Welcome to Mobile First — This is a weekly podcast that digs into the mobile strategy, user insights, and technology driving the latest in business innovation.
This podcast is brought to you by Emerge Interactive
I’m your host, Jordan Bryant.
Every week, I talk with today’s biggest thought leaders leveraging mobile.
We’ll gain insights from their experience to help your organization truly become Mobile First.
Our guest for this episode is Nick Shah, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer at Ampush. Prior to Ampush, Nick worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in New York and Mumbai advising a range of deals, from IPOs to mergers, in the media and telecom industries. Nick graduated from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School with a dual concentration in Finance and Operations, and Information Management. Nick can be found playing basketball, participating in dance-offs, fearing bicycles, loving all things India, cheering for the Detroit Pistons, and always being positive. He was born and raised outside of Detroit, Michigan.
Here are the highlights of our conversation with our Guest:
- Getting to know Nick professionally and personally from his rich childhood, his interest in basketball, being a rebel, to becoming an eventual entrepreneur.
- Nick shares details of his story on what led him to deviate from the family’s expectation of him becoming a doctor and how he pursued business and finance with his co-founders.
- How being friends with his Ampush co-founders since high school helped in his success and why he feels that building long-standing relationships is an essential facet in your journey as an entrepreneur.
- What prompted his transition from finance to advertising and how it was like for them quitting their jobs during the recession and building their company during challenging times. Nick also shares obstacles and lessons gained along the way including analysis paralysis and underestimating the work it took to put things into place; and the wins they have celebrated which caused them to pivot.
- An introduction to their company, Ampush, their objectives and what their teams do. He also talks about how they worked with the Dollar Shave Club and their initial hesitations in taking them on as a customer. - Nick shared strategies they have employed specifically for the Dollar Shave Club which helped them grow and achieve a 6-7 figure/month spend, including starting with insights gained that the bottom-line issue was customer service innovation and planning awareness campaigns from there.
- Learning the things that Ampush had done for the Dollar Shave Club through Facebook advertising which allowed them to reach their targeted demographics and most importantly, to convert them.
- What Nick thinks of the current situation of mobile advertising, the opportunities he sees in the current trends and how he foresees the industry will evolve into.
- Nick shares his opinion on what he thinks will happen if Facebook fails to acquire other social networks to reach the younger demographic and the potential risks the company may face.