ViralGains’ Mulderrig on Revolutionizing Advertising with Zero Party Data
I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Mulderrig, Senior Vice President at ViralGains. Under his leadership, the company achieved 93% Y/Y revenue growth from 2020 to 2021. Prior to joining ViralGains in 2016, Mulderrig was National Sales Manager for OwnerIQ (acquired by Inmar) and Regional Sales Manager, Northeast for Ziff Davis (NASDAQ: ZD)
What motivated you to launch your startup?
I am not one of the original founders but currently lead the sales efforts for ViralGains. AJ Jaggi, our first NYC-based seller, and I are friends from the University of Richmond. Three years his senior, I was able to introduce him to some potential buyers when he was just starting out in the ad industry and became drawn to ViralGains’ vision. At the time, no one else was asking consumers questions about ad experiences to gauge sentiment and optimize for it. The concept was both powerful and incredibly disruptive. When the startup had scaled enough to hire sales leadership in New York in 2016, AJ introduced me to the executive team, with whom I immediately felt a strong connection.
Our entire e-team at ViralGains would make for insanely interesting interviews. For example, our Co-Founder and COO, Dan Levin, attempted (almost successfully) to sell parcels of the universe on eBay when he was in high school. Our CEO, Tod Loofburrow, was the president of iRobot before joining ViralGains. He wrote a bestselling book on computer science and robotics at the age of 16 and has since written or co-authored six more books on artificial intelligence. He has also taught at MIT, Harvard Business School, and Stanford, and has founded multiple successful businesses even prior to iRobot. Our CRO, Cindy Brown, was an OG at Yahoo, leading a team of over 200 people… I could go on and on! When I met the team at ViralGains, I was incredibly energized by their startup mindset and found that our core values were aligned. This, coupled with my belief in the company vision was more than enough motivation to come on board to help build something special.
What is it that excites you about what you’re building?
Today we are THE industry leader in the Zero Party Data generated audience creation, which is wildly exciting. In case you are unfamiliar, zero-party data is information that a consumer intentionally and proactively shares with a business. Collecting and segmenting this information for our advertiser partners via in-video & display surveys has been at our core since ViralGains’ inception, though Forrester only coined the term in the past few years. With recent industry advancements in consumer privacy and identity, our demand has exploded. 2021 was a massive growth year for us, and we finished 2022 up almost 20% YOY from our ’21 bookings number while many of the big players were crushed in a year plagued by economic uncertainty.
Our product team led by Safaa Lafnoune, is a group of absolute rock stars who are continuously innovating with and for our agency partners to maintain our position at the top of the leaderboard. Yes, I stand behind the “rock star” descriptor, even after the Workday Super Bowl spot.
What have been your biggest challenges professionally and personally when growing your startup?
The biggest professional challenge, honestly, has been waiting for the advertising industry to catch up to what we’ve been building. When I joined in 2016, we were way ahead of our time. Brands and agencies had never heard of ViralGains, and if they had, most didn’t understand the need for our product quite yet. Today, we have a better product market fit than ever before and a long list of incredible partners who have been working with us for 5+ years.
Balancing startup schedules with personal life is always going to be challenging, particularly in a remote first environment. The solution for me to combat this challenge is to be incredibly disciplined with my time. I make time for my family & exercise daily for mental and physical well-being. I also try to schedule at least one of my favorite outdoor activities: fishing, hunting, or surfing every week. Having personal time actually on the calendar is paramount while working around the clock to scale a startup in order to avoid burnout.
What are your future plans for your startup?
Consumer privacy and consent as it relates to consumer data are finally here. The cookieless future is upon us, and ViralGains was built for this very moment. Brands everywhere tell us that the performance of their Facebook and YouTube ads is declining. They have a tremendous opportunity to take ownership of their own audience creation, building genuine direct bonds with consumers and not relying on third parties to do it for them. Our plan is to continue to innovate against this problem at a massive scale.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
The Obstacle is The Way. That’s actually the title of a book by Ryan Holiday, one of my favorite authors. The original quote from the legendary stoic Marcus Aurelius reads “The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.” I found this quote in Holiday’s book about the time I started at ViralGains and it has rang true over and over again.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I will try to be more active on LinkedIn this year, so you can find me there.
This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
