廣告科技公司Celtra向移動廣告借東風

To fully grasp the prescience of Mihael Mikek, a co-founder of Celtra, the advertising technology company, requires an exercise of mental time travel.

要完全理解廣告科技公司Celtra聯合創始人米哈爾•米凱克(Mihael Mikek)的先見之明，就得先來場思想上的時光穿越。

Return, for a moment, to 2005. The iPhone is still two years away and most of us are talking on BlackBerrys or flimsy flip phones. The biggest money to be made in mobile is in the sale of ringtones and screen wallpaper.

讓我們暫且回到2005年。當時iPhone還有兩年才上市，我們大多數人用黑莓(BlackBerry)或者輕薄的翻蓋手機打電話。移動業務中最賺錢的是銷售手機鈴聲和壁紙。（上圖爲Celtra聯合創始人米哈爾•米凱克和馬婭•德羅克）

But Mr Mikek, then a first-year MBA student atBabson’s OLin Graduate School of Business, sees an industry with enormous potential. Although it would be a few years before he and his co-founders — his wife, Maja Drolec, also a Babson MBA and the company’s chief financial officer, and Matevz Klanjsek, Celtra’s chief product officer — begin to focus on ways to make mobile advertisements more effective, they all saw the budding power of mobile.

但當時還是巴布森學院奧林商學院(Babson Olin Graduate School of Business)一年級MBA學員的米凱克，看到了一個潛力巨大的行業。儘管他和其他合夥創始人在幾年後才致力於提高移動廣告的有效性，但他們全都看到了移動業務嶄露頭角的力量。米凱克的合夥創始人包括他的妻子馬婭•德羅克(Maja Drolec)，她同樣是巴布森的MBA學員，現在擔任Celtra首席財務官；以及公司首席產品官馬特茲•克蘭烈塞克(Matevz Klanjsek)。

“We were looking for ideas and we all believed mobile was interesting,” says Mr Mikek. “But to catch a wave like this — to catch an industry that has disrupted so many things — that was big.”

米凱克表示：“當時我們正在尋找創業點子，我們全都相信移動業務很有吸引力。但要抓住這樣的浪潮，抓住一個顛覆如此多事物的行業，並不是一件容易的事情。”

Founded in 2006, Celtra’s software AdCreator — now in its fourth iteration — helps businesses create rich media ads that use animation, audio, video or other interactive elements, optimised for different devices and formats. Using data, other signals and triggers such as a mobile user’s location, Celtra’s platform also ensures marketers deliver relevant ads to their intended audience.

Celtra創建於2006年，它開發的軟件AdCreator（現在已是第四版）使用動畫、音頻和視頻或者其他互動方式，幫助企業製作豐富多彩的媒體廣告，並針對各種設備和格式進行優化。利用數據、信號、以及移動用戶位置等其他觸發信息，Celtra的平臺還能確保營銷人員向目標受衆發送相關廣告。

Ad tech is a booming industry. According to eMarketer, the internet market research group, the global mobile advertising market is projected to surpass $100bn in 2016, of which mobile will account for more than 50 per cent. Celtra has a tiny but growing sliver of that market. This year the company, which is based in Boston, will serve more than 50bn ads and earn a projected revenue of $37m, nearly double what it earned in 2014.

廣告技術是一個蓬勃發展的行業。互聯網市場研究集團eMarketer表示，預計2016年全球移動廣告市場規模將超過1000億美元，其中移動業務的比例將超過50%。Celtra在該市場只佔非常小的份額，但規模卻在不斷增長。今年這家總部位於波士頓的公司將會爲逾500億美元的廣告提供服務，預計實現3700萬美元收入，幾乎是2014年收入的兩倍。

The rise of programmatic advertising, which uses automated computer systems and sophisticated algorithms to deliver ads across the internet, is another boon to Celtra.

程序化廣告的興起對Celtra來說是另一個福音。程序化廣告是指使用自動計算系統和複雜算法在互聯網上投放廣告。

In some ways, the three founders make for an unlikely team. Mr Klanjsek studied architecture and design and previously worked in advertising. “I never had a desire to be an entrepreneur,” he says plainly. “I just wanted to do advertising.”

從某些方面來說，這3位創始人不太可能組成一支團隊。克蘭烈塞克學的是建築和設計專業，早先從事廣告設計工作。他坦率地說：“我從未想過當一名企業家。我只想做廣告。”

Ms Drolec also admits to being a reluctant entrepreneur and still talks enthusiastically about one day pursuing a career in social work. She also had reservations about starting a company with her husband. “To be frank, I didn’t think that us working together would be [for] the best,” she says.

德羅克也坦承不想創業，仍然充滿熱情地說起總有一天會投身社會工作。她對與丈夫一起開公司也持保留態度。她說道：“坦率地說，我不認爲我們合作將會得到最好結果。”

However, Mr Mikek, the unabashed visionary of the group, insists: “We complement each other. Maya was always really good with numbers, Matevz wanted to change advertising for the better and I wanted to build a big business. When you put those things together, it becomes pretty powerful.”

然而，作爲團隊中毫無疑問的遠見者，米凱克堅稱：“我們彼此互補。馬婭一向精於數字，馬特茲希望把廣告變得更好，而我想創辦一家大企業。當你把這些事情綜合起來的時候，它就變得非常強大。”

The founders all grew up in Slovenia and came of age when the country gained independence. “After [that] the world started to open up a little bit more,” says Mr Mikek. “Many people in our generation started to go out and study abroad.”

