experience working at Going.com. Read more…