April 27, 2011
Today's Investor: Jules Maltz
No. 1 mistake: Not focusing
Today's Investor is Jules Maltz, a late-stage VC. He typically invests more than $2.5M to internet, mobile and saas companies. Some of his investments include BuddyMedia, Yext, Dropbox and WhaleShark. Jules will join us at Splash NY - December 5, 2012 as a speaker.
Vator’s community is the home to entrepreneurs who embrace their passion and follow their dreams. Our profiles allow members to express themselves by sharing their interests, lessons learned, as well as bits and pieces of their roller-coaster journey.
These profiles give entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase themselves and tell their story. So if you are an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, or even an aspiring entrepreneur, we'd like to hear from you.
I am a(n):
Investor
Companies I've founded or co-founded:
AdNectar
Companies I've invested in:
Buddy Media, Marketo, ngmoco, LivingSocial, Spiceworks, Sugar, Twitter, Yext
Startups I worked for:
AdMob
My favorite startups:
Twitter, Facebook, Palantir, LivingSocial
What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?
The pace of change is both frustrating and rewarding. Once you get to know a sector, things change rapidly and your knowledge becomes obsolete. It's this constant birth and death of technology that creates opportunities for new startups and makes the job rewarding.
What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?
Not focusing. Less is more when you're starting a business. I hate the check mark slide where a startup says they will win because they will do everything (while big companies only do one piece). Startups win by doing one thing - and doing it really well. Once you get big, you can diversify your product offering.
What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?
I'm not an entrepreneur. I just like spending time with them
(Want to be profiled? Just fill out your Vator profile and we'll find you! Or you can email newsroom@vator.tv)
Kristin Karaoglu
Woman of many skills: Database System Engineer; SplashX event producer; Author of Startup Teams
All author postsRelated Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs
Salesforce Buddy Media
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Salesforce Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world's top then global advertisers, empowering them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers in a connections-based world. The Buddy Media social marketing suite helps brands build powerful connections globally with its scalable, secure architecture and data-drive consumer insights from initial point of contact through point of purchase. Buddy Media is headquartered in New York City, with additional offices located in Asia, London and San Francisco.
Yext
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Founded in 2006, Yext is the next Yellow Pages, offering superior local services to users, advertisers and publishers. Nearly 20,000 customers are now connected to Yext Calls, the company's flagship advertising service that sends local businesses pay-per-action phone calls. Dozens of leading publishers have installed Yext Numbers, the company's local search monetization system. Yext is fanatically focused on perfecting the local advertising experience, an enormous unsolved problem with incredible potential.
Our Mission
Our mission is to produce the best local search results everywhere.
"The Local Search Problem"
Today, people use hundreds of different sources for local information. If you wanted to find a spa, you might check Google, Yahoo!, Bing, SpaFinder.com, Yelp, MapQuest, TomTom Navigation, Foursquare and that's just the beginning. To provide you with this information, each of these local search tools has its own database that stores basic listing data like business name, address, and phone number, and enhanced information like pictures, descriptions, promotions and more. Since each source has its own database, there are 100s of databases of local information out there. But the problem is, they are totally disconnected, and whenever data changes, they quickly fall out of sync. In fact, on average, 6% of listings change each month, and the end result is that more than 20% of local search return factually incomplete information to end users. The end result is very frustrating for businesses and users.
Everybody Wins with Yext PowerListings
Yext PowerListings solves this huge problem by centralizing local search results across all those different sites with one system. It lets large and small businesses centrally control information across platforms, producing the best local search results for users everywhere. PowerListings helps businesses appear in the most possible local searches withguaranteed presence, stand out and look great with enhanced content like photos, descriptions, and real-time promotions in their listings, and track it all with full analytics. PowerListings is the only system with any of these features, and the results are awesome.
The PowerListings model is a "triple win" for businesses, publishers and users. Businesses get the most out of local search, publishers get compensated to accept great content, and users get the best information. Everybody wins.
Over 30,000 businesses use PowerListings to get the most out of local search every day.
Learn about our PowerListings Network, our state-of-the art network that updates information at blazing speeds.
Learn more about how PowerListings can help your small business get the most out of local search.
Learn more about how PowerListings can help your brand get the most out of local search.
Our Values
We think big, we learn fast – and we get stuff done. We are powered by an incredibly talented group of employees who work to produce the best local search information everywhere.
We are hiring the best and brightest to come join us on our mission. Check out our open positions.
We are fortunate to be backed by some of the best investors in the world – Sutter Hill Ventures (Palo Alto, CA),Institutional Venture Partners (Menlo Park, CA), and WGI investments (New York, NY). Yext was founded in 2006 by Howard Lerman, Brian Distelburger and Brent Metz, and is located in New York, NY.
Jules Maltz
Joined Vator on
Jules Maltz is a General Partner at IVP and led IVP's investments in Buddy Media (CRM), Checkr, Dropbox, Indiegogo, NerdWallet, Oportun, RetailMeNot (SALE), Slack, SteelBrick, TuneIn, Zendesk (ZEN), and Zenefits
