His influencer marketplace hit $150M in revenue—& just exited for $500M. It all started with a party at Coachella. | Piotr Tomasik, Co-Founder of Influential

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Piotr met his co-founders at a party in Coachella. He built them an app for influencers to post online. That simple idea evolved into one of the world's first influencer marketplaces.
While so many other tried and failed, Piotr and his team targeted marketing agencies with big budgets. They grew to $150M in revenue over a 10 year period. This summer, they were acquired by Publicis Groupe for $500M.
This is the story of how it all started, where the idea came from and how partnering with IBM of all companies drastically changed Influential's trajectory. Piotr also goes through in depth what it feels like to actually sell your company, and to go from living like a salaried employee to having tens of millions of dollars.
Why you should listen:

• Why the right go-to-market channel is the difference between failure and a $500M exit.
• How to shift from a manual process to a tech-enabled marketplace
• How to know which partnerships are key— and which are totally useless.
• What it feels like to go from a regular person to having $10s of millions in the bank.

Keywords

Influencer marketing, startup journey, product-market fit, technology, partnerships, exit strategy, ad agencies, growth strategies, entrepreneurship, venture capital
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:27) The Start of Influential
(00:11:49) Raising the Seed Round
(00:14:41) How to leverage a partnership with a large incumbent
(00:21:26) Series A and Superbowl Campaign
(00:30:02) Winning because of go-to-market
(00:35:43) The Acquisition
(00:38:56) One Piece of Advice
Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Chapter

1. His influencer marketplace hit $150M in revenue—& just exited for $500M. It all started with a party at Coachella. | Piotr Tomasik, Co-Founder of Influential (00:00:00)

2. The Start of Influential (00:01:27)

3. Raising the Seed Round (00:11:49)

4. How to leverage a partnership with a large incumbent (00:14:41)

5. Series A and Superbowl Campaign (00:21:26)

6. Winning because of go-to-market (00:30:02)

7. The Acquisition (00:35:43)

8. One Piece of Advice (00:38:56)