幾位創始人從小在斯洛文尼亞長大，在該國贏得獨立之際成年。米凱克說：“那之後世界開始開放了一點點。我們這一代人有許多開始走出去，並去海外留學。”

Mr Mikek was the first to enrol at US-based Babson, where he won a place in the school’s signature class — the Entrepreneurship Intensity Track — a specialised elective for those who plan to launch a venture shortly after they graduate. His class project was a mobile payments company, which Bill Bygrave, professor emeritus at Babson, admits he was dubious about. “It wasn’t obvious to me that there was a great market for it. But along came the smartphone and that changed the world,” he says.

米凱克是首批進入美國巴布森學院學習的學生，並贏得了進入該校“特色班”——“創業強度追蹤項目”(Entrepreneurship Intensity Track)——的一個名額，這是爲那些計劃在畢業後不久就創業的學員準備的專業選修班。他的班級項目是一個移動支付公司，巴布森學院榮譽教授比爾•貝格雷夫(Bill Bygrave)承認，他曾對此感到懷疑。他說：“我看不清這是否是一個大市場。但後來出現了智能手機，改變了世界。”

After they graduated, Mr Mikek and Ms Drolec toyed with a range of mobile-related business ideas. They later met Mr Klanjsek on a trip to London and began to hatch the company that would eventually become Celtra.

米凱克和德羅克在畢業後嘗試過一系列移動業務的點子。他們後來在去倫敦的旅途中遇到了克蘭烈塞克，並開始籌辦後來的Celtra。

Their initial idea was to create a web-based marketing platform for entertainment clients, mainly Hollywood studios, to publicise their films via social channels. “Quite honestly, we knew nothing,” recalls Mr Klanjsek. “In the early stage we had the freedom to explore. It was tough but it was magical in a way.”

他們最初的想法是，爲娛樂業客戶（主要是好萊塢電影公司）創建一個基於網絡的市場營銷平臺，通過社交渠道宣傳他們的影片。克蘭烈塞克回憶道：“說實在的，當時我們什麼也不知道。一開始我們隨便摸索。這很艱難，但在某種程度上來說也很神奇。”

Having raised a modest round of seed money from their families, Ms Drolec and Mr Mikek worked from their flat in Cambridge and Mr Klanjsek worked from his in London and later San Francisco. They also commissioned a small group of developers in Slovenia to write code and hustled for every scrap of business. “We probably did 15 campaigns but we pitched hundreds,” says Mr Mikek. “We went to literally every company in Hollywood.”

在從家裏籌得一小筆種子資金之後，米凱克和德羅克在劍橋的公寓、克蘭烈塞克在倫敦（後來在舊金山）的公寓開始了工作。他們還委託斯洛文尼亞的一個小開發團隊寫代碼，並努力爭取每一筆業務。米凱克表示：“我們大概做了15筆生意，但我們向數百家公司推銷了自己。我們真的去了好萊塢的每一家公司。”

Eventually big name studios, including 20th Century Fox, New Line Cinema, and Warner Bros, signed on to use Celtra’s service for movie release campaigns such asSex and the City and What Happens in Vegas.

最終，包括20世紀福克斯電影公司(20th century Fox)、新線電影公司(New Line Cinema)以及華納兄弟(Warner Bros)在內的大型電影公司，在《慾望都市》(Sex and the City)和《情迷拉斯維加斯》(What Happens in Vegas)等電影的發行活動中籤約使用Celtra的服務。

In 2009, RSG Capital, a Slovenia-based venture capital fund, invested $1.2m in Celtra. Two years later, as Celtra expanded its client roster to include other companies such as Viacom, Pandora, and Shazam, it raised $5m from GrandBanks Capital and Fairhaven Capital, both Boston-based VC firms.

2009年，總部位於斯洛維尼亞的風投基金RSG Capital向Celtra投資了120萬美元。兩年後，隨着Celtra將其客戶名單擴大至維亞康姆(Viacom)、潘多拉(Pandora)和音樂雷達(Shazam)等其他公司， 它從GrandBanks Capital和Fairhaven Capital這兩家波士頓風投公司那裏籌集了500萬美元。

It was “really tough to get the first believers”, says Ms Drolec, but their Babson roots helped pave the way for investment. “Business school gives you a passport to US business,” she says. “We’re immigrants, so venture capitalists and institutional investors can’t just call up three of their friends to check on us. [Babson] gave them a reference point. It made us legit.”

德羅克表示，“說服最初這批人真的非常難”，但他們的巴布森學院出身爲獲得投資鋪平了道路。她說：“商學院爲你進入美國商界提供了敲門磚。我們是移民，因此風險資本家和機構投資者不能只是叫上幾個朋友來調查我們。（巴布森學院）給了他們一個參考標準。它讓我們變得有資格。”

The investment meant the business became much more real. “Everything needed to be done by the book: we needed structure and employment contracts,” says Ms Drolec, who found the financial skills she learnt at Babson useful. “Up until three years ago, I put together our consolidated financials. I needed to understand every line.”

獲得投資意味着公司更加接近現實。德羅克表示：“所有事情都得照章辦事：我們需要架構和僱傭合同。”德羅克發現在巴布森學到的財務技能非常有用。“直至3年前我才完成了我們的合併會計報表。我需要理解每一行的意思”。

In 2013, Celtra received another $4m in venture funding led by SoftBank Capital, and today Celtra has 140 employees and more than 400 clients.

2013年，Celtra收到了軟銀資本(SoftBank Capital)領投的400萬美元風投資金，現在Celtra有140名員工，以及逾400個客戶。

For now, the company is focused on “maximising shareholder value” and “constantly delivering” on its plans, says Mr Mikek.

米凱克表示，就目前而言，Celtra致力於“股東價值最大化”和“不斷實現”計劃。