Brainjolt

What happens when a tech geek and a language nerd try to see how many people they can get to click on things? Brainjolt... Brainjolt is what happens. In 2014, Abraham Piper and Josh Sowin joined forces to turn Abraham?s blog 22 Words into a ?real? publisher. Each sitting in separate coffee shops, one in Denver and one in Minneapolis, they opened up a shared spreadsheet and ran the numbers. If traffic maintained and ads were just marginally optimized, they?d be able to run a business that would give them both a moderate raise from their current incomes. OK, let?s go for it, they figured. Very ambitious, no? They didn?t intend to go big. They just wanted to make it work as best as they could. And that?s the mindset we?ve carried forward at Brainjolt to this day. We?re not trying to be the best, we?re trying to be our best. Over time, we began to realize what Brainjolt was capable of. Soon we had two sites ranked in the top 50 mobile sites in the country. We were floored. We never imagined this was possible. Then 22 Words got into the top 10. We hadn?t meant to go big, but here we were. Brainjolt had (and still has) no investment money to play with and, for better or worse, a team that is lean to the point of absurdity. (Everything we do to generate 85 millions sessions a month and display 1.5 billion ad impressions is accomplished with ~25 full-time team members and a handful of hardworking freelancers.) Almost all other publishers at our level, on the other hand, have large teams and investors who must wear gigantic trousers, considering the depth of their pockets. So we ask ourselves what does it mean to thrive at this level? What does it mean to be our best among the top publishers in the world? Bluntly, how can we compete? Same as always. Work with people we enjoy. Focus on tactics over vision, pragmatism over idealism. Follow solid, proven plans and processes. Try a few crazy things from time to time. And track our numbers every single morning with one goal: Beat yesterday. (Oh, and we spend less than we make. A lot of companies choose not to do this, but it really matters to us. Feels like common sense.) OK, let?s take a step back for a second. Why are we doing this? What is Brainjolt trying to accomplish? We used to hate this question. But we?ve come around and we love being honest about it now: We do what we do at Brainjolt because we heckin feel like it. (Most days, anyway.) We have no ultimate purpose. Our product is not earth-shattering. We have no elevator pitch about how we?re going to ?disrupt? the industry. We?re not the friggin ?Uber of publishing.? We have no grand vision. We?re too practical and corporate vision statements are bullshit. We put silly stories and quizzes on the internet. We?re not changing the world. We just love the game of reaching millions of people with fun content. Everyone wants to be momentarily entertained as they thumb through their feeds. And we enjoy generating, analyzing, and monetizing massive amounts of traffic. Fun for them, fun for us. It?s a good, old-fashioned win/win situation. And we love being able to do this in a way that creates a livelihood for the team. Are we all going to rally around some philanthropic Brainjolt ?cause?? Hell no. Having a purpose in life is a personal responsibility. Brainjolt is here as support. What we offer is a way to generate the resources we need to live the lives we want. And hopefully, be happy doing it. We haven?t always succeeded, but we?re proud of Brainjolt when we do. Finally, while so many of our competitors are blowing through other people?s money, never making a dime, and then dying, we?re grateful that we?ve grown profitably every year we?ve been in business. It?s been quite a ride with some serious downs to go with the ups, but we?re making it. Hell, we?re more than ?making it.? We?re on track to kick last year?s butt. Why? Because every single day we fight to kick yesterday?s. And damn if it isn?t kinda fun. Mission:?Choose Your Own Adventure! STRATEGY: - Beat Yesterday. - Don?t be Boring. - Question Assumptions. VALUES: Think. Copy. Hack. Test. Finish. (Yes, our values are a process.) CULTURE: - Distributed: we measure RESULTS over where you work. - #beatyesterday is our mantra?optimizing incrementally, we?re always beating our own records. - Data. Data. Data. Test everything. Measure what matters. - We?re scrappy doers who love getting into the weeds to solve problems. - Titles don?t matter. Results and drive do. Everyone is a chief problem solver at Brainjolt. - Bureaucracy is bulls&*t. We don?t like red tape. We prefer to work biased to action, led by data. - We don?t take ourselves too seriously, but we enjoy playing the game and being on the journey.