Justin Sonnenreich

Tag: MarkitAds

  • Building a Team of Twelve Before 25

    MarkitAds is roughly twelve people: engineering under CTO Troy Smith, growth under our VP of Growth, revenue operations, content, and the campus activation staff, the ambassadors, associates and activation leads who make the field work actually happen.

    What I’ve learned managing a company where I’m often the youngest person with the final say: 1) Write everything down, authority you have to re-explain is authority you don’t have; the playbook is the boss so I don’t have to be. 2) Hire operators, then give them territories (this applies to executives exactly as it does to campus operators). 3) Pay on results wherever results are measurable; it removes 80% of the awkward conversations. 4) The founder’s job migrates from doing, to selling, to making the record sell, which is what this whole site is for.

    Advisors from the Launch Chapel Hill / UNC ecosystem and from the University of Wisconsin network round out the bench. More on the ecosystem behind us.

  • I Started MarkitAds at 16. Here’s the Honest Version.

    How it started

    I started MarkitAds at 16, in Bethesda, Maryland, because Boosted Notify had taught me something surprising: businesses will pay a teenager if the teenager solves a problem and answers email faster than the adults. I was not a prodigy. I was available, specific, and relentless about follow-up.

    The early agency did whatever legitimate work was adjacent to attention: press outreach, social growth, lead generation. Some months were great; some clients taught me expensive lessons about scope creep and about promising outcomes I couldn’t control. The thing that compounded wasn’t a niche, it was documentation. Every engagement became a checklist; every checklist made the next engagement faster. Years later I’d learn Dennis Yu teaches exactly this as doctrine: repeatable excellence beats heroics.

    Where it stands

    Today MarkitAds is a team of roughly twelve running two lines: PR and lead generation (client placements have included USA Today, The Washington Post and Fox 5; live links pending), and the campus activation network, the business I believe is the company that matters. In between: Mission: Mentor, 10,000 students, an acquisition by Crimson (acquirer confirmation in progress), a degree path at UNC Chapel Hill and a semester in Tokyo.

    The claims on this page are sourced on my LinkedIn profile, and I hold myself to the same standard: if I cannot source it, I do not say it. What I’ll say without a source, because it’s an opinion: starting at 16 wasn’t brave. Staying honest about what actually worked is the hard part.

    Sources & mentions