Andrew Paulson - How Soup Is Cooked
By his own definition, Andrew Paulson, the president of “Supe,” was an “unemployed entrepreneur” when the famous financier Alexander Mamut introduced himself to him at the restaurant “Living Room”. “He said he was interested in the Internet,” says Paulson in an interview with SmartMoney . “I replied that I was also interested.” Thus, among the 25 media magnates invited to the party, the story of "Soup" began - a company that recently knows Cyrillic LiveJournal, causing a lot of the most diverse buzzes.
We decided to work quickly - the partners had several meetings to discuss the business strategy and concrete proposals on the case. Paulson, acting in tandem generator of ideas, noted the important condition of their cooperation with Mamut: “Before we shook hands, I needed his consent that if after six months of moving in our chosen direction, everything changes by 180 degrees , we will continue to move in a new direction. ” That is, partners are set up creatively and are ready to experiment with newly formed and acquired structures.
In “Soup”, Mamut and Paulson hold a controlling stake, distributing 10% of shares among top managers. According to Paulson, by the end of this year, the cost of the company will be 10 times the amount invested in it, which will be $ 5 million by the end of December. At the same time, the license for Cyrillic LiveJournal has cost a “small” part of the investment. The bulk of investments are made in the purchase of companies, tangible assets and operating activities.
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In this case, Paulson argues that Mamut does not limit costs. “Naturally, every opportunity needs to be properly studied and presented,” he explains, adding that decisions about the takeover of companies are not made out of price priority — more importantly, Paulson, the managerial ability to manage the purchased assets. According to him, the task of “Supa” is to diversify the portfolio of Internet projects - “but not in the way the direct investment fund would do, but in the way the operating company, Prof-Media, for example, would collect the portfolio.”
As Habrahabr has already reported, it is rumored that Soup is negotiating to acquire the advertising agency Victory SA , which specializes in developing creative solutions and selling advertising opportunities on the Web. This agency also mentions SmartMoney, stating that Paulson is determined to buy an advertising agency with a ready-made team so as not to form a sales department from scratch. “Good advertising sellers are less common than chicken’s teeth,” Paulson put it poetically and explained that “Soup” wants to quickly monetize traffic, so you cannot start from scratch.
So far, in the announced assets of Supa, in addition to the rights to Cyrillic LiveJournal, there are Russian service LJ Plus and the site Championat.ru. In the future, the team plans to create a portal through which users can get into any community close to their interests - be it in LiveJournal, on Championat.ru, LiveInternet.ru or Diary.ru. “To create a single sign-on, you can buy other blog services or communities,” the source transmits the simple thought of Paulson.
Directly the portal "Soup" will be engaged after March 2007, as he finishes his purchases. From all the "buildings" by the end of next year, Paulson plans to raise $ 15 million in revenue. LiveJournal is currently working on debugging the collection of statistics that is needed to form an accurate picture of attendance. The latter, in turn, is necessary for a clear idea of the relative attractiveness of specific sites. “We’ll know for sure that here a magazine called drugoi is being read by X people,” says Anton Nosik, head of the blog’s service at Supa. - This is X visitors, Y pages for Z time. We will be able to make up the price of this area and invite the user drugoi to buy back from him this area on which we will advertise. ”
At the same time, the main income, according to the plan of the “Soup” management, will bring pages of interests, to which visitors, as a particularly high-quality audience, will show advertisements of strong brands at a price of $ 50 per 1000 impressions. This is very expensive by the standards of the modern Runet, but, according to Paulson’s thought, selling advertising to 100% of the target audience at such a price is quite acceptable.
We decided to work quickly - the partners had several meetings to discuss the business strategy and concrete proposals on the case. Paulson, acting in tandem generator of ideas, noted the important condition of their cooperation with Mamut: “Before we shook hands, I needed his consent that if after six months of moving in our chosen direction, everything changes by 180 degrees , we will continue to move in a new direction. ” That is, partners are set up creatively and are ready to experiment with newly formed and acquired structures.
In “Soup”, Mamut and Paulson hold a controlling stake, distributing 10% of shares among top managers. According to Paulson, by the end of this year, the cost of the company will be 10 times the amount invested in it, which will be $ 5 million by the end of December. At the same time, the license for Cyrillic LiveJournal has cost a “small” part of the investment. The bulk of investments are made in the purchase of companies, tangible assets and operating activities.
')
In this case, Paulson argues that Mamut does not limit costs. “Naturally, every opportunity needs to be properly studied and presented,” he explains, adding that decisions about the takeover of companies are not made out of price priority — more importantly, Paulson, the managerial ability to manage the purchased assets. According to him, the task of “Supa” is to diversify the portfolio of Internet projects - “but not in the way the direct investment fund would do, but in the way the operating company, Prof-Media, for example, would collect the portfolio.”
As Habrahabr has already reported, it is rumored that Soup is negotiating to acquire the advertising agency Victory SA , which specializes in developing creative solutions and selling advertising opportunities on the Web. This agency also mentions SmartMoney, stating that Paulson is determined to buy an advertising agency with a ready-made team so as not to form a sales department from scratch. “Good advertising sellers are less common than chicken’s teeth,” Paulson put it poetically and explained that “Soup” wants to quickly monetize traffic, so you cannot start from scratch.
So far, in the announced assets of Supa, in addition to the rights to Cyrillic LiveJournal, there are Russian service LJ Plus and the site Championat.ru. In the future, the team plans to create a portal through which users can get into any community close to their interests - be it in LiveJournal, on Championat.ru, LiveInternet.ru or Diary.ru. “To create a single sign-on, you can buy other blog services or communities,” the source transmits the simple thought of Paulson.
Directly the portal "Soup" will be engaged after March 2007, as he finishes his purchases. From all the "buildings" by the end of next year, Paulson plans to raise $ 15 million in revenue. LiveJournal is currently working on debugging the collection of statistics that is needed to form an accurate picture of attendance. The latter, in turn, is necessary for a clear idea of the relative attractiveness of specific sites. “We’ll know for sure that here a magazine called drugoi is being read by X people,” says Anton Nosik, head of the blog’s service at Supa. - This is X visitors, Y pages for Z time. We will be able to make up the price of this area and invite the user drugoi to buy back from him this area on which we will advertise. ”
At the same time, the main income, according to the plan of the “Soup” management, will bring pages of interests, to which visitors, as a particularly high-quality audience, will show advertisements of strong brands at a price of $ 50 per 1000 impressions. This is very expensive by the standards of the modern Runet, but, according to Paulson’s thought, selling advertising to 100% of the target audience at such a price is quite acceptable.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4774/
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