3. Introduction
In order to test Lynotech’s value proposition we’ve conducted several personal
interviews not only with potential customers but also with other significant players in
the digital advertising industry like Google and Agencies. We tried to find out if there is
a real need, what other needs hadn’t we identified, and the difficulties to get to the
market.
Potential customers quickly started talking about their necessities and how unsatisfied
they are with current solutions and what would they need in order to succeed, which
makes us think there is a big market opportunity. Other related players in the Industry
like Google or Agencies focused on the technical and environmental difficulties to carry
out our project, which we also think points out that there is an opportunity for our
differential approach.
4. Personal Interviews
European Display Advertising Ecosystem
Media Group
Agency
Local Newspaper
General Manager
Digital Manager
Ad Sales Manager
Google
5. Personal Interviews
¤ Google Manager
¤ Agency Manager
Guillermo Ramos and Paul de Mulder
Luis Fajardo, Guillermo Ramos and Paul de Mulder
May 4th 2012, Madrid. 1,5 h.
May 11th 2012, Madrid. 4 h.
¤ Premium Publisher
¤
Premium Publisher
National Media Group Corporative Director
Local Newspaper General Manager
Luis Fajardo, Guillermo Ramos and Paul de Mulder
Scheduled May 21st 2012 Via Google Hangout
May 11th 2012, Madrid. 1,5 h.
¤ Premium
Publisher
¤ Premium Publisher
Local Newspaper Advertising Sales Manager
Local Newspaper Digital Manager
May 17th 2012 Paul de Mulder, Valladolid. 1h
Scheduled May 21st 2012 Via Google Hangout
¤ Premium Publisher
¤ Amazon Data Warehouse Manager
Largest Spanish Blog Publisher CEO
Full team
Scheduled May 23rd 2012 Madrid
May 17st 2012, Via Google Hangout
6. Google Manager
¨ Local premium publishers may have a big opportunity with our approach: big online
advertising players don’t reach local advertisers and currently there is no online
advertising product for them.
¨ Local newspapers have the local audience and a local sales force, and Lynotech will
provide them with products suitable for local market.
¨ National premium publishers will have to fight against the rest of the players involved in
the online ad market (for example AdSense) for the same advertisers and with inferior
targeting technology but higher quality advertising inventory.
¨ The project is not technically easy, specially if we consider to allow different customers
share their data to drive higher incomes.
7. Agency Manager
¨ The market opportunity exists, as premium publishers have the necessity of increasing
their online advertising revenues and they’ll only achieve this by developing a system
that helps them know their users and start selling “audience” instead of “space”, and to
deliver better contents and services to their audiences to achieve higher user
engagement, better traffic, and more ads.
¨ There’s been several attempts to develop similar solutions for publishers, but current
advertising ecosystem has prevented them from succeeding as it reduces the part of the
market value they manage and capture, and therefore their profitability. Any similar
solution would be boycotted by current agents, leading to damages on premium
publishers short term incomes (not only in digital advertising but also in other medias
like paper).
8. Agency Manager
¨ Don’t let other market agents figure out Lynotech’s intentions to disintermediate the
display advertising market in order to avoid their pressures and countermeasures. He
suggests to keep a very low profile (zero promotion and communication to the market).
Refer to Lynotech’s solution as an audience analysis tool that helps premium publishers
gather users insights from their audiences to deliver better contents and new editorial
services.
¨ In order to impose to the market an advertising solution like the one proposed it’s
important to add as many premium publishers to the project as possible before it goes
live. It needs to become a standard as soon as possible and without advance in order to
protect publishers from any possible attacks from other agents involved.
9. National Media Group Corporative Director
¨ Publishers need a solution like the one proposed by Lynotech. Users knowledge will be critical for media
survival and publishers haven’t moved yet. There’s a market opportunity, but Lynotech has to move fast.
¨ Advertising market is depressed, so publishers are right now concerned about gaining audience and
influence, as these will be the drivers for revenues when the market grows and the economic crisis is
over. Lynotech should not only focus on advertising but also on helping publishers gain influence and
increase their audiences based on users insights: new services, better contents, etc.
¨ Proprietary data: every single user insights and data generated in premium publishers sites must be
owned by publishers. They must be the only ones to decide what to do with it, and Lynotech must offer
them different solutions for their different needs.
¨ It’s critical to be compliant with all European users privacy laws, or even more strict, as premium
publishers brand could be seriously damaged in case any privacy scandal takes place.
10. National Media Group Corporative Director
¨ Premium Publishers won’t buy developments, they’ll buy products, so its basic to go to the market with a
fully developed solution.
¨ Premium publishers may be willing to share data with other premium publishers as long as it drives
higher incomes for them, but it’s not fundamental in this point. That should be phase three, or four of
Lynotech’s road map.
¨ Lynotech’s proposal has a significant impact on media group’s workflows. It has editorial and
commercial implications that will force to change working methods in areas of the organization and
persons with aversion to change. In order to address this issue we need a very high commitment from
our customers.
¨ It would be very helpful to count with some of the Spanish traditional editorial shareholders as
Lynotech’s investors.
11. Local Newspaper Advertising Sales Manager
¨ Newspapers don’t have digital advertising products suitable for local advertisers.
¨ In their traditional paper business model, local advertisers represent the biggest part of their incomes
(even after the crisis), but nearly have no presence in their digital advertising because they cant offer
them access to specific audiences.
¨ They still sell digital advertising the same way than offline advertising, basically spaces, because they
can't do anything else. Therefore they agreed that Lynotech’s proposal would allow them to start selling
local digital advertising, recovering a great potential market, and stop managing spaces and start
managing audiences.
¨ In his own words, "I would buy this service tomorrow if it was possible". Data ownership was essential for
him, but also the commercial scorecard possibilities. He also pointed out that he would be very
interested in some type of exclusivity agreement for his territory, in order to surpass his competitors in
this new local digital market.
12. Amazon Data Warehouse Manager
¨ Lynotech’s value proposition makes sense not only for premium publishers, but it’s also a need for other
online players with digital advertising
¨ Lynotech should start with simple techniques and tools that can deliver great results in minimum time
(minimum viable product).
¨ There will always be time to develop a more complex solution, but it’s basic to reduce time to market.
¨ Try to use open source as much as possible.
¨ Semantic techniques are complex to develop, so we should consider it later on.
13. Lessons Learnt from the Interviews
¨ 1) Premium Publishers have the need of solution to their problems with Lynotech’s approach.
¨ 2) The market has already expelled a similar solution because they we’re born weak. We need
strong customers that can impose their standards to the market.
¨ 3) Keep a very low profile until the system is completely functional. Talk publicly about it as a
“content enhancer” for Publishers.
¨ 4) Try to add as many Premium Publishers you can in each market before going live.
¨ 5) Don’t focus only in using user’s knowledge to increase advertising sales. For Premium
Publishers gaining audience is at least as important as increasing revenues.
¨ 6) There will be some forces inside Premium Publishers opposing to Lynotech’s solution because
of the implications of the proposal and their aversion to change the way they work.
¨ 7) Publishers are interested in some sort of exclusivity period by territory.
14. Value Proposition Modifications
¨ According to the lessons learnt during the validation process with customers, and although it
was part of our value proposition, we’ve decided to give equal importance to helping Premium
Publishers increase and engage their audiences in order to help them deliver higher value
advertising products.
15. Strategy Modifications
¨ According to the lessons learnt during the validation process with customers, we’ve decided to
keep the lowest profile as possible in order to not alert other agents in the online display
advertising market.
¨ We’ve also decided to talk publicly about it as a “content enhancer” for publishers, keeping out of
the conversion our advertising intentions.
¨ We will approach traditional Premium Publishers shareholders for the first financing round due
to their market knowledge and their ability to act as really smart money in this market.
¨ We are considering guaranteeing an exclusivity period for our initial customers in their market
territories.
16. Conclusions
¨ The market opportunity exists, but we have to move fast. We have time, but we need to hurry up.
¨ We will pursue Lynotech’s value proposition for the OEP, and hopefully for the real market.
¨ We need to keep a low profile strategy to avoid other agent’s countermeasures.
¨ In early stages:
¤ our solution will be primary focused in tools integration instead of development in order to reduce
costs and time to market (minimum viable product).
¤ we will focus on helping publishers know and understand their users to increase their audience
rather than in advertising sales.
