Busy Day - Gil Beyda, David Speers and Steve Barsh Visit

Steve Barsh, frequent visitor and mentor extraordinaire, spent the afternoon meeting with a number of the DreamIt companies while David Speers of Phillypreneurs conducted interviews. David will be posting a series of stories on Phillypreneurs featuring DreamIt Ventures and the companies currently involved in the program.

Gil Beyda, co-founder of Real Media (acquired by 24/7 in 2001), inventor of Open AdStream, and CTO of Tacoda (acquired last year by AOL), joined us in the evening to discuss Internet advertising, eCommerce and his perspective on pitching to seed stage venture groups. Gil is currently a managing partner of Genacast Ventures, a seed stage fund founded in partnership with Comcast Interactive Capital that specializes in new media, digital marketing, consumer Internet and web x.0 companies.

Gil was able to combine his experiences as a developer of technology, entrepreneur and investor in early stage companies to develop a series of “lessons learned” to share with our Innovators. His tips included how to select a strategic partner and raising capital/seeking an exit in difficult markets, recounting his experiences finding an exit as the “bubble burst” in 2000. The Innovators were particularly engaged as Gil described Tacoda and behavioral targeted online advertising. He described the shift that is occurring away from targeting pages toward targeting people. There is not enough diversity on a single site to get value. In his opinion, the value comes from tracking behavior over multiple sites. He also discussed how to monetize this information.

A self proclaimed “lover of technology,” Gil stated that technology is important for one reason—it should make you more capital efficient, creating value. In determining which technology to focus on, he recommended that Innovators focus their developers on “the nugget,” that aspect which is new, different and unique. It is that element which creates value.

The last part of his speech focused on his own journey of self-discovery that led him to the role of investor. After Tacoda and meeting with more than 30 start ups, Gil decided that he enjoyed figuring out who would be successful.

Thank you, Gil, for providing an opportunity to peek behind the curtain of online advertising and behavior